Actor Mark Ruffalo holds up a bottle of murky water which he said was taken from a well near gas drilling in Dimmick, PA

ALBANY – A coalition of environmental advocacy groups Tuesday called on the State Legislature to approve a bill in both houses that would suspend issuing new permits for hydrofracking to harvest natural gas for 11 months. That would provide the time to further study the process.

The group held a news conference in Albany headed by the group Frack Action and largely assembled by Ulster County Legislator Susan Zimet of New Paltz.

The message they all had was the same. State Assembly and Senate members must approve the 11 month delay in natural gas or oil in the Marcellus and Utica shale formations and if they don’t they will be voted out of office.

Actor and Sullivan County resident Mark Ruffalo gave an impassioned plea for the moratorium.

“Where did we get to a point when we are even considering, there’s even a debate not to wait and test and make sure that what we are doing is safe,” he said. “For crying out loud, have we lost our collective minds?” he asked to cheers.

Zimet said the snag in the issue among state lawmakers is that they are playing “election politics… elections 101.”

Wayne Bayer, an official of the PEF union that represents professional state employees, works for the DEC. He said the staff of that agency has shrunken in recent years and while he supports the moratorium, he isn’t sure there would be enough staff to monitor and inspect the process.

Other groups participating in the news conference were Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Sierra Club Atlantic chapter, and Natural Resources Defense Council.

Folk singer Pete Seeger, a resident of Beacon, took time away from his 69th wedding anniversary to travel to Albany and perform a new song he wrote about the environment.