Over a thousand anti-fracking protesters—including singers Pete Seeger and Natalie Merchant, and ecologist and author Sandra Steingraber—lined Albany's Empire State Plaza concourse on Wednesday morning to tell Governor Andrew Cuomo to keep fracking out of New York.
Chanting "Ban Fracking Now!" and "We are unstoppable, the statewide ban is possible," the group rallied outside of Cuomo's annual State of the State Address.
“Fracking will jeopardize the health of millions of New Yorkers,” said Sandra Steingraber of Concerned Health Professionals of NY. “The Cuomo administration’s refusal to conduct a comprehensive health impact assessment is unacceptable. The secretive health review it instead decided upon is also unacceptable. And non-disclosure agreements for those paid with taxpayer money to review DEC’s work? That’s just shameful. The health of New Yorkers is far too important to be decided by a secret review of a secret review.”
“New Yorkers simply want Governor Cuomo to listen to the people he represents and would be most impacted by fracking, not the gas industry,” said Natalie Merchant of New Yorkers Against Fracking. “We love our state and don’t want to see it permanently damaged by fracking just so the gas companies can make profits and leave us with the economic, health and environmental costs of their mess.”
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In this video uploaded by wmhttv, Pete Singer leads "This Land Is Your Land" at Wednesday's fracking protest:
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Natalie Merchant and Pete Seeger at the rally #NYSOS13 #NYSOS #BanFrackingNow twitter.com/NYAgainstFRACK…
— NYAF (@NYAgainstFRACK) January 9, 2013
SOS rally a huge success @nygovcuomo best part was sandra Steingraber reciting the pledge @dontfrackny @nyagainstfrack twitter.com/bettabroad/sta…
— Betta(@bettabroad) January 9, 2013
Sandra #Steingraber and Pete Seeger calling on @nygovcuomo to listen to the facts and the science. #banfracking @350 twitter.com/NYGreenUmbrell…
— NY Green Umbrella(@NYGreenUmbrella) January 9, 2013
This is the scene as its becoming more crowded in the concourse as residents demand a ban! #NYSOS13 #nysos #dontfrackny twitter.com/RitaAtFWW/stat…
— Rita Yelda (@RitaAtFWW) January 9, 2013