R E S O L U T I O N
Save Our Sandhills
No Hydraulic
Fracturing In North Carolina
WHEREAS, hydraulic fracturing, known as “fracking”, is a
method of extracting natural gas from shale rock through the use of horizontal
drilling and the injection of a highly pressurized mixture of water, sand, and
chemicals to fracture the shale and release the gas; and
WHEREAS, data from Pennsylvania shows that between three and
five million gallons of water is required for each separate drilling effort,
which could pose a serious problem in Central North Carolina where extended
periods of drought have occurred in recent years and where water in some areas
is already in short supply; and
WHEREAS, data from Pennsylvania shows that each drilling pad
with its associated wastewater impoundment, buildings, and new roads consumes
between five and eight acres of land, usually carved out of forests or
farmland, and which if clustered together in large enough numbers can change a
bucolic rural landscape into an industrial site, which in the long term will negatively
affect income from tourism, farming, and other businesses, and which will
eventually have a depressing effect on property values; and
WHEREAS, despite continual denials from the energy industry,
fracking has been shown to cause contamination of private wells, as was
evidenced by the settlement reached in Pennsylvania in 2010 between Cabot Oil
and Gas and 19 Dimock Township families whose wells became unusable due to
methane contamination after fracking was carried out in the area, and wherein
Cabot agreed to pay them $4.1 million in damages; and by the announcement by
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2011 that compounds associated with
fracking chemicals were found in the groundwater beneath Pavillion, Wyoming;
and by numerous other examples of higher than normal levels of methane in
private wells that have occurred in areas where fracking was carried out; and
WHEREAS, catastrophic accidents can occur with fracking
operations, an example being the explosion of a fracking well in Pennsylvania
in 2010 which spewed thousands of gallons of toxic water and chemicals over
fields and into a tributary of the Susquehanna River, this being only one of
several other major spills that had occurred in Pennsylvania in prior years;
and
WHEREAS, fracking operations have been shown to be the
source of air pollution, an example being the town of Dish, Texas where state
regulators found dangerous levels of cancer-causing benzene, which they
concluded had come from the 60 nearby fracking wells; and another being in
Wyoming where the ozone level in one area near fracking operations was found to
be higher than in Los Angeles; these findings being further supported by a
Cornell University study which found that over the lifetime of a fracking well,
3.6 percent to nearly 8 percent of the gas will escape into the air; and
WHEREAS, scientists have found a close correlation in time
and space between fracking operations and minor earthquakes, examples being in
Ohio, Oklahoma, and in Great Britain; and
WHEREAS, there is currently no satisfactory way, in North
Carolina or elsewhere, of disposing of leftover wastewater from a fracking
operation, known as “flowback” or “produced” water, which will be present in
large amounts despite efforts to recycle it, this water being highly toxic,
including with radioactive materials, there being no wastewater treatment plant
in the United States which is equipped to properly purify it, and the practice
of injecting it into deep aquifers on the assumption that they will never be
used for drinking water being patently unsatisfactory, and the practice that
has taken many Pennsylvania landowners by surprise of leaving it in lined
basins near the well site to be covered over and seeded in grass being
unsatisfactory for many reasons including the possibility that the liners will
eventually leak; and
WHEREAS, in the Triassic Basin area in North Carolina the
possibility of groundwater contamination may be greater than in other states’
shale formations because the groundwater aquifers and the gas-producing shale
layers are much closer together than in other gas-producing states, and the
depth to which freshwater extends is generally unknown to state regulators,
plus the fact that in North Carolina and elsewhere the migration of chemicals
can never be predicted with certainty because, as geologists point out,
existing faults, weaknesses, and fractures naturally found in the rock, as well
as locations of old drilled wells, are generally unknown; and
WHEREAS, a majority of the modest number of new jobs that
might be created by fracking operations will go to workers brought in from out
of state, and many of the new jobs will in any case be of a temporary nature,
and any new benefits to the local economy could easily be wiped away in the
future after the fracking operations have terminated and property values are
depressed because of the presence of abandoned well sites, an industrialized
landscape, and the possibility of contaminated groundwater;
NOW THEREFORE
BE IT RESOLVED that Save Our Sandhills in an electronic polling of its voting
members in May, 2012 has concluded that the risks of hydraulic fracturing far
outweigh the potential benefits, that it should not be allowed in North
Carolina, and that the wisest course of action by the North Carolina General
Assembly would be to enact legislation that would permanently ban hydraulic
fracturing and horizontal drilling in North Carolina to protect our citizens
from its risks and dangers.
SIGNED BY: Joseph
R. McDonald, President
May 16, 2012
CONTACT: Save Our
Sandhills at 910/315-1233 or 910/235-3862
