Last month MDN told you about the a group of politicians in Stokes County, North Caroline (Board of Commissioners) who voted to pass a three-year moratorium on shale drilling in the county (see Sad: NC County Passes 3-Year Moratorium on Fracking). Not long after that story ran the NC state legislature passed a law, signed by the governor, that makes such local laws illegal, nullifying the Stokes County vote (see NC Legislature Makes Local Frack Bans/Moratoria Illegal). MDN was contacted by one of the top geologists in the Marcellus/Utica, originally from North Carolina, to let us know there really isn’t anything much worth fracking in Stokes County anyway–so it’s kind of an empty political gesture. Now a township in Stokes County–Walnut Cove–is set to vote on the same thing, knowing full well their vote is illegal, daring someone to challenge them in court…
