Yearnings to tap gas threaten to split a state in two
|WINDSOR, NEW YORK
“I HONESTLY thought it was a joke,” says Sandy Pinney. She means the threat that Windsor, her hometown, along with 14 other towns along New York’s border with Pennsylvania, may secede and join Pennsylvania. But it is deadly serious.
The towns are in New York’s Southern Tier. They sit on top of the Marcellus Shale, which is full of natural gas. New Yorkers, unlike their Pennsylvanian neighbours, are not allowed to tap the gas because of a state ban on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) announced by Andrew Cuomo, the governor, on December 17th.
Hours later on the same day, a state panel rejected a bid to build a casino in the Southern Tier. That was the last straw. A state lawmaker sent a survey to constituents asking about secession, and the idea began to take hold.
The Southern Tier used to be called the “Valley of Opportunity”, with companies like IBM employing thousands. But the area’s big employers left or downsized long ago. The economy is stagnant, with houses for sale everywhere. Windsor cannot afford a police department. Even its funeral homes are long gone. Meanwhile, just yards away in Pennsylvania, Great Bend is thriving. The neighbours have new cars, freshly painted houses and jobs, and all from shale. Penn State’s Centre for Economic and Community Development found that taxable income increased by 25% between 2007 and 2011 in Bradford County, where most of the Marcellus fracking takes place. Envious, frustrated Windsor wants to be in the same boat.
Secession is unlikely. It would need approval from the New York and Pennsylvania legislatures, as well as Congress. It might be easier if, as some suggest, New York state were just split into two autonomous regions. New York City, Long Island and Westchester would be one region and everything else would become “New Amsterdam”, a nod to New York’s original Dutch name. That would stop the downstaters calling all the shots.
Calls to divide New York are not new. In 1969 the writer Norman Mailer ran for mayor of New York City on a pledge to make it the 51st state. The only effort that succeeded was in 1777, when a chunk of upstate New York became Vermont.
This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline "A frack too far"
