How the state is marketing fracking has some concerned
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- The ABC11 I-Team is uncovering new information in the debate over fracking.
With the state now set to allow shale gas drilling by next summer, we discovered your tax dollars have already been used to market the state's potential for natural gas to companies outside North Carolina.
So far, $20,000 has been spent, but just where that money came from is raising eyebrows. It's not the Department of Commerce out there selling our potential for fracking; it's the agency that's supposed to be regulating it.
There's no question about it. There is natural gas in North Carolina.
Lee County is in the hot zone when it comes to shale gas potential, and it's where energy companies will likely start setting up shop next summer.
However, while we know gas is in the ground there, there's a catch.
"We don't know how much shale gas we have here," said Dustin Chicurel-Bayard, with the Sierra Club. "We don't know the potential."
As Chicurel-Bayard points out, it's anyone's guess exactly how much gas we've got. There are a few shale deposits where shale gas can be found, and a couple wells that tapped into those deposits years ago. However, there are no hard numbers on what's actually down there.
That is why Chicurel-Bayard bristles about the state spending thousands of dollars going to energy expos and trade shows as far away as London to market the state's potential for natural gas.
"It's putting the cart before the horse," said Chicurel-Bayard.
"North Carolina, if we had the pipelines, if we had the infrastructure, would be producing natural gas," said State Geologist Dr. Ken Taylor.
Taylor also can't say exactly how much natural gas we have, but he defends DENR's roll marketing it.
"Our job is to find the resources in our state, and to identify those resources, and tell the people about those resources," said Taylor.
Still, how the state is paying for that marketing is also raising flags. The I-Team discovered that DENR used money that was intended for jobs, which were never filled.
Taylor, however, maintains that's okay because the unfilled jobs also had to do with fracking.
"For the energy program, marketing was requested," said Taylor. "Marketing was expected for shale gas potential."
Critics, including Chicurel-Bayard, argue there are better ways to spend that money.
"By doing baseline water testing, and public education, and trying to get ahead of some of the potential problems that fracking might bring," said Chicurel-Bayard.
As far as how the state has been received at the energy expos, we're told interest is high. In London, we're told people were lining up three deep to learn more about our natural gas potential.
