Food and Water Watch created a video that highlights the issues at stake in San Benito County's Measure J. It features the words of Josh Jensen of Calera Winery, and retired teacher Margaret Rebecchi and Andy Hsia-Coron. Food and Water Watch is a national nonprofit organization, a watchdog that works to protect the integrity of our food, water and environment.
In two weeks, voters of San Benito will decide if they want to be the first county in California to ban fracking at the ballot box, which will mean it can only be undone by another ballot measure — rather than by a vote from the Board of Supervisors. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, uses several millions of gallons of water mixed with hundreds of toxins and sand, and injects the toxic brew at high pressure to break up shale rock up to a mile underground to obtain gas or oil. The far south end of San Benito is within the Monterey Shale, a massive geologic formation that runs from San Diego to upper mid-California, and which large oil corporations are eyeing as a new potential oil "bonanza."
Global oil corporations Chevron, Exxon and Occidental have spent more than $2 million to defeat Measure J, mostly on an onslaught of TV and radio ads, and glossy mail flyers. The people working on passing Measure J have raised about $100,000 over the past year, but have no funds to buy TV ads with professional actors pretending to sit at a Hollister breakfast table saying, "Measure J…." blah blah blah. Several water protection orgs have been watching this precedent-setting election in San Benito, and Food and Water Watch stepped up to the plate and donated this Youtube video. Another group that donated a video was the Natural Resources Defense Council.
You can watch the new Food and Water Watch video here. It's called, "Dear Governor Brown: Don't Frack San Benito."