By Tom Bennett
Special to Hiwassee River Watershed Coalition
Murphy, N.C., Dec. 5, 2013 — YouTube’s “The Fracking Song: My Water’s On Fire Tonight,” heard around this oft-drilled world, has had 376,889 hits at this writing.
The rap song produced by ProPublica.org and New York University Journalism Institute, and sharply critical of hydraulic fracking, begins:
“Fracking is a form of natural gas drilling,
an alternative to oil because the oil kept spilling,
bringing jobs to small towns so everybody’s willing,
people turn on the lights and the drillers make a killing…”
It’s been a rocky debut for Gov. Pat McCrory’s drive to — let’s face it — turn the state Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) on its head and through it, start fracking in the Tarheel state.
The deciding vote for it was cast in July 2012 by an opponent in error.
N.C. Rep. Becky Carney, a Democrat representing Charlotte, said she voted mistakenly to override then Gov. Bev Perdue’s veto of a bill authorizing fracking, according to Associated Press.
Carney pushed the green button at her desk late at night instead of the red “no” button. Her “yes” vote made the tally 72-47, just above the 60 percent majority required for the override. The chamber’s operating rules prevent members from changing a vote if it affects the result, AP wrote.
John E. Skvarla is Gov. McCrory’s appointee as secretary of N.C. DENR. He is former chief executive officer of Raleigh’s Restoration Systems LLC. Its web site states it’s an environmental restoration and mitigation banking firm.
“Many say the number one impediment to business growth in N.C. is environmental regulations,” Skvarla wrote in a letter to the editor of the News and Observer. “We will review rules through lens of scientific data and regulatory experience… without sacrificing the environment.”
Mitch Gillespie owns a small business in Marion and was in his eighth term in the N.C. House when named Skvarla’s assistant director of DENR. “We will focus on the issue of induced hydraulic fracking,” Gillespie told the Hickory Record.
He caused a stir here in western North Carolina last month on the Carolina Public Press web site.
“Gillespie presented a provisional list of fracking-feasibility studies that DENR plans to conduct,” Jon Elliston wrote. “The list includes a rare mention of a site identified only as a precambrian rift basin in western N.C. The location was not specified… DENR plans to spend $11,275 to examine the site.”
A day later, a DENR spokesman denied there’s money this fiscal year to study fracking feasibility in western North Carolina. And if you ask me, it’s going to take a good deal more than $11,275 to focus the lens of scientific data upon a Precambrian rift basin out here in the Blue Ridge.
THE LATEST JOLT FROM RALEIGH is the Mining and Energy Commission’s recommendation last month that the legislature enforce a 1945 state law providing for compulsory or forced pooling.
“Landowners who don’t want to lease their mineral rights to an energy company can be forced to do so if enough of their neighbors sign leases,” wrote Will Doran in the Sanford Herald.
Tom Bennett of the Martins Creek community near Murphy, N.C., was a retired newsman, Hiwassee River Watershed Coalition member/volunteer/donor and recipient of the 2015 Holman Water Quality Stewardship Award. Tom died on December 28, 2020.