Republican State Rep. Mitch Gillespie told the House Environment Committee today that he plans to introduce a bill that would open the door to fracking, also known as hydraulic fracturing, for natural gas in North Carolina—including the western part of the Triangle.
“It's my intention to move ahead,” Gillespie said in support of his proposed measure, “as long as [the method] is safe and sound.”
The claims that fracking is safe are disputable. Workers drill vertically and then horizontally through soil and rock, then inject water and other chemicals—which can contain the same as those in antifreeze as well as “biocides” to kill organisms—through the material. The force breaks up the rock so the natural gas can escape and then be recaptured.
The environmental ramifications of fracking have been demonstrated in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, where contaminated groundwater and drinking water in private wells have been attributed to fracking. Because of those serious environmental issues, neighboring New York has implemented a moratorium on fracking.
There are also issues with how to safely dispose of the water-chemical mixture and with air quality near the fracking operations; according to Clean Water for North Carolina, a nonprofit environmental group, high concentrations of chemical compounds—many of which are harmful to human health—have been detected near gas pumping stations in Texas.
Fracking has been eyed as the likely the culprit in causing earthquakes in Arkansas, although Ken Taylor, chief of the N.C. Geological Survey, told the environment committee that it would be unlikely such seismic activity would occur in North Carolina because the drilling wouldn't be as deep—3,000 feet versus 25,000 feet in Arkansas.