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"Thank you for your good works, and for your April resolution to the state legislature <br /> asking them to keep the ban on fracking. <br /> I support the County's Environment Commission recommendation to you about the <br /> need for protective local action, as the state legislature rushes toward embracing oil and gas <br /> exploration. <br /> Many people in numerous citizen groups share your concern about fracking. At this <br /> point their focus is on aiding a huge grassroots effort to convince our governor to veto the <br /> fracking bill (Senate Bill 820). Not only is this bill an open invitation to oil and gas drilling, the <br /> legislation creates a commission which allows that industry to dominate the crafting of <br /> protective regulations. <br /> Though fracking may never occur in our County's borders, we are close neighbors with <br /> counties whose citizens are already selling their mineral rights. <br /> Good neighbors should not add to the water or air pollution of adjacent citizens or <br /> reduce their quality of life. <br /> Within Senate Bill 820, after the House amendments, is language promising property <br /> owners that if their well is polluted by fracking operations within 5,000 feet, they can seek <br /> reimbursement. But a well or a water supply can be polluted beyond this one mile limit. <br /> The millions of gallons needed for each fracking drilling operation must come from local <br /> water sources —those sources supply more than one community. The heavy truck traffic <br /> delivering water and removing waste will affect more than one place. Disposal of toxic <br /> wastewater will concern more than one area. The fracking industry releases toxins into the air <br /> that travel far beyond the borders of one county. <br /> Within and despite limitations by law— preemption — please encourage creative <br /> thinking from your staff and citizenry on ways to control future effects of fracking and other <br /> polluting industry in Orange County. <br /> I've attached with these comments a source to access town and county responses to <br /> fracking nationwide, and an excerpt from one, the Pittsburg, Pennsylvania city code, which <br /> states that citizens have an inalienable right to self governance and protection of their natural <br /> resources." <br /> Renee Price, Chair of the Commission for the Environment, presented a resolution to <br /> the Board of County Commissioners and she read it. <br /> WHEREAS, the Orange County Board of Commissioners passed a resolution on April <br /> 17, 2012 relating to "Shale Gas Development in North Carolina" that urged the North Carolina <br /> General Assembly to maintain existing laws and regulations that prevent the use of horizontal <br /> drilling and hydraulic fracturing in the state and to take no action that would weaken these laws <br /> and regulations before it is fully demonstrated that North Carolina public health, waters, land, <br /> air, economy, and quality of life can be protected from impacts that may occur by allowing the <br /> development of shale gas resources in the state; and <br /> WHEREAS, the Orange County Board of Commissioners further resolved that, should <br /> the State authorize the hydraulic fracturing, local governments should retain some regulatory <br /> authority regarding proposed drilling-related activities as they affect water resources and <br /> previously identified significant natural areas through land-use and other established <br /> regulation; and <br /> WHEREAS, the North Carolina Senate and the House of Representatives passed SB <br /> 820 ("Clean Energy and Economic Security Act"), which proposes critical changes to North <br /> Carolina's energy policy so as to allow exploration for natural gas through horizontal drilling <br /> and hydraulic fracturing; and <br />