
{"id":24548,"date":"2012-03-22T10:05:58","date_gmt":"2012-03-22T14:05:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=24548"},"modified":"2012-03-21T16:13:15","modified_gmt":"2012-03-21T20:13:15","slug":"letter-fracking-study-doesnt-support-conclusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2012\/03\/22\/letter-fracking-study-doesnt-support-conclusion\/","title":{"rendered":"LETTER: Fracking study doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t support conclusion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n<p>I have just read the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153N.C. Oil and Gas Study\u00e2\u20ac\u009d 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, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no there there.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>In fact, the page addressing the troubling question of how to protect the rights of rural landowners is blank.<br \/>\nWhat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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. <\/p>\n<p>Yet, the report concludes: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153DENR believes hydraulic fracturing can be done safely as long as the right protections are in place.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>The problem is, DENR did not provide the scientific evidence required to support this belief. As this report acknowledged, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153[T]his analysis is constrained by the limited information available at this time.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>I thought DENR was a fact-based, not a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153belief-based,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d organization. EPA, with considerably more scientific resources at its disposal, will not even complete its study of just one issue regarding fracking \u00e2\u20ac\u201c water quality \u00e2\u20ac\u201c until 2014. <\/p>\n<p>House Speaker Thom Tillis has stated he was open to hearing \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the business case\u00e2\u20ac\u009d 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.<\/p>\n<p>The report\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s economics review section reads: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This analysis is not intended to indicate a position by the North Carolina Department of Commerce (Commerce) for or against \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Maybe I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m missing something, but I thought the whole point of promoting natural gas fracking was that it would be an economic boon for the state. <\/p>\n<p>At best, Commerce projected that fracking might result in an additional 858 jobs statewide after six years. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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).<\/p>\n<p>I appreciate the hard work DENR and Commerce employees put into this rushed and underfinanced study. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an affront to all North Carolinians that the objective contents of the study were ignored or distorted to reach an unsupported conclusion.<\/p>\n<p>Jeff Starkweather<br \/>\n<em>Candidate for N.C. House District 54<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24548"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24552,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24548\/revisions\/24552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}