Off Shore Drilling Hearing Monday ~~~ | Eastern North Carolina Now

    At the behest of Representative Walter Jones, there is hearing THIS MONDAY at Manteo over the proposed Offshore Drilling studies between the Outer Banks and the pristine Gulf Stream.

    I am coordinating a car pool to leave the SECU parking lot promptly at NOON to be at the meeting in Manteo by 3:00-7:00. The location in Manteo is Ramada Inn, Hags Head Oceanfront / 1701 S. Virginia Dare Trail / Kill Devil Hill.

    We meet starting at 11:30. We will go to Williamston, intersect NC 64 through Plymouth, and on to Manteo. I have been part of the Title XX hearings long ago in SC to decide how a 5-county area called "Santee-Wateree" would fund projects from what was called LBJ War on Poverty legislation. We made decisions on short notice to us citizens of Lee County, SC. It is critical that reasonable input be given to any Federal Program in a democratic society.

    Here is what I will express to the Federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM):

     •  Fracking in NC got passed by our Legislature with minimum public input. The next week our Legislature made it a Felony to disclose the chemicals to be used.

     •  If it were so "great" for NC to put chemicals in the ground / bring methane gas and sand tar to the surface / let the Oil Industry profit mostly from such a procedure, why is it so important to do such in the shadows of Raleigh's Capitol Hill?

     •  We have had issues with pollution coming down the Tar River to the Pamlico Sound

     •  Rocky Mount, for just one city dumping sewage into the Tar River, got by for some 20 years past the deadline to properly treat the mess they dumped along with the Rocky Mount Mills---all UNTREATED.

     •  The Chesapeake Bay is so polluted that Pamlico Sound oysters and crabs are used in places to the north of that waterway with all its cities dumping into the rivers.

     •  Who, in their right mind would dare put oil rigs between the Outer Banks and Gulf Stream---it is not called The Graveyard of the Atlantic for no reason of storms and hurricanes?

     •  Did we not learn any lessons from the disaster of BP drilling in the Gulf of Mexico?

     •  This entire deal with NC oil is being sold to us as a "source of state funds and jobs." REALLY?

    I called my good friend and fellow Life Underwriter in Nash County who is now their Senator. I asked him how they came to put in the Fracking Bill and Felony of Disclosure Law. He told me they heard from oil industry experts who assured them the Fracking procedure was so deep as to not pollute aquifers. All any of them had to do was Google "Fracking" to find that other states doing it HAVE polluted their aquifers and Methane gas is one of the biggest carbon pollutants of the atmosphere. Every extraction well burns a giant torch above it and what is going into the atmosphere from that burning?

    If the Koch Brothers are putting mega-bucks into NC politics at every level, why would I be surprised at their naïve approach to Fracking? The seismic activity threatening Yellowstone's volcanic sights has a factor of Fracking next to it! Other states in the Midwest where the procedure it being done ALL have issues. Some towns and citizens have made formal protests to stop the activity---and succeeded. Most interesting is that billionaires from oil get an exemption next door to their property!

    Foresight always beats hindsight, once goo is seeping into water and bubbling to the surface. It is "too late baby" once a match lit beside your faucet pouring water lights off to a torch inside your kitchen!

    One example of unexpected ground water pollution: The big dump site on Duke Road in Nash County---where I lived before moving to Beaufort County. We had a deep well of 240' with good water void of iron and sulfur. They tested wells near the landfill and discovered pollutants in them. They had to put in a County water system to provide people with safe water. The cost was significant.

    HERE WAS THE PROBLEM: That landfill was before the requirement of a liner under it. It was closed over---with big gas vents all over it for the methane gas it created in the decomposition cycle. Kids were destroying the grass by sneaking in the fence and riding their 4-wheelers for a thrill. They could care less that gullies would erode on that giant thrill hill. If one of those innocent thrill-seekers were smoking a cigarette as he passed the vent pipe ---guess who would get blown up!

    Landfills have been used for about 50 years in city and county areas to clean up the dumping down any dirt road and in the woods. Those counties were proud to have a "Trash Mountain" as they do near Chesapeake. It has been turned into a nice park. However, I bet there is no liner under it either. The seepage ends up in the Chesapeake Bay near Chesapeake, VA. All ground water beneath an unlined Trash Dump gets the same results as Nash County---and such water goes eventually into the Tar River in Nash County! That river becomes the Pamlico as it passes beside Washington under Highway 17.

    We are the ultimate recipients of crud and pollution from inland Fracking in NC. IF our greed for oil consumes NC inland and offshore, we pay a price in health and future clean water HERE!

    We could become a crud sandwich with the oozing oil as the mustard around our source of seafood and fish! My grandchildren (and we) enjoy splashing in the Pamlico River. We now have jelly fish coming upstream if rain is low and the flushing to the Sound is minimized. Already, my grands have been stung enough to carefully look in the water before swimming. They are afraid of the stings and miss the great adventure enjoyed by my wife and her cousins who came to Bayview from the early 50's.

    "The LOVE of money is the root of all evil," Jesus said. This makes me oppose oil greed.