Demand Full, PUBLIC Disclosure of Fracking Chemicals

by: Susan V
recipient: NC Mining and Energy Commission

Update: At the Jan. 24 meeting of the Environmental Standards Committee, newly appointed pro-fracker Mitch Gillespie presented an "expurgated" version of stakeholder recommendations drafted to strengthen disclosure requirements. The Mining and Energy Commission and NC Dept of Environment and Natural Resources will need close monitoring throughout this process. Please continue to demand full disclosure of fracking chemicals. See more: preservecarolina.org

If fracking is so "safe," why does the industry and its supporters insist on keeping the chemicals it uses secret?

Now that the North Carolina Assembly has schemed to legalize fracking, it’s appointed a commission fraught with conflicts of interest to rule on the issue of chemical disclosure. But the "Goldilocks" guideline (not too hard, not too soft), so far suggested by the commission's Charles Holbrook, is an insult to a citizenry that deserves nothing less than full disclosure of toxic chemicals.

Without serious intervention, it will be business as usual: the industry will withhold crucial chemical data under the guise of "trade secrets."

NC residents deserve to know what's being pumped into their ground and water. Tell the Mining and Energy Commission you expect FULL PUBLIC Disclosure of all fracking chemicals.

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We, the undersigned, do not accept Charles Holbrook’s “Goldilocks” rule (not too hard - not too soft) as an adequate guideline for industry disclosure of fracking chemicals.

Nor is it enough, as Commission Chairman Womack (a former Chevron employee) suggests, “…to get as full a disclosure as we can, in consideration of trade secret laws," or “…to lean more to the most expansive set of standards that we can find in any other state."

This means allowing the industry to disclose as little as it can get away with and accepting the unacceptable in NC just because other states are doing so.

Nor is it acceptable, as Holbrook suggests, that full chemical disclosure be made only to "emergency responders and medical personnel.” The PUBLIC has a right to full disclosure of toxic chemicals used anywhere in the environment.

For years the pesticide industry - the same industry that makes fracking chemicals, some of which are used in pesticides - has withheld and even misrepresented info about so-called “inert” ingredients - to the serious detriment of public health and the environment. These inerts usually make up the majority of pesticide formulations and are often just as toxic, if not more so, than the formulas’ active ingredients. These inerts have included extremely volatile and often carcinogenic chemicals like benzene, xylene and toluene. Furthermore, tests to determine “safety” of pesticides are done on active ingredients alone, without including these often extremely toxic inerts in the formulas tested, therefore disregarding any inert or synergistic effects involved in the mix to which the public is exposed.

In 2009, Oregon’s Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides petitioned the EPA to “Require Disclosure of Hazardous Inert Ingredients on Pesticide Product Labels,” and the EPA responded, saying it “…agrees with the petitioners that the public should have a means to learn the identities of hazardous inert ingredients in pesticide formulations.”

There should be nothing different regarding fracking chemicals, and we insist that NC’s Mining and Energy Commission, should the state go ahead with this insane practice of fracking, demand no less for the citizens of NC.

Thank you for your time.

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Demand Full, PUBLIC Disclosure of Fracking Chemicals