Park Foundation funds anti-fracking groups

The decades-old, Ithaca-based philanthropic foundation has quickly become one of the natural-gas industry’s top targets.

Since 2009, the Park Foundation has spread around more than $3 million to dozens of advocacy groups and other institutions that oppose hydrofracking or to those that have produced research on the technique, according to a Gannett Albany bureau review of tax filings and information on the non-profit’s website.
The foundation appears to be the most prominent financial backer of the anti-hydrofracking movement in New York. And while it doesn’t actively promote its involvement in the anti-fracking effort, it doesn’t hide from it either.
“In our work to oppose fracking, the Park Foundation has simply helped to fuel an army of courageous individuals and (non-governmental organizations),” Adelaide Park Gomer, president of the foundation’s board of trustees, said in accepting an award last year from Common Cause/NY, a good-government group.
Nationwide, the foundation’s spending on the hydrofracking issue has paled in comparison to that of the gas industry, which spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually on lobbying and advertising campaigns.
In New York, industry and business groups that lobbied against a bill to enact a firm, short-term hydrofracking moratorium spent $2.9 million in 2010 alone, according to a Park-funded Common Cause report.

Park Foundation grants

Here’s a sample of some of the groups that have received hydrofracking-related grants from the Park Foundation from 2009 through 2011.
• Food & Water Watch; $300,000; national water campaign.
• Environmental Advocates of NY; $295,000; various campaigns.
• Earthworks; $215,000; work with communities in Marcellus region.
• Sustainable Markets Foundation; $212,000; funding for Frack Action, other Marcellus campaigns.
• Cornell University; $208,229; studies on economics, emissions of hydrofracking.
• Common Cause; $175,000; research on gas industry lobbying.
• International WOW Company; $175,000; campaign for Gasland, other productions.
• As You Sow; $125,000; shareholder action on fracking dangers.
• Community Environmental Defense Council; $117,750; municipality, landowner rights efforts.
• Natural Resources Defense Council; $100,000; for efforts to stop hydrofracking in N.Y.
SOURCE: Park Foundation tax filings, website

Findings

• The Park Foundation of Ithaca has been a major funder of anti-hydrofracking forces, supplying more than $3 million in grants since 2009.
• The foundation sent a total of $175,000 in 2010 and 2011 to the production company behind Gasland, an Oscar-nominated documentary on the negative effects of hydrofracking.
• Industry and business groups spent $2.9 million in 2010 to lobby against a New York state bill that would have enacted a firm, short-term hydrofracking moratorium.