[img]2283|right|Jeff Cooper||no_popup[/img]With the City Council’s latest moratorium on fracking long since having expired, Mayor Jeff Cooper will lead a charge at tonight’s 7 o’clock meeting in Council Chambers to reinstitute it.
The surprise will be if he meets even wispy resistance on the dais because four men and a lady stand shoulder-to-shoulder, symbolically if not physically.
Standing stoutly against any concessions to supporters of the purportedly dangerous oil drilling method, Mr. Cooper said this morning:
“My goal will be to vote unanimously as a Council to have our City Attorney finalize the draft ordinance we had previously discussed that would ban fracking.
“Also, I hope we will vote to join a much needed coalition of cities, like Los Angeles, so that when they enact their ban, we can do so seamlessly at the same time. The power of the coalition of cities will help us stop this dangerous practice.”
Vice Mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells, who will become a new age on Thursday morning, told the newspaper:
“I would like to see us move forward in protecting Culver City from intensive oil drilling techniques.”
[img]1307|right|Meghan Sahli-Wells||no_popup[/img] The vice mayor hopes that her colleagues will agree to a fracking stoppage that resembles one recently adopted by the Los Angeles City Council: Ms. Sahli-Wells, an ardent progressive, hopes that her colleagues will agree to similar language. In her research, the vice mayor said that “ban” and “moratorium” are used interchangeably, but moratorium is the chosen term for Los Angeles.
By 10-0, the Council halted “all activity associated with well stimulation, including, but not limited to, hydraulic fracturing, gravel packing, and acidizing, or any combination thereof, and the use of waste disposal injection wells.”
Los Angeles became the only oil-producing city in the state to ban hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The moratorium will remain in effect until the city can verify that fracking will not harm public safety or compromise drinking water.
“Fracking needs to be stopped altogether,” she said, if oil drilling companies “cannot prove that it is safe. Prove it is safe, and then maybe it can go forward.
“Proving it is safe is a matter of science. There have been studies that have been financed by oil companies that say it is safe,” said Ms. Sahli-Wells.
“But tell that to the communities that have been impacted by fracking in other parts of the country. There have been earthquakes and communities where their wells have been poisoned.”
