N & O: After NY ban, NC should wait on fracking
December 20, 2014
How far off track North Carolina has gone toward risking health and environmental damage from fracking became clear by a coincidence last week. On the day that North Carolina’s Rules Review Commission approved the state’s fracking rules, the governor of New York announced that his state will ban the practice.
Fracking supporters attacked the decision as “political,” and it will help Gov. Andrew Cuomo shore up his support among liberals and environmentalists, but it was hardly a maneuver solely to get votes. It is an effort to protect the health of New Yorkers. North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory should be doing the same. Instead, he and the Republican-led General Assembly are doing all they can to get the fracking drills whirling into North Carolina’s soil and rock.
The New York ban came after a six-year moratorium on fracking, formally known as hydraulic fracturing. The process releases oil and natural gas by breaking subsurface rock formations through the high-pressure injection of chemically laced water. Fracking has been an energy boon, but it is a messy process that inevitably involves spills, gas leaks, heavy truck traffic, wastewater disposal problems, a big draw on freshwater resources and potential environmental and health consequences that scientists have not had enough time to fully identify and assess.
. . .
What finally persuaded Cuomo was an answer Zucker gave to his own question. He told the governor, “I asked myself, ‘Would I let my family live in a community with fracking?’ The answer is no.”
THE REST:
http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/12/20/4418978_after-ny-ban-nc-should-wait-on.html?rh=1
