(AP):  A new rule set for approval by the North Carolina Mining and Energy Commission requiring some disclosure of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing has been withdrawn at the request of industry giant Halliburton.

The News & Observer of Raleigh reported Thursday that the state commission had been set to vote on the new rule Friday. The standard spells out which chemicals operators must publicly disclose when drilling natural gas wells.

But commissioners were surprised to learn the rule was pulled from their agenda at the last minute so that it could be reworked by staff at the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources. The commission already had approved the standard in committee. Read more here! 

On March 19, over 120 concerned citizens, activists, and local elected officials came together to call on our legislators to take action and vote “No” on Senate Bill 76! One of the speakers, Cecilia Jimenez of Workers for Clean Water, delivered a powerful message in Spanish, urging us all to get involved in the movement against fracking. Below is her statement. For more information about Workers for Clean Water visit their Facebook community page.

“Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk and allowing me inform my community. Workers for Clean Water, from Sanford, NC, came to be from the need to inform our community about hydraulic fracturing.

This is not easy work. This is not something we can describe in a nutshell. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, destroys states, towns, communities, families, ecosystems. Simply put, hydraulic fracturing is a mortal threat. This is because hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, uses millions of gallons of water to extract gas at the cost of polluting our rivers, lakes, and streams – everything that surrounds us. Nothing is free from the consequences of hydraulic fracturing.

The following is for all who think that hydraulic fracturing cannot affect them. Hydraulic fracturing is happening right now in more than 32 states here in the US. In Mexico, drilling has  began in Coahiola, Veracruz, and in other parts of the country. In South America, Argentina is one of the worst impacted countries. I do not mean to frighten us but I just want us to be aware that hydraulic fracturing is a huge threat and is no friend to us. Gas companies are propagandizing and filling our children’s minds with lies on Sesame Street. They are taking advantage of gender stereotypes and telling women that this industry will bring them wealth and that they will be treated like queens.

Thanks. Sanford says NO to fracking!”

February 28, 2013

Groups Across NC Decry Senate Bill 76 as a Deepening Betrayal of Communities, Water, Air and Land

SB 76 Would “Pre-approve” Fracking Rules, Allow Waste Injection into Groundwater, Make Mining and Energy Commission Bias More Extreme

Groups from northwestern NC to the southern piedmont today condemned the passage of NC Senate Bill 76, the “Domestic Energy Jobs Act” as a measure designed to ensure that NC will grant permits for horizontal drilling and fracturing for gas and oil from shale formations, without the resources or protective rules in place to even reduce the impacts of fracking operations, much less prevent them.

“With early 2015 as a definite date for frack permitting to be allowed, with NO further legislative vote after regulations are drafted, our communities will be left in the path of an oncoming train with no brakes,” said Denise Lee of Pee Dee Water, Air, Land and Lives, based in Anson, Richmond and Montgomery Counties.  ”The public is increasingly waking up to the extreme bias of the Mining and Energy Commission toward protecting industry’s interests rather than people’s health, water or air. This bill would strip the Commission of important, informed and conscientious members, worsening the anti-regulatory twist to all of the Commission’s actions. Senate Bill 76 is a rush to make frack permitting a ‘done deal’ before the public rage and fracking awareness have fully ripened.”

Mary Kerley knows what the heavy truck traffic and massive water withdrawals would mean in her rural, mountainous Stokes County community. “The drilling, pipelines and trucking could wreck our tourism based economy, threaten drinking water wells for the vast majority of our county’s residents, and cause deep rifts between neighbors with different views or fights over leasing contracts. We want no part of it, and our County Commissioners agreed in 2012, asking the state legislature not to allow fracking. We know that Chairman Womack of the Commission is doing all he can to reduce the rights of local communities to protect themselves, and to cement in place the ‘right to frack’ at all costs to the public.”

In a state with no regulations for water withdrawals, and no ability to control the timing, volume or location for sucking up millions of gallons of water for each gas well fracked, streams and rivers could lose enough volume to endanger aquatic life and downstream users. Elaine Chiosso, the Haw RiverKeeper, points out that the Upper Cape Fear River Basin includes the areas of Chatham, Lee and Moore County which have gotten the most attention for potential fracking operations for gas. “What will be the impact on water users in the Cape Fear Basin, including Jordan Lake, and downstream in the cities of Fayetteville and Wilmington? We know that most of the Commission responsible for regulations has NO experience in water or waste management, and Chairman Womack has already said he’s focused on developing infrastructure specifically to provide water for fracking operations. This is the astonishing climate in which regulations are being developed, regulations which the Senate has now said it will ‘pre-approve’ as ready to go! We are outraged by this flaunting of responsibility by both the Commission and the legislature, and are even more determined that gas development will not be allowed to destroy or deplete NC’s waters.”

“Allowing injection of hydraulic fracking fluids in last year’s Senate Bill 820 in a state where more than 50% of our residents depend on private or public wells for their drinking water was irresponsible,” says Grant Mincy of Clean Water for NC, “but Senate Bill 76 would expand that to allow injection of all oil and gas wastes, and that is extremely dangerous.” An environmental geologist working on energy issues with the statewide group, Mincy points out that it’s not only our state’s shallow, fractured shales that make fracking even more of a threat to drinking water here. “Reports from state geologists have told us that the kind of formations we used to think could contain deeply injected toxic wastes are quite rare in North Carolina. There is now growing evidence that contaminants are leaking out deep formations in other states, as well as causing earthquakes. Half the North Carolina population should be rising up in outrage at how fast this bill is moving, and the willingness of Senate leadership to deliberately allow pollution of our groundwater.”

A statement from Workers for Clean Water, based in Lee County,  says,  ”The rush to frack is not about jobs or economic development. We know that the best paying and safest jobs will go to out of state workers, and that only a few hundred, mostly temporary jobs will go to residents here. It’s really about economic development for legislators’ campaign chests, big contractors, and big landowners, not the people who really need the jobs in Lee or other counties threatened by fracking. Now that the US Geologic Survey tells us that we only have a tiny gas supply here, saying that the rush to frack is about jobs is even more cynical and opportunistic.”

“The Unelected Government known as the Oil and Gas Industry, has been invited in under the guise of economic development,  to further influence our elected representatives at the expense of the health of North Carolina’s communities,” commented Therese Vick of Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, on learning of today’s vote. Groups across the state are working to counter a rush to frack that is driven by politicians’ thirst for political donations from the oil and gas industry, which promotes anti-regulatory and anti-public interest legislation.