Last week the Baltimore Sun ran an article (a portion of which we picked up) that said “sources” were telling the Sun that the Maryland Dept. of the Environment (MDE) would miss a deadline to submit revisions to revisions of revisions of fracking regulations that will allow the state to begin fracking on or about October 1, 2017 (see Maryland Will Miss Important Fracking Deadline on Oct 1). In order to meet the 2017 deadline when the current two-year moratorium expires, the new revisions must be issued by October 1, 2016, a year earlier. The Sun said that wouldn’t happen. But it did. In releasing the new revisions yesterday, Maryland Secretary of the Environment, Ben Grumbles, called the new regulations “the most stringent” regulations in the country. Strangely, a copy of the new revisions just released can’t be found on the MDE website. What we know from various news accounts is that there will be no drilling or fracking within 2,000 feet of a private water well. And that’s just one of the show-stopping requirements. Translation: there never will be any fracking in Maryland, mark our words. Or if there is, it will be isolated and rare as hen’s teeth…
