I'd missed this letter from Marie McRae of Dryden about gas drilling and mortgages:
[Mortgage resale] standards now require a minimum 200-foot distance (setback) between your house/garage/barn/water well and any surface or subsurface development by a gas company. This includes a gas well pad, access road, holding pond, pipeline, storage area or any other collateral uses. If a buyer wants/needs Federal Housing Administration insurance for the mortgage, the necessary setback increases to 300 feet.
In New York, the state's proposed setbacks for legal gas drilling activity are only 100 to 150 feet.
The Town is gathering grants from community groups for programs and infrastructure through April 22nd.
There's also a piece on Tompkins County's continuing growth in a part of Upstate that's largely shrinking. It's good that there's growth, but I'd add a caution: 600 to 900 residents a year isn't exactly bursting out. The caution at the end of the article seems wise:
Posted by simon at April 5, 2011 7:21 AM in Ithaca Journal , demographics , energy"We're lucky so far," Hirschl said, but he said there are no guarantees for continued growth. "Just because we've been lucky so far doesn't mean we will continue to do well. We're talking about the past. I wouldn't necessarily project this out into future."