Tagged: Fracking

Leaders from across the country will speak tomorrow at a conference on the health effects of natural gas fracking. The Research Triangle Environmental Health Collaborative is a non-profit group that holds an annual conference every year on health issues. Martin Armes is the executive director of the collaborative. He said,  "We certainly recognize that we identify some hot button issues but we're going to try to conduct these meetings in a manner to be as productive as we can to make some recommendations. And we try to depoliticize the process as much as we can."

A homebuilding company that had retained the mineral rights of about 850 newly built houses has agreed to return them to consumers.

Members of the state Mining and Energy Commission will hold their first meeting tomorrow. The 15-member commission was created by a state law passed earlier this year that authorizes natural gas fracking as early as 2014. The commission's role is to create a modern regulatory program for the management of oil and gas exploration and development activities in the state. Marva Mizell Price, a professor at the Duke University School of Nursing, is part of the group.

A conference on North Carolina shale is underway in Raleigh. Scientists, government officials, environmentalists, and industry representatives will consider the potential and pitfalls of natural gas drilling in the state.

Lee County is one of a handful of central North Carolina areas known to have natural gas reserves. Ever since state legislators passed a law to allow the horizontal drilling method of extracting natural gas known as fracking, county residents have been wondering when and if they’ll see gas wells sprouting up in their backyards. People in the community are divided over what fracking could mean for them.

Senate lawmakers have passed a bill that would allow hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in the state.