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FRACKING DYSTER

Quick, who led the 2003 charge to spin the city's water department off into a separate entity?

If you guessed Paul Dyster, then a city councilman, you would be correct.

And who, along with former state representative Francine Del Monte and former state senator Antoine Thompson appointed a majority of those currently serving on the city's Water Board?

If you answered Mayor Paul Dyster, you're right again.

Now here's a tough one. Who, along with Del Monte and Thompson, engineered the hiring of former North Tonawanda water department head Paul Drof as superintendent of the city's water and wastewater treatment plants?

Clever you. Yes, once again it was Paul Dyster.

There is only one question left. Who is ultimately responsible for the Water Board's widely reported plan to process millions of gallons of radioactive and carcinogenic wastewater used by gas-well drillers in the hydrofracturing process and dump it into the Niagara River, which is also the source of drinking water for the poor, dumb taxpayers of Niagara Falls?

You win again.

According to a number of articles published in the Niagara Gazette over the years, Dyster has taken a hands-on approach to the Water Board and its activities. Shortly before Drof was named as superintendent, Dyster went on the record.

"The choice of an individual to serve as executive director is a critical choice," Dyster told Gazette reporter Mark Scheer in 2009.

And when Dyster replaced longtime board member George Morreale with a yes-man named Dave McNally in 2010, he said it was to ensure that his office was being fully informed about the Water Board's plans.

"I was concerned to have someone who would be certain that the mayor was kept in the loop," Dyster told Scheer.

The Water Board has been paying a public relations firm, E3 Communications of Buffalo and Albany, $4,000 a month to develop a campaign to persuade us to open wide for the frackwater waste. E3 Communications is an outfit run by a man named Earl Wells, who has also done considerable work for Dyster and his administration.

How convenient!

According to the Niagara Falls Reporter's environmental columnist, James Hufnagel, our municipal treatment facilities are woefully ill-equipped to filter out the chemicals and radioactivity contained in the discharge.

Hufnagel says that Dyster's man Drof traveled to Albany in July to finalize plans for the importation of millions of gallons of toxic frackwater into the city of Niagara Falls for treatment and discharge into the Niagara River.

Frack you, Paul Dyster.
Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com Aug. 16, 2011