NORWICH – Greene businessman Enzo Olivieri warns that a moratorium on natural gas drilling in New York would kill everyone’s hopes for new jobs, and the anti-drillers pushing for it will ultimately succeed because they have deeper pockets.

“That’s what it all boils down to. They, who for the most part come from downstate, have more money than we do up here, so they’re more powerful,” he said.

Olivieri’s exasperation was recently relayed in a phone call to The Evening Sun after the New York State Senate voted Aug. 3 to impose a nine-month moratorium on the controversial high water volume horizontal drilling technique, called hydraulic fracturing. The restaurant owner and real estate developer said he fears that the promise of economic recovery in the area and throughout upstate New York may now simply “wash downstate along with the region’s water.”

Referring to New York City-based protesters who want to ban drilling, he said, “They are the first to use our resources, our water and our crops, and not pay the adequate amount for it. Now they want to take our jobs away?”