UPI
By Allen Cone
March 28, 2017
March 28 (UPI) -- Maryland's Senate approved a ban on
fracking in the state, a bill Gov. Larry Hogan has pledged to sign.
Senators voted 35-10 Monday to approve the legislation
that prohibits drilling for natural gas known as hydraulic fracturing. Earlier,
the House of Delegates had approved the same bill 97-40.
Earlier this month, Hogan announced his support of the
legislation.
Maryland would join Vermont as the only states that
ban fracking through legislation. Vermont does not have the shale formations
containing natural gas where fracking could be done but Maryland has it in the
western part of the state.
New York, which also has shale gas, banned it by
executive order.
"This vote confirms the power of participant
democracy," Ann Bristow, a resident of Garrett County in Western Maryland
and a member of a state commission that studied fracking told The Washington
Post. "Never believe when someone tells you that an organized movement
can't produce change against overwhelming odds. We are proving otherwise."
In fracking, water, sand and chemicals are injected
deep into the ground at high pressure to break up rock and release natural gas.
Water contamination, greenhouse-gas emissions and
earthquakes are problems associated with fracking, according to opponents.
"This ban is a major step for Maryland's path to
a clean energy economy," said Josh Tulkin, director of Maryland's Sierra
Club, one of the groups in the Don't Frack Maryland Coalition, said in a
statement….
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