NORWICH – A petition containing more than 3,000 signatures and asking for a moratorium on natural gas drilling in the Afton, Coventry and Bainbridge areas was delivered to the Chenango County Board of Supervisors this month.

County resident Kim Michels circulated the petition and presented it to Clerk of the Board RC Woodford, who entered the document as a matter of public record.

According to Woodford, the individuals who signed hail primarily from the Southern Tier, but also come from as far away as New Jersey, Pulaski and Roscoe.

The petition asked signers to agree that gas drilling should be prohibited primarily due to “the great harm it would cause to our environment, our health and our property,” and to protest gas leases that were allegedly obtained “by the gas companies’ dishonesty, either by telling lies, lies by omission, deceit and/or coercion to get people to sign contracts.”

“We hope that our government will do the right thing and protect our land and us and not succumb to greed at our expense,” the petition reads.

The document is the latest in a long string of visits and letters to the county’s board (and letters to The Evening Sun editor) over the past few months from citizens opposed to hydraulic fracturing. The horizontal drilling technique is used to extract natural gas from the Marcellus and other shale formations found within the Appalachian River Basin states of Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York.