Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Playing with the Tioga County numbers => check this out

According to John Campbell's blog,
Tioga County Landowners Group represents 135,000 acres and 200 families.

http://blogs.democratandchronicle.com/voteup/2012/03/28/tioga-county-fracking-deal-leaves-dec-with-choice/

Played with these numbers a bit:
  • Population Tioga County NY = 51,049

  • Total Land Area = 523 sq mi  => 334,720 acres

  • 135,000 acres under lease = 40% land area,

  • owned by 200 "families". HOWEVER, lots of land is owned by LLCs
    (corporations) and not a family.
    BUT, let's be generous and assume  that on average,
    each owner is 2 people who live in the count (likely a conservative guess)

    200 x 2 = 400 people => 0.7% of the total population. 

Did I hear anybody say "The 1%"?
.
This means that 400 people, 0.7% of the population
controls 40% of the land area.

So since the decision to frack this land by 0.7% of the population
certainly will alter the quality of life for the remaining 99.3%
in a negative way, and MAY actually cause many people
to get sick and die,

then it means the real question is:

Do we have a functioning Democracy?
Or do we have "Rule by the Landowners"?


BH



2 comments:

ChipTex said...

It reads as another media stunt by the lawyers

http://blog.shaleshockmedia.org/2012/03/24/tom-west-fracking-thespian/

ChipTex said...

My take on this weird fracking deal . . .

http://blog.shaleshockmedia.org/2012/03/28/more-fractured-fairy-tales-tioga-landowners-communist-gas-deal/