To the Editor:

The letter on Oct. 15 from my friend in Franklin titled, “Why doesn’t the GOP protect our property rights?” is a bit ludicrous in that the GOP has stood over the years for the right of citizens to own, use and accumulate property to support their families and insure the payment of college expenses for dependents.

My friend is like many who have developed an affinity for the word fracking without researching this topic with any objectivity. 

No person or governmental entity can require any private landowner to submit to fracking, drilling, mining or any disturbance of the land. Where my friend gets this idea is alien to me. This concept of extracting gas from the shale has been in these United States for more than 40 years and there have only been a very few incidents below ground and these were remedied by the requirement that the responsible party pursuant to a large posted guaranteed bond make whole the contracted landowner. 

Sen. Jim Davis, R-Franklin, lives among us and is as concerned about our environment as the letter write. I suggest that my friend quit yelling fire in the theater and work to unsure the inclusion of a large bond in all such drilling contracts. And need I remind the Franklin alarmist that Western North Carolina, according to geological reports, has no or a pittance of shale. I tell Mr. Stenger to check the facts before frightening a populace that just might believe a bit of his spilled ink.

K.G. Watson

Maggie Valley