Chatham Board of Commissioners meeting about fracking on Oct. 17

Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2011 12:20:34 -0400
From: Bert Bowe
Subject: Re: 10/17/11 Board of Commissioners meeting about fracking

*_Re: 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/
<http://chathamchatlist.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=305aea8554c20ab1053525294&id=76c4dbe82f&e=4940393e2d>chathambocmeetings

However, /please watch the entire recording/, not just Jeffrey Starkweather being frustrated and rude at the end.Focusing politically 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 main 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 <http://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?/**//*