Syracuse (WSYR) - Actor Alec Baldwin was in Syracuse on Saturday night to help in the fight against hydrofracking in New York State. He teamed up with filmmaker Josh Fox to bring the anti-hydrofracking documentary "Gasland" to the Landmark Theatre.
"In New York right now, the governor and legislature are talking jobs, jobs, jobs and they are going to come here and decimate this area and a lot of the money is going to leave this area," said Baldwin.
Baldwin and Fox hoped to give Central New Yorkers a closer look at the negative impact that hydrofracking has had elsewhere.
"Everything about the character of New York State says we've got 100 years of sustainable development in the state. This would smash that history. We're not talking about one well, we're talking about 50,000 to 100,000 wells and it's a very bad deal," said Fox, director of "Gasland."
A Syracuse-area ecologist joined Baldwin and Fox, and said she fears hydrofracking could poison our water supply.
"Are we going to kill more people by fracking than we employee? That's a question the governor needs to answer before we roll this out," said ecologist Sandra Steingraber of Ithaca College.
Proponents of hydrofracking say it will bring an economic boost to the area, but Baldwin believes it will do more harm than good for generations to come.
"Their going to raise the price of gas through their market manipulation and then they are going to start selling this stuff overseas, this is not going to lower the cost of energy in the long term," said Baldwin.
Hydrofracking into the Marcellus Shale is currently on hold in New York State until new regulations are approved.
