There’s a new measure on the upcoming November Ballot called Measure G. The act of Measure G is to protect San Luis Obispo County’s water, agricultural lands, tourism, environmental quality and climate, and scenic vistas by banning fracking and oil expansion. Fracking is the process of injecting liquid at high pressure into subterranean rocks to open existing fissures and extract oil or natural gas. Fracking may increase potential oil spills, and from that it might damage the surrounding soil and vegetation. Due to high pressure in the soil from the fracking it may cause small earthquakes. With fracking comes a new measure for SLO county splitting apart the community between yes on Measure G and no on Measure G.
Yes on Measure G is to ban all fracking and the extracting of oil and natural gas from the ground. A yes vote may affect the prices of gas or fuel. Agriculture and science teacher Peggy Flynn says, “It would probably increase prices on diesel, on fuel and would cause those sorts of situations as far as making it more expensive for farmers to do what they need to do especially in California because we are such a huge agricultural state.” A yes vote may also open up new pathways for students here at Morro Bay High School, “If they stop fracking,” says Flynn. “It would allow agricultural students in the long run to be the leaders in finding other alternatives, sources for energy.” Some other energy sources could be solar, wind, and hydro energy.
No on Measure G is to continue all fracking and extracting of oil and natural gas from the ground. A no vote may affect our surrounding farmers and animals. According to Flynn, “The sheer act of fracking is not going to have any immediate consequence on a animal or farming, but the availability of fuel might and that’s where that issue comes in and the idea that if the fuel prices were to go up the price of feed is going to go up.” This may affect farmers capability to supply their animals with food.
For Measure G we don’t know the outcome of it but we just have to wait for the changes to come and how our county will deal with it if it’s a yes vote or no vote.
