Levon, Arlo and local beer protest gas drilling

This week's Friday the 13th is going to be unlucky for gas companies if Brewery Ommegang has any say in the matter. The brewery, which announced last year that is opposed hydraulic fracturing development in New York, is throwing a "Concert to Fight Fracking" starring folk legends Levon Helm and Arlo Guthrie Friday night.

Ommegang's opposition to fracking is personal. In its January statement about gas drilling, it explained that hydraulic fracturing could ruin its beer and business:

The plans for drilling also pose a direct and material threat to the Ommegang Brewery. We draw water for our beer from
aquifers beneath our 140-acre farmstead located close to Cooperstown, NY, at the head of the Susquehanna
watershed. Contamination of our water supply would end our brewery business and even the threat of potential
contamination could be sufficient for the future of our company to be at risk.

For more info on Friday's concert, see our calendar listing and the Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce website.

Poster via Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce.