Nearly 250 landowners in the Southern Tier are suing to stop a large gas company from indefinitely extending leases that landowners want to end.
While no Central New York landowners are involved in the suits, hundreds of local people received the same lease-extension notices from Chesapeake as those being challenged in the Southern Tier suits.
About 40 local residents plan to board a bus early this morning to attend a large rally in Albany to stop the controversial drilling technique known as fracking. The rally comes just two weeks after a hydrofracking well blew out in Bradford, Pa., sending thousands of gallons of tainted water into a nearby creek. A spokesman for the Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York said drilling companies work hard to prevent accidents, but that some are inevitable.