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04/19/2018 12:01 AMLast week the Board of Selectmen voted 4-1 in favor of passing an ordinance to ban fracking waste in Madison. I was the lone vote against it. To some, it seems like a no-brainer, but there are a lot of reasons that I didn’t vote for the ordinance, which I’d like to explain.
The first is legislative economy. I don’t believe that we should create ordinances that are more appropriately the province of the state. We don’t have enforcement resources or capabilities.
There’s also something called “state preemption,” which means a law passed by a state legislature takes precedence over an ordinance passed by a local government.
There is currently a moratorium enacted by the state, which remains in effect until the legislature takes action or Department of Energy & Environmental Protection (DEEP) issues regulations.
I’ve done research through organizations to which the town belongs, like the Council of Small Towns (COST) and the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM), and am convinced that there is no threat of fracking waste being brought to Connecticut. It’s uneconomical and unreasonable to believe that it would. You can’t transport what is essentially water almost 500 miles more cheaply that you could treat it.
I attended a CCM meeting last week where they updated us on various legislation, including Senate Bill (SB) 103: “An Act Concerning Hydraulic Fracturing Waste in Connecticut. To prohibit the receipt, collection, storage, treatment, and disposal of waste from hydraulic fracturing.” CCM advises against individual towns passing an ordinance to ban fracking, saying, “This bill mirrors ordinance language that is being promoted by Food and Water Watch (FWW), but the key difference is that SB 103 appropriately provides that DEEP be the regulator and enforcer of such waste statewide, while the ordinance FWW is advocating puts the responsibility of enforcement on the municipality. Should SB 103 not be enacted into law, municipal ordinances that are on the books will effectively be more expansive in banning this waste than state statue, leaving the municipality responsible for regulating and enforcing such waste in their locality. This exposure will place a fiscal burden on municipalities to ensure the proper resources and expertise are on staff or consulted to appropriately regulate and enforce such a ban.
CCM recommends that we ask our State Senate and House delegation members to support SB 103 and place the onus on the DEEP to regulate and enforce such waste in our state.”
I consulted our town attorney, and he said, “I think it is prudent to wait and see what the statute says.”
On April 6, the fracking bill got out of committee with a 29-1 vote, supported by State Senator Ted Kennedy (D-12) and co-sponsored by State representative Noreen Kokoruda (R-101).
I don’t think we should pass an ordinance that we don’t believe in just because we are being pressured.