10/17/11 Board of Commissioners meeting about fracking

[Bert Bowe]

10/17/11 Board of Commissioners meeting about fracking

I’m glad there has is so much discussion about fracking in North
Carolina and Chatham, because decisions legislators make in the near
future will have a huge impact on our water and air quality and
overall quality of life.

I agree with Heather Johnson that everyone should watch the 10/17/11
Board of Commissioners meeting and repeat her link again:
http://vimeo.com/channels/chathambocmeetings
However, please watch the entire recording, not just Jeffrey
Starkweather being frustrated and rude at the end. Focusing on
Starkweather is a red herring for Lewis Fromkin’s inaccurate,
misleading and condescending performance.

I fully expected to hear the industry’s pro-fracking information and
position – fair enough. What I did not expect is Fromkin slickly
answering a question with a question, evading an answer and moving to
a series of talking points, or simply not being honest and
forthcoming. A few examples:

- I asked, since he was so confident that fracking was environmentally
safe, if he would support the industry being covered under the federal
Clean Water, Clean Air and Safe Drinking Water Acts? He responded
that they already were (not true).
- When I asked about the FRAC Act before Congress now, which would
remove the fracking exemption from the Safe Water Drinking Act and
require companies to disclose the chemicals used (which of course
means that the industry is not now covered), he acted as though he
didn’t know anything about the legislation. This from a very smart,
knowledgeable person who has drilled thousands of gas wells.

- He asserted that they use just “a few” basically harmless chemicals
to just reduce friction and allow water to force through the earth
layers more easily. The actual number is more like 600 chemicals,
many of them toxic.

- There was no mention of horizontal fracking of over a mile
underground – translation, your neighbor’s gas lease could lead to
fracking under your land.

Gasland, a seven-award-winning documentary by filmmaker Josh Fox
(available on Netflix DVD and the mail Pittsboro library) is
excellent. It shows average folks like us – guinea pigs for our
benefit unfortunately - with real life disaster stories about unusable
well water, serious health issues, and air, land and noise pollution.
Another source of information is Clean Water for North Carolina or
www.cwfnc.org

Lastly, the link below is an interesting NY Times article about
mortgages and fracking. My take on it is: if someone with a mortgage
signed a gas drilling lease, or is thinking about signing a lease,
buying property under one, or getting a refinance/home equity loan,
they should carefully read all the fine print. Due to potential
property value depreciation associated with fracking, some banks may
consider such a lease a mortgage default or not issue a mortgage
without assurances no lease will be signed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/us/rush-to-drill-for-gas-creates-mortgage-conflicts.html?_r=1

In their study, I suggest the North Carolina Department of Environment
and Natural Resources ask any industry representative who states
fracking is environmentally safe if they therefore would be willing to
lobby for the process to be governed by the federal Clean Water, Clean
Air and Safe Drinking Water Acts?

Also, the EPA has started a major fracking study – why not wait for
its conclusions as well, so that any gas exploration is done
absolutely the right way in North Carolina?