Also speaking was Jerry Gordon from the McLean County Board, addressing an issue that has gained some notoriety these last few days, hydraulic fracturing.
Gordon says, among other things, hydraulic fracking uses up resources that the state simply can’t afford to lose.
“Water is very frequently regarded as an infinite resource, it’s not, we know that many of the resources that we deemed ‘infinate’ can, and have started to become scarcer,” Gordon said. “Up to two million gallons of water can be used in one drilling site; that’s not to say that it will be two million every time, it could be eighty thousand, but that’s still a lot of water.”
“It’s not entirely clear what effect on local authority H.B. 2615 would have if it were passed in its present form. If the state is planning to preempt local authority, it will say so in the bill. There is no section like that in this bill.”
EEHW chairman Tim Dudley says the committee is expected to take up the issue of fracking at their meeting next week. He encouraged all the board members to do their homework beforehand.
