Passed 4/6/2015
WHEREAS, California is suffering from a drought of epic proportions that may last for decades with no guarantee of future water supplies, and California’s efforts, including a declaration of emergency fail to provide new ones, but rather merely restrict the use of those currently available, and
WHEREAS, the practice of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has imposed an enormous drain upon California’s water resources not only by using up to eight million gallons of fresh water for each fracked well, with an estimated usage of 2 million gallons of fresh water every day in California, but also, by using up to 700 different chemicals, creating polluted and toxic waters that must be disposed of, and consequently toxic chemicals and polluted water are a danger to or are entering California’s aquifers due to the inability, incompetence, and/or neglect of the State of California to regulate and/or prevent discharge of toxic waters and waste by unpermitted, unlined wastewater ponds in California including federally protected aquifers, and
WHEREAS, Governor. Brown’s Declaration of Drought State of Emergency of January 2014, and the mandatory cutbacks of March 2015 do not require any cutback of fracking;
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED,that the Democratic Party of the San Fernando Valley urges Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, to honor the Platform of the California Democratic Party, which supports “…an immediate moratorium on fracking, acidizing, and other forms of oil/gas well stimulation…,” and to immediately expand the Drought State of Emergency to include a ban on fracking; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED,that the Democratic Party of the San Fernando Valley send a copy of this resolution to Governor Brown urging him to immediately expand his Drought State of Emergency, and to the leaders of the California State Legislature urging them to take any actions necessary to expedite and implement this resolution.