December 20, 2016 hearing of the Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive, & Legislative Review of the Maryland General Assembly
Yesterday I was able to participate with some 100 fellow Marylanders in a rally and then a hearing about the proposed regulations on fracking issued by the Maryland Department of the Environment. The rally outside the State House was led by health professionals from Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility, National Nurses United, Concerned Health Professionals of Maryland, Maryland Environmental Health Network, and the Alliance of Nurses for a Healthy Environment. They had just delivered a letter to the Governor, the President of the State Senate, and the House Speaker calling for a legislative fracking ban. It was signed by over 150 health professionals and referenced over 900 peer-reviewed publications citing negative health and environmental impacts from fracking, much of which was ignored in the proposed fracking regulations. The speakers also mentioned the new EPA report that confirms what we have known for years: fracking contaminates drinking water.
We then entered the State House for the hearing, along with a pro-fracking contingent that had a more muted presence. After Environment Secretary Grumbles made an initial presentation, we heard again about health concerns with the proposed regs—this time from a physician on the Committee with experience in emergency medicine—Delegate Dan Morhaim of Baltimore County. Among the concerns Morhaim raised was the trivial $50,000 fine to be imposed for infractions, which is not enough to serve as a deterrant, and the fact that emergency room physicians will not know what substances they are dealing with when they have to treat fracking accident victims. Dr. Morhaim remarked that years from now we will look on this period of time as the waning days of the “petroleum age,” to loud applause from the audience.
Audience members were then allowed to testify, including both supporters of the regulations and fracking, and those who want to ban it outright. Former Delegate Health Mizeur spoke eloquently from her perspective as a former member of Gov. O’Malley’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission. She said that after all the Commission’s exhaustive research throughout the state and beyond, “it became abundantly clear … that this whole notion of managed risk… it’s all an illusion. We cannot guarantee the safety of our water, and our environment, and our local economies and our public health, unless we keep this form of extreme extraction at bay … keep the resource in the ground.”
Indeed the fracking issue promises to be a big fight in Maryland in 2017. Don’t stay on the sidelines—we need your help! MDE says the new regulations are better than the “gold standard,” that they are the “platinum standard.” I agree with the health professionals and others that you can’t regulate an intrinsically dangerous practice into something safe. Read here what Sierra Club has to say about the regulations and be sure to help us out along with the rest of the Don’t Frack Maryland coalition!
Jill Clark-Gollub