Citizen Shale

As a steering partner in DontFrackMD coalition, CS helped protect Marylanders with the first legislated fracking ban in a state with shale reserves. With little more than 150,000 mostly rural acres over the Marcellus shale, Maryland has not permitted a rush to drill and frack its beautiful mountains. Responding to concerns raised in 2010 by citizens, businesses, organizations and leaders throughout the state, former Governor Martin O'Malley demanded more scientific study by the State Departments of Environment and Natural Resources, to determine if shale gas development can be done safely. Though the goal of this study commission was to determine if fracking can be carried out "without unacceptable risk", Maryland's Marcellus Shale Safe Drilling Initiative failed to prove that "best practices" in regulations can mitigate the wide range of risks it identified. Despite the failures of the study commission, in late 2014, Martin O'Malley, now a presidential candidate, approved fracking in Maryland and urged his environmental agencies to put forward regulations. With the election of Republican Larry Hogan as governor, the DontFrackMD movement gained strength and urgency. Over 130 Maryland businesses, many of them located in western Maryland's tourism, farm-to-table and real estate economic sectors, came out in opposition to shale fracking as a threat to the regional economy. In the 2015 session of the Maryland General Assembly, CitizenShale worked closely with the DontFrackMD coalition to propose a 10-year moratorium on fracking, to allow completion of additional health and economic studies. Eventually the Protect our Health and Communities Act was negotiated down to a 2.5 year moratorium. Following closely after the State of New York's 2014 ban of fracking to protect public health, Maryland's action was the first legislative moratorium enacted on fracking in the United States.