Join co-sponsors to support fracking ban in Md.

This letter was sent to Sen. Thomas “Mac” Middleton. A copy was sent to the Maryland Independent.

There are very few moments in history that can be so defining as the one we are living in and very few people who have the power to shape it in their lifetimes. As Maryland Senator, you have the unique ability to shape the course of Mar yland’s environment and public health in perpetuity by joining the 23 co-sponsors of the ban on fracking in Maryland.

As one of only 11 state legislatures that are controlled by the Democratic Party, liberals, progressives, independents and even disaffected Republicans are looking to states like Maryland to be leaders in this tumultuous time. Fracking is an inherently toxic process to our watershed. By injecting chemically laden water into bedrock layers, we would be risking our most foundational resource from the groundwater that we drink to the watershed that we share with Western Maryland.

Many of your constituents here in Southern Maryland are living on well and septic systems and cannot afford to purchase all drinking water. Allowing fracking will open up a whole new level of industrialization in our region that will lower real estate values and businesses in the tourism and recreation sectors will suffer. Thousands of jobs in commercial fishing, crabbing and oystering shouldn’t have to give up their livelihoods to support the boom-bust natural gas fracking jobs that are often brought in by out-of-state fracking companies.

I had understood your platform to be that of one who cares for being a steward of the environment. By supporting the Clean Energy Act, solar energy, limited oyster harvests and aquaculture council, I had assumed that you, too, believe that the path forward is through more clean energy sources — not more drilling. Even though natural gas is cleaner than oil to burn on the consumer end, it is far more dangerous in a widespread way than traditional drilling; it requires more drill sites and pollutes the atmosphere with radioactive and climate changing compounds like methane and does irreparable damage to the watershed.

A moratorium is not enough. It only sets up Maryland to fight this fight over and over again, and besides, as this past one has shown, moratoriums can easily be shortened and regulations weakened. There are not sufficient regulations that can forestall the disaster that it will bring to Maryland’s fragile ecosystem. With the direction that politics is headed today, with people and parties becoming more unpredictable, we need the safety of a ban to guarantee our protection in the years ahead.

If you join the 23 co-sponsors of the fracking ban, you will be the keystone that creates the majority in the Senate and others will jump on board to follow your leadership. Be the catalyst and make history! You constituents are at your side; Charles County has spoken to support the ban. Rosa Hance, Great Mills