Granville Environmental Affairs Committee Meeting
Monday August 12th at 10am in the Oxford Thornton Library. The Granville Environmental Affairs Committee is a Citizens Committee with the power to investigate, publicize and report to the Board of Commissioners any activities in Granville County involving threats to any land, water or air resources which are found by the Committee to endanger or threaten to endanger the persons and property of citizens of the County. The Committee serves as the "Eyes and Ears” of the Board of Commissioners on any environmental issue. For four months this Committee has been discussing the dangers of bringing drilling companies into Granville County to drill into our County properties for natural gas. The method that would be used to extract natural gas is called fracking, a very controversial and disruptive technique. It has been shown in other parts of the Country to cause air and water pollution, with methane gas leaking into drinking water wells of many citizens; about 1000 dangerous chemicals, injected into the ground, are involved in the process. Many other negative social, financial and health risks are associated with fracking. Your property values could drop and Granville could have many kinds of damages to its roads, streams, lakes and properties. Counties sometimes become overwhelmed by economic problems associated with supporting the drilling activities. Some on the Environmental Affairs Committee (EAC) realize these dangers and want to make a recommendation to the County Commissioners that they do everything in their power to prevent fracking from coming to our County. But voting of the Committee has been mixed with some members appearing to favor fracking. The EAC anti-fracking Report to the Commissioners has been voted down or stalled several times. A compromise anti-fracking Report has been prepared and one more important vote by the EAC against fracking will be held on: Monday August 12th at 10am in the Oxford Thornton Library.