A monthly e-newsletter

Last December CCEC introduced our new e-newsletter (ta-da) to establish a regular monthly vehicle for sharing news and comments with our readers. That’s good news. The downside is that it only comes out once a month, and we know all too well that there’s stuff going on in and around Chatham all the time. So, to better keep on top of news and issues and convey our comments “Johnny-on-the-spot,” we’ve decided to create a web log or “blog.”

This issue of the CLARION is built on blog posts that we’ve created on a trial basis throughout March. You are seeing them here for the first time. But with the public launch of our new blog in April, you’ll be able to drop in at your leisure or sign up to be notified whenever a new blog entry is posted. It’s up to you. If you choose to do neither, chances are you will still find much of what we’ve been blogging about appearing in the next issue of this monthly e-newsletter.

Check us out at www.chathamcitizens.wordpress.com. Once there you can click on the “sign me up” button on the right side of the page if you want to be alerted about each new post. There’s a lot to be said about the “going’s on” in Chatham County, the region and state. Our blog will give CCEC’s voices a chance to be heard (read) on a timely basis.

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(Note: This article has been updated since it was originally published on March 31.)

In the past CCEC has been diligent about informing citizens of upcoming public hearings and urging them to show up and speak out. We’ve advocated for citizen involvement in such public forums because we value informed citizen input in critical governmental decisions, and believe it is important for commissioners to be open to and eager for people’s input. Now we are alarmed to learn that our newly elected county commissioners seem to think that public hearings really don’t matter anymore.

This was the clear message delivered by the Chatham Board of Commissioners Chair, Brian Bock, at the 2011 Chatham County Development Briefing held last Tuesday, March 21 at the Governor’s Club. Approximately 160 realtors, builders, and business people from Chatham and surrounding counties attended the event.

Speakers included Mark Zimmerman of Chapel Hill’s Great Harvest Bread Company; Kevin Graham, the project manager for Briar Chapel; Diane Reid of the Chatham County Economic Development Corporation; and Chatham Commissioner Brian Bock.

Kevin Graham’s and Diane Reid’s presentations featured photographs of scenic Chatham County. Their comments indicated that the rural qualities of Chatham, as well as developments with an emphasis on environmental stewardship and preservation of natural open spaces like Briar Chapel, are an economic asset to the county and attract desirable businesses.

Realtors love to talk about what a great success Briar Chapel turned out to be. But they neglect to mention the positive impact that Chatham County’s Compact Community Ordinance (CCO) had on the development. The original Briar Chapel proposal was denied by Chatham County. The county then initiated, developed, and finally approved the CCO that provided the regulations and guidelines needed for rational approval of a development on the size and scale of Briar Chapel. CCEC was born out of the painful labor to form a credible CCO, and citizen participation in the form of citizens’ advisory boards and citizen organizations was fundamental to the development of the CCO. The result is the much-lauded Briar Chapel, which is now held up as an example of green development and used as a beacon in marketing campaigns for economic development.

Yet Chairman Bock told recent attendees of the business summit that “advisory boards are a problem,” and his focus is on changing the rules and regulations to make it easier for projects to get through the bureaucracy. This includes shortening the approval process for developments by eliminating certain advisory board reviews, most notably that of the Environmental Review Board. Bock said there will be changes to the subdivision and zoning ordinances to further “streamline” (a.k.a. “deregulate”) processes, and county staff will be given much more discretion and approval power. Bock went on to state, "Of course, this still has to go to public hearing, but the majority of the board has agreed to these steps."

Whoa … did he really say that? According to someone who was there, he most certainly did.

In other words, regardless of what citizens say at the upcoming public hearings about the so-called “text amendments” to zoning ordinances, those changes are a done deal because the majority of the Board has already gotten together and made that decision.

Bock went on to say, “There is a new Planning Board with seven new members with a ‘different attitude.’ They’ll ask, ‘How can we help you?’ rather then telling people to follow the rules.”

This new approach suggests that whatever advisory boards remain will be serving businesses and developers rather than Chatham citizens, adjacent landowners and the county’s natural resources. It’s in keeping with Commissioner Petty’s suggestion at the January BOC retreat that the Appearance Commission could act as “landscaping consultants” for a prospective applicant.

But that’s not all. Bock says he wants to make things even easier for developers by having a staff member “act as an ‘ombudsman’ who will steer businesses and developments through the approval process.” What exactly is he saying here? Is he proposing a new staff position? How will he accomplish this? And how is such a service a “core government function” (a standard to which all decisions by the new BOC majority are held)?

Chairman Bock has declared publicly that Chatham County is “Open For Business.” And with his comments last Tuesday, he has left little doubt that his true allegiance is to businesses and developers above all citizens and the natural resources of Chatham County. We’ve sat through this movie before during this past decade and watched the red carpet for “business as usual” roll over concerns for environmental protection and sustainability. The movie ends with a relative few taking home the goods at the expense of the common good.

Do public hearings still matter? The answer to that question lies in our hands. There's a second one on regulatory processes and proposed changes to zoning ordinances scheduled for April 18. CCEC urges you to get your act together, show up and offer your two cents worth. Take a stand on these issues.

And let the commissioners know how you feel about public hearings.

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It was a rare barbecue event celebrated last Saturday near the Lee/Chatham county line, as reported by WRAL News. In fact, you could say it was a “Gas.” That’s gas as in natural gas, with methane as its principal component. It was not wood chips or charcoal, but gas mined from 1800 feet below the surface of the Piedmont’s Triassic Basin that cooked the pig for this celebration. It was the kind of “it’s-never-been-done-here-before” event that leaves geologists and CEO’s of gas drilling companies downright giddy. It’s the kind of giddiness that can spread like a virus to infect all kinds of folks whose appetites go way beyond pulled pork.

In a state currently with few energy sources of its own, but an appetite for relatively cheap alternatives to coal and nuclear, a sea of gas beneath its ancient shale formations is enough to make whole populations salivate and drool. Not the least of these is politicians looking for a quick fix to the problems caused by a growing population of energy over eaters. At first glance on the surface, this under the surface gold mine of methane can have everyone kicking up their heels and dancing in the aisles. It’s the kind of euphoria that can tempt you to think that just maybe one day in NC we’ll actually breed pigs that fly.

CAUTION! Pigs will never fly… and extracting natural gas from the bowels of the earth through the process of hydraulic fracturing is akin to opening Pandora’s Box. In Greek mythology, Pandora was given a box-jar which she was not to open under any circumstance. Impelled by her natural curiosity, Pandora opened the box-jar, and all the evil contained escaped and spread over the earth. Apparently no warning label was required in mythology, and today where “fracking” is allowed the same absence of warning holds true. Also absent are regulations and enforcement resources to protect people, animals and the environment from the ravages that so often accompany the invasive and traumatic operation.

Here in NC, we have wisely kept the lid on the box through laws that prohibit the kind of drilling that “fracking” entails. Such wisdom, however, is being tested as gas drilling companies tempt area landowners with predatory deeds to mineral rights, believing that friendly politicians will soon deep six the old laws and open the flood gates for the great NC gas rush just ahead. It’s a gamble they expect to win, and to win BIG.

As states, communities and citizens across the nation have learned over the past decade or so, there is a huge price to pay when allowing and inviting gas companies to plant wells that spring up and multiply like poison mushrooms. The question before us is whether the people of NC, of Chatham, Lee, Durham and other counties holding natural gas will have the wisdom to learn from others’ mistakes, or whether we will succumb to the folly of buying a pig in a poke. That is the path that some state legislators and local land owners are already pursuing.

If NC law makers and citizens of Chatham and similar gas laden counties continue to celebrate the methane beneath our shale without fully understanding and believing the horrible downside of fracking, we will be the poorer, not the richer for the choice. For this reason, CCEC along with other organizations and citizens concerned with the health and environmental issues raised by fracking, urge our neighbors and leaders to learn all we can about the dangers that accompany fracking. A good place to begin is by watching a video presented by Clean Water for North Carolina.

In the weeks and months ahead, we will continue to provide information, events and opportunities to learn about fracking and advocate for caution among legislators and landowners. Stay tuned and get involved. This is not an issue half a world away, but one as near as the land upon which we walk, the air we breathe and the ground and surface waters that give us life. Before NC goes hog wild over fracking, we need to heed the warning: 'caveat emptor' (buyer beware). We now know that NC natural gas can cook a pig. We need to realize it can also cook our goose.

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