MEDIA ADVISORY FOR: Wednesday, May 2, 2012 CONTACT: Nick Sifuentes | 310-866-1692 | nick@berlinrosen.

com CONTACT: John Armstrong| 607-220-4632 | John@FrackAction.com

Activists to Present Governor Cuomo with Over 200,000 Petitions Calling for a Ban on Fracking
Petition Delivery Precedes Five Events Across New York
ALBANY, NY Members of New Yorkers Against Fracking will present Governor Andrew Cuomo at the State Capitol on Wednesday with over 200,000 petitions from New York constituents demanding the Governor ban the hazardous practice of hydrofracking. Representatives from consumer, environmental and community groups will be joined by State Senators, including State Sen. Tony Avella, as they urge the Governor to ban hydrofracking for its proven record of contaminating water supplies and the enormous threat it poses to the health and safety of New Yorks air, water, food, and communities. The delivery comes as over 100 New York towns and cities have banned fracking and also are calling for a statewide ban. The event at the State Capitol precedes a May 3rd Day of Action against Fracking with events in five regions calling on Governor Cuomo to ban fracking: Manhattan, Buffalo, Endicott, Stone Ridge and Long Island. WHAT: New Yorkers Against Fracking speak out and deliver over 200,000 fracking ban petitions to Governor Cuomo WHERE: New York State Capitol, Senate LCA Room, 3rd Floor WHEN: Wednesday, May 2, 2012 @ 12:30pm WHO: Grassroots advocacy groups and State Senators, including Senator Tony Avella; other speakers include Albany Common Council members Dominick Calsolaro and Leah Golby, Eric Weltman of Food & Water Watch and Karen Scharff of Citizen Action.

About New Yorkers Against Fracking New Yorkers Against Fracking, a new coalition of diverse organizations that support a fracking ban, are joining together to tell Governor Cuomo and our leaders in Albany to stand up for New Yorkers to keep our water and our state safe by banning hydrofracking. Founding members of New Yorkers Against Fracking include statewide and national organizations like Citizen Action of New York, New York State Breast Cancer Network, Food & Water Watch, Catskill Mountainkeeper, Frack Action, Water Defense, the Working Families Party joining with local grassroots anti-fracking groups and business in each part of the state such as Brewery Ommegang, Frack-Free Catskills and Fingerlakes Clean Waters Initiative and many more. The full list of over 50 organizations can be found at: http://www.nyagainstfracking.org/about. Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D., author, biologist, advocate and recent winner of the prestigious Heinz Award for her life's work, donated a significant portion of her award to help prevent fracking in New York providing the seed money for this effort. Diagnosed with cancer in her youth, Steingraber is a central voice in the fight against fracking and has devoted her career to understanding the ways in which chemical contaminants in air, water and food endanger human health. Sandra will serve as an honorary member of the New Yorkers Against Fracking advisory committee. Joining Sandra as honorary advisory committee members will be Niagara native, former Love Canal resident and founder of Center for Health, Environment and Justice Lois Gibbs and outspoken anti-fracking advocate, actor and upstate resident Mark Ruffalo, the co-founder of Water Defense. About Hydraulic Fracking: High volume hydraulic fracturing, combined with horizontal drilling, involves pumping millions of gallons of water, chemicals and sand underground to extract natural gas from shale bedrock. Multiple studies show how inherently dangerous it is. Most New Yorkers are wary of fracking. A recent Marist poll found a majority of New Yorkers oppose legalizing fracking due to its potential to contaminate New Yorks watersheds with carcinogens and other toxicants. With or without regulations in place, fracking is a menace to public health. It lays down blankets of smog, fills roadway with trucks hauling hazardous materials, sends sediment into streams, and generates immense quantities of radioactive, carcinogen-laced waste for which no fail-safe disposal options exist. Since fracking began in states outside of New York, there have been more than a thousand reports of water contamination. New studies link fracking-related activities to contaminated groundwater, air pollution, illness, death and reproductive problems in cows, horses and wildlife, and most recently human health problems. A recent study from the Colorado School of Public Health found that those living within a half-mile of a natural gas drilling site faced greater health risks than those who live farther away. New York has seen a surge of local fracking bans enacted across the state. Overall, 107 muncipalities have enacted bans or moratoria in New York State. Seventy-one municipalities are also considering or staging a ban or moratorium. In the past few weeks, Buffalo, the second largest city in New York, and Niagara Falls both passed resolutions calling for Governor Cuomo and the state legislature to pass a statewide ban on fracking.

###