East Pond , at Gateway National Refuge Area . Photo good manners of NPS .
U.S. athletes triumphed during the recent Olympiad — jazz watching it ! I wish I could say the same about our triumphant leadership in other W. C. Fields , especially when it come to breaking away from dependence on fossil fuel . Where I live , this issue has learn unexampled importunity — New Yorkhovers on the threshold of leave shale flatulence drillingin division of the state . ( A refresher — shale accelerator boring / hydrofracking is the high - force per unit area injectant of water , sand , and chemical in club to educe born gas from underground shale formations . )
As in neighboring Pennsylvania , the fracking fields will mainly be in the rural countryside ; so far , it looks like an area in cardinal NY ( Broome , Chemung , Chenango , Steuben and Tioga counties ) will host the first permitted wells . The issues are many , and include potential watershed contaminant , the trouble of wastewater and its discourse , radically increase route use , and how the practice will vary the look of the rural countryside . A recent letter to theBuffalo Newsfrom a former resident of a “ fracking ” area of PA described themise en sceneof fracking this way :
Fracking well are not small ; they are Brobdingnagian and can take up an Akka or more ( take care up “ Fracking Hollenbeck Gas Site ” on youtube).They are very loud , lit all night , reek and draw 24/7 . They are everywhere . The basis shake . Traffic has increase . piss transport truck are on the roads at all hours . Small - town county roads were n’t made for these constant heavy loads and have quick bust down , ensue in uninterrupted building and increased traffic problems .
Judging from the image of fracking fields I ’ve seen , this description is not out of bound . severely to guess this being the scene in any part of the Finger Lakes I ’ve visited . And this is not even to discuss the deeper environmental impact .
Does any of this have to do with horticulture ? Sure . My gardening take position in a prominent context of the parks , reserves , and other natural areas that subsist in my area of the world . By creating a garden in my footling urban corner , I ’m basically trying to emulate , in some small way , the natural beauty I seek in such uncorrupted countryside that remains .
Although Western New York does not , as of yet , stand in much risk of being a shale gas root , we all potentially stand to be affected by some form of fuel development . Recently , I received an electronic mail from a residential area nurseryman in New York City who is fighting a raw gas line and attach to facility scheduledto be install under the Gateway National Recreation Areaand Jacob Riis Beach . It ’s not fracking but it is open up a national green to industrial usance . Like me , Karen Orlando — the gardener who , among many others , oppose this project — is an urbanite who hold dear such wild website that can exist in densely populated field . The precedent of allowing pipelines and industrial readiness in New York ’s Gateway open up the door to the same in a resort like Tifft Nature keep in Buffalo .
It ’s all connected . And as much as I wallow in our transcendence in water Marco Polo , I could wish that we show a alike determination to excel in finding energy alternatives . For the interest of gardens everywhere — in all the different forms a garden can take .
