Finger Lakes Region Gas Lease Mapping Report

The Citizens Campaign for the Environment published a report in July 2011 titled, Finger Lakes Region Gas Lease Mapping Report.

Including extensive maps, the first page of the introductory paragraph of the report includes:

The Finger Lakes Region Gas Lease Mapping Report is a snapshot in time of potential industrial gas drilling development.

The intent of the [report] is to present the potential concentration of industrial gas drilling upon the picturesque rural, and agricultural landscape of the eight Finger Lakes counties: Cayuga, Chemung, Cortland, Livingston, Ontario, Seneca, Schuyler and Steuben.

Gas lease reviewers were dispatched to county seats to search public files for gas leases and memoranda of leases filed at the county clerk’s office between 2005-2010.

The report presents the summary of data collected and entered into a central database, then mapped using a Geographic Information System (GIS).

While gas leases do not specify the target formation for extraction, the gas resources in [the Finger Lakes] region include the Marcellus and Utica shale.

The industry extracts gas from shale using high-volume hydraulic fracturing (hydro-fracking).

Shale gas extraction is a resource intensive industrial process that significantly impacts the environment, public infrastructure, community character and local economy.

To learn more, download the report and area maps by clicking here.

Thanks to Citizens Campaign for the Environment and its contributors for sharing this important research.