Opinion

Vote No on Measure J. There is simply no truth to the fear-mongering agenda of San Benito Rising and its purposefully deceptive initiative. The group is fostered and supported by the Center for Biological Diversity. In reality, the Center for Biological Diversity is an anti-industry legal attack group that uses the Endangered Species Act and media scare tactics as a weapon to destroy America's industrial strength and resource production by bringing lawsuits against a wide spectrum of resource-use companies, private property owners and against government to stop resource use.

I recently attended the presentation by Mr. Tillman, the former mayor of Dish, Texas who was forced to sell his dream house on six acres at a loss and move to another town that was not over a shale deposit. As soon as he moved his two young sons began to recover from their nosebleeds and asthma. I found his story to be a wakeup call for those of us who do live over shale deposits that are potential oil and gas wells.

It took the U.S. military about 10 years to produce a stable government (per VP Joe Biden) capable of functioning as an independent nation. It took President Obama less than three years to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Voters preparing for the November ballot proposal to ban hydraulic fracturing in the county should be aware of the swarms of seismic activity in the middle USA which began in 2008. A recent report in the current (25 July) issue of Science attributes this activity to fluid migration from wastewater disposal wells associated with the fracturing procedure.