Good thing they're kicking the state geologist off that fracking commission: 

Forty years ago, when North Carolina banned using deep wells to permanently dump industrial waste, some thought the issue had been decided for good. Now state lawmakers who want to turn North Carolina into the nation’s next fracking hotspot are reopening the case for injecting brines and toxins deep underground.

This time, the proposal is shifting the fracking debate from the center of the state, where the energy exploration and economic benefits would occur, to tourism-dependent coastal communities where the disposal wells would have to be drilled.

Comments

[Lex]

What could possibly go wrong?

[polifrog]

Would that "industrial waste" be the fracking fluid that that governor drank?

[Account Deleted]

The last half of that article is critically important. The wells they would like to use have already been injected once and led to aquifer contamination and ... wait for it ... the ban on injection that they now want to overturn.

[justcorbly]

I propose injecting the stuff in the back yards of state legislators. They shouldn't mind.

Notice how the pro-frackers talk about "water", not "brines and toxins".

Comes to think of it, if fracking is so harmless, how come we gotta bury this "water" down deep someplace, instead of watering golf courses with it?

[polifrog]

Notice how anti-frackers talk about "industrial waste" water that is cleaner and less deadly than the water in a public swimming pool.

Comes to think of it, if fracking is so harmless, how come we gotta bury this "water" down deep someplace, instead of watering golf courses with it?

Obviously fracking fluid becomes polluted during its trip underground and the safest place for those pollutants is the place from where they originated ... underground.

[formerly gt]

fwiw, Obama's DOE appointee, Ernest Moniz, loves him some natural gas and fracking.

interesting.

[Bill Yaner]

"“As crude a weapon as the cave man's club, the chemical barrage has been hurled against the fabric of life - a fabric on the one hand delicate and destructible, on the other miraculously tough and resilient, and capable of striking back in unexpected ways." --"Silent Spring"

Rachel Carlson's great revelations of her time were of a chemical industry's reckless and arrogant assault against the life on this earth through pesticides.

Today's chemical barrage on the life systems beneath our earth carries the same hubris, the same determination to control nature for our short sighted objectives and heady corporate profits.

[Spag]

All false logic aside (removing state geologist = fracking), doesn't groundwater the come from the ground? Hog waste is a different story, but that one occurred on the Democrats watch.

[sal leone]

I say let them do it and Frack away, the stupid people of this state voted in these people so let them have at it. Nobody listens anyway, when I ran for state senate I portested this but they voted in someone who supports it. The people in a few years will learn when they cant drink their own water.

[Account Deleted]

Did I miss the part where someone advocated injecting hog waste into deep wells that have the potential to leak into usable aquifers?

[formerly gt]

"but that one occurred on the Democrats watch."

yep.

also i can't help but believe if an R was prez there would be 5 posts and 50 pages of comments by the "little eddies" about the AG stating it would be legal to assassinate a US citizen via drone on US soil.

and there would be multiple posts and 25 pages about the fact that the admin's strategy for the sequester is to inflict as much pain upon the american people as possible.

or if a D guv had followed 12 years of incompetent R guvs, the Ed & the little eddies would be stating that dissolving state boards was necessary to get the state moving in the right direction.

bottom line on this one, i don't want polluted water and i don't know anyone who does. some companies, like BP and Alpha Natural Resources, may be willing to take chances for profits - even at the risk of people's lives.

and there will be accidents and incidents even in cases where there are more than sufficient laws and regulations outlawing the behavior. BP, alpha, and bernie madoff to name a few, are examples of this.

hopefully nc will get it right.

[Ed Cone]

"hopefully nc will get it right."

Exactly.

Hog wasted showed that these things must be addressed sooner or later. Best to be smart from the start, and we are essentially starting from scratch on this one.

[Dale]

Will the waste be moved by rail or truck?

While nothing could possibly go wrong, they will fight to keep the waste from passing near their homes. Route it through South Carolina. Why would another state object? It's not like we wouldn't be happy to take their waste.

[Fred Gregpry]

Is fracking endangered by incessant studies

It's clear that, as has been the case since time immemorial, the eyes of Texas are on the oil and gas industry.

"As last week wound down, a study emerged from the University of Texas predicting steady growth for U.S. natural gas production during the next few decades. That is -- and this is my caveat, not one emanating from the folks in Austin -- unless hydraulic fracturing becomes entombed by the stream of opposition that's designed to thwart its progress."

Push back !

"David Deming, a geologist and professor at the University of Oklahoma, said in a Friday Wall Street Journal op-ed piece that the traditional energy companies could benefit by emulating the National Rifle Association, which typically gives no quarter to its critics. As Deming observed:"

" 'Consider, by way of contrast, the absurd actions of Chesapeake Energy ... Time magazine revealed last year that Chesapeake gave the Sierra Club $26 million. Presumably the Machiavellian reasoning was that the Sierra Club would use this money to attack Chesapeake's competitor, the coal industry ... Now the Sierra Club is trying to shut down hydraulic fracturing -- the entire basis of Chesapeake's natural gas business.' "