Sign This Letter Urging Governor Cuomo And The NY DEC Not To Open NY To Fracking.

How’s your tap water?

If you live anywhere in New York State, chances are, it’s pretty good. Crisp, refreshing. And not poisoned.

“Not poisoned” shouldn’t be a particularly high bar for tap water to meet. But it might not be a given soon if giant oil companies get their way. Oil and gas barons want to start “fracking” in New York — shooting mysterious chemicals into the ground at high pressure to break up rock and let natural gas escape.

Just last week the EPA finally admitted what everyone suspected: sometimes, those mysterious chemicals can leak into underground drinking water.

Fracking is not safe, might never be safe, and is not a long-term energy solution.

Join Working Families and sign their letter urging Governor Cuomo and the New York Department of Environmental Conservation not to open the state to fracking.

Over 10,000 people have signed already. Can you help us hit 20,000?

The EPA’s admission that fracking can cause dangerous pollution to drinking water is big step. The federal government has been unable to regulate fracking since 2005, when Vice President Dick Cheney pushed for a loophole — called the “Haliburton exemption” — to the Energy Policy Act. The loophole stated that fracking could not be regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act. No matter the science.

Luckily, it didn’t stop EPA from doing research, and the results are scary. In a test well near a fracking site in Wyoming, scientists found benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes, gasoline organics, and other harmful chemicals.

Here in New York, however, the Department of Environmental Conservation’s Environmental Impact analysis says that since there haven’t been any “documented incidents of groundwater contamination” in New York, we don’t need to be worried.

New Yorkers don’t want to drink benzene, toluene or any “-ene.” New York should continue to be a fracking-free zone.

The letter calls on the Governor and the DEC not to let the fracking of New York begin – and instead do a real analysis of the environmental and health impact on our communities.

Join Working Families and sign the letter here.