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Resolution to Ban Fracking in California

WHEREAS, 84 years ago, the founders of the League of Latin American Citizens, (LULAC) joined together to establish an organization that would become the largest, oldest and successful Hispanic civil rights and service organization in the United States, and

WHEREAS, hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a method of oil and gas removal that involves blasting millions of gallons of water under high pressure deep into the earth to break up rock formations to allow oil and gas extraction, causing a release of sand and toxic chemicals, and

WHEREAS, fracking has been documented in nine California Counties-Colusa, Glenn, Kern, Los Angeles, Monterey, Sacramento, Santa Barbara, Sutter, and Venturea- as well as in State waters off Los Angeles, and is likely to be done elsewhere in California, and

WHEREAS, fracking requires enormous amounts of water up to 5 million gallons per well, and

WHEREAS, fracking routinely employs numerous toxic chemicals, including methanol, benzene, naphthalene, and trimethylbenzene, and can also expose humans to harm from lead, arsenic, radioactivity brought back to the surface with fracking flowback fluid, and

WHEREAS, about 25 percent of fracking chemicals could cause cancer and evidence is mounting throughout the country that these chemicals are making their way into aquifers and drinking water, and

WHEREAS, water quality can be threatened by methane contamination tied to drilling anf the fracturing of rock formations, and highlighted by footage of people in fracked areas setting fire to methane-laced water from kitchen faucets, and

WHEREAS, fracking can release dangerous petroleum hydrocarbons including benzene, toluene, and xylene, increased levels of ground-level ozone, key risk factors for respiratory illness and air pollution caused by fracking, which may also contribute to health problems in people who live near natural-gas drilling sites, and

WHEREAS, fracking also releases large amounts of methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas, and further allows access to huge fossil fuel deposits, such as Monterey shale, a geological formation under the san Joaquin and Los Angeles basins which hole an estimated 15 billion barrels of recoverable shale oil, and

WHEREAS, the disposal of fraking fluid in waste injection wells can cause earthquakes, and the fracking of wells have also been found to have directly caused earthquakes in Canada and the United Kingdom, and

WHEREAS, endangered species, like the California condor, San Joaquin kit fox, and blunt nosed leopard lizard live in places where fracking is likely to expand, and can be harmed and killed in many ways by fracking and the industrial development which accompanies it, and

WHEREAS, the California Department of Conservation’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal resources acknowledges that it doesn’t monitor, let alone regulate, fraking, and fails to track when or where fracking is being done in the state or what chemicals are being used in the process, and

WHEREAS, the States of New York, New Jersey, and Vermont have enacted bans or moratoriums on fracking

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that California LULAC do hereby urge the Governor of the State of California and our State legislature to ben fracking in California, and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that California LULAC State Director shall forward a copy of this resolution to the Governor of California and Representatives in the State Senate and Assembly

Approved this 22nd day of June 2013.

Margaret Moran
LULAC National President