Landowners face fracking

Only a mistaken vote by an avowed opponent of natural gas exploration allowed North Carolina Republicans to put the state on the path to allowing the process known as “fracking.” Now, if lawmakers accept a study group’s recommendation, that could mean some landowners are forced into allowing the procedure on their property, even if it contradicts their wishes.

Instead of choosing a more reasonable, go-it-slow approach to authorizing an exploration method that could have significant environmental and economic costs, Raleigh seems committed to proceeding at break-neck speed. That may serve the oil and gas companies, eager to turn a profit selling North Carolina’s resources, but it does little to protect the public’s best interest.

Two years ago, a Republican Party in the ascendancy approved a bill that would have opened the state to natural gas exploration using hydraulic fracturing of shale rock deep beneath the surface. Injecting the ground with a slurry of chemicals and water at high pressure helps break up the rock and release the gas, but could contribute to the contamination of underground water supplies.

Though the Republicans held a majority, they could not override Gov. Beverly Perdue’s veto without Democratic votes — the most crucial being one cast in error by a fracking opponent. Ignoring pleas to allow the lawmaker to cast an accurate vote, legislative leaders were content instead to set the state firmly on track to allowing the exploration method.

Last week, a study group met as part of the rule-making process to govern fracking in North Carolina. That group recommended that the state use a 1945 law allowing for compulsory pooling, thereby forcing a landowner into selling mineral rights leases if a certain percentages of neighboring landowners agree. That ruling, which could render a property owner unable to stop drilling on his/her land, heads to the Legislature.

North Carolina continues to stagger its way toward allowing fracking here, but knows little about the possible consequences. Landowners may be compelled to allow drilling. And residents in eastern North Carolina should still be wary of plans to send fracking waste toward the coast, where communities will enjoy none of the benefits and much the environmental liability.

This is no way for the state to operate. Citizens and lawmakers alike should examine carefully and seriously the course being charted here, and recognize that this pace of progress does not afford the protections needed for the public’s interest.