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LETTER: Fracking study doesn’t support conclusion

Posted on March 22, 2012March 21, 2012 by Staff

There’s a significant disconnect between state officials who claim fracking can be conducted safely in North Carolina and the evidence, or lack thereof, contained in their own recently released 350-page study.

I have just read the “N.C. Oil and Gas Study” conducted by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Department of Commerce. Regarding their findings, I can only say, with apologies to Gertrude Stein, “There’s no there there.”

In fact, the page addressing the troubling question of how to protect the rights of rural landowners is blank.
What’s more, concerning environmental safety, the report shows that DENR, like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, does not have sufficient information at this stage about the use of this new technology to make any claims about its safety.

Yet, the report concludes: “DENR believes hydraulic fracturing can be done safely as long as the right protections are in place.”

The problem is, DENR did not provide the scientific evidence required to support this belief. As this report acknowledged, “[T]his analysis is constrained by the limited information available at this time.”

I thought DENR was a fact-based, not a “belief-based,” organization. EPA, with considerably more scientific resources at its disposal, will not even complete its study of just one issue regarding fracking – water quality – until 2014.

House Speaker Thom Tillis has stated he was open to hearing “the business case” for or against fracking. Yet, the Department of Commerce, in its section of the state report, was not able to make a case one way or the other.

The report’s economics review section reads: “This analysis is not intended to indicate a position by the North Carolina Department of Commerce (Commerce) for or against …”

Maybe I’m missing something, but I thought the whole point of promoting natural gas fracking was that it would be an economic boon for the state.

At best, Commerce projected that fracking might result in an additional 858 jobs statewide after six years. That’s not much of an economic benefit considering the likely economic costs. Unfortunately, while the study estimated financial benefits, it failed to put a dollar figure on a list of expected costs, including conflicts with competing industries (local farms, wineries, retirement communities, arts), impacts to local infrastructure (roads and housing) and services (law enforcement, emergency services, schools).

I appreciate the hard work DENR and Commerce employees put into this rushed and underfinanced study. But it’s an affront to all North Carolinians that the objective contents of the study were ignored or distorted to reach an unsupported conclusion.

Jeff Starkweather
Candidate for N.C. House District 54

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