Local activist Noel van Swol dies in car crash

Above: Noel van Swol, in a screenshot from a 2011 YouTube video from Energy In Depth's Northeast Marcellus Initiative. In the video, van Swol cites the Anti-Rent Wars as a precedent for the pro-gas-drilling movement in upstate New York, and tells an interviewer, "We are not an economic colony of the Delaware River Basin Commission, New York City, Philadelphia or Trenton. We own this area. We have property rights."
Noel van Swol, a 70-year-old Long Eddy man who was well-known in the area for championing pro-drilling activism and other causes, died in a car accident Monday. The Times Herald-Record reports:
The Long Eddy resident was retuning from a pro-gas drilling rally in Albany when he apparently went into a diabetic coma while driving and went off the road and crashed not far from his home, said his mother Tuesday morning.
“He was a wonderful son,” said his mother who was too distraught to speak after answering the phone.








