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Secession talk spurred by economic frustration

Matt Shortall - Staff Writer
Posted 3/3/15

SULLIVAN COUNTY — In the wake of Governor Andrew Cuomo's ban on hydraulic fracturing, 15 towns along New York's Southern Tier are researching the possibility of seceding from the state and joining …

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Secession talk spurred by economic frustration

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SULLIVAN COUNTY — In the wake of Governor Andrew Cuomo's ban on hydraulic fracturing, 15 towns along New York's Southern Tier are researching the possibility of seceding from the state and joining Pennsylvania.

Fremont and Delaware in Sullivan County belong to the Upstate New York Towns Association. Other towns are located in Broome, Delaware and Tioga Counties.

“It's not going to happen,” bluntly said Delaware Supervisor and businessman Ed Sykes, noting the formidable legal and political obstacles to secession. “But it does point out that the state is over-taxed and over-regulated and it's costly to do business here.”

The motivations, according to Town of Fremont Supervisor George Conklin, are purely economic ones. These depressed communities are seeing high property taxes, low sales tax revenues and want to cash in on fracking.

“The state has made a law based on opinion, not scientific fact,” said Conklin of the fracking decision.

The state's Department of Environmental Conservation ruled to ban fracking in December. Energy companies have been using the extraction method in Pennsylvania since 2009. Southern Tier border towns find themselves sitting on top of gas reserves in the Marcellus Shale that, by law, they can't touch.

Meanwhile, a few miles south, Pennsylvania residents receive royalties from the gas companies in exchange for leasing rights.

Exactly how these towns would navigate the legal labyrinth of leaving one state and joining another is unknown. The last time any entity successfully seceded from New York was Vermont in 1777. Any modern day precedent for such action doesn't exist.

At the very least, secession would have to be approved by both state legislatures, as well as the federal government.

Though it's unlikely that the towns will secede from New York, both Sykes and Conklin hope the publicity will convince the state to pay more attention to the region's economic needs.

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