Stokes County: Here Comes Fracking

What do we say about a General Assembly that wants fracking in North Carolina so badly that it set aside taxpayer money to help the gas companies find the effing gas?

Bastards?

The NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is about to dig a test well in Walnut Cove, Stokes County, "in a predominately black neighborhood of brick ranch homes," to determine if there's enough shale gas there to warrant the complete destruction of that neighborhood, the pollution of the water table, and the despoliation of that section of Stokes County.

Looming over [that neighborhood] is the possibility that they may one day have as a neighbor an oil-and-gas company, its drilling crew, the trucks that roll with them and the potential for waste management headaches.

They feel powerless.

“Because the state government is so intent on bringing shale-gas development to the state, we do not feel we have any protections or recourse,” said Mary Kerley, who is part of the grassroots NoFrackingInStokes.org group. “Our backs are against the wall. The reality is our lives, safety and property rights have been sold to the highest bidder – the shale gas companies."

Sold to the highest bidder.

There is no hell hot enough for the prostitutes occupying the cushioned seats in the General Assembly.