By JOSHUA THOMAS

C-S-E Editor

CANAJOHARIE — Five-term Dutchess County Legislator Joel Tyner, campaigning for a United States Congress seat, made two appearances in western Montgomery County Tuesday, first meeting with a group of nine attendees in the Great Room of the Arkell Museum and Canajoharie Library, then moving on to the St. Johnsville Marina and Lombardo’s Pizza Plus for a “meet and eat”.

While Tyner, an activist of 20 years, briefly spoke about issues such as the protection of Medicare from cuts and Planned Parenthood, the main topic of conversation was hydro-fracking, the process by which chemical-infused liquids are pumped into marcelas shale, causing fracturing that releases natural gasses, which are then harvested.

Tyner, a Populist Progressive, is working toward having hydro-fracking criminalized in New York State. “I know it may possibly seem over the top to criminalize fracking, but many people in Ulster and Greene Counties are pushing for that,” he said.

He continued, “It’s sad, because a lot of people don’t know how bad the environment has been damaged by natural gas drilling already in New York State.” Tyner said that New York State Department of Environmental Conservation records detail 270 cases of fires, explosions, contaminated wells and ecological damage caused by hydro-fracking.

Tyner stated, “I’m not pushing for some sort of liberal, tropical, Shangri-La, never-never land of European socialism that has never existed in this country, and never might exist,” asserting that his push, in a country where “90 percent of energy comes from coal, oil, nuclear power and unnatural gas,” is to move towards the goal of “energy efficiency and conservation.”

“There’s other ways to deal with our energy problems than jeopardizing the water that we need to drink daily,” Tyner stated.

While most of those present at the Canajoharie meet and greet, including Canajoharie, St. Johnsville, Sharon Springs, and Rifkin, New York residents, along with former Clinton residents that Tyner said used to live two miles from his home, were against hydro-fracking, the event also attracted a vocal hydro-fracking advocate.