Nice timing. An op-ed in the morning paper by Randy Zook, Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce chief, extols the economic value and environmental responsbility of the hydraulic fracturing industry in Arkansas’s gas fields. He’s heading a gas industry-financed committee to beat a proposed gas severance tax increase.

The overnight mail also brings a link to a news article from Johnson County, about complaints before the local Quorum Court about the environmental threat from a waste disposal well and the damage from heavy rigs that use county roads.

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PS — The frackers’ PR blitz is underway. The UA has announced a Monday press conference to announce a scholarship gift to the UA community college at Morrilton for students studying in the petroleum technology association program to work in the gas exploration business. For enough money, the UA will name the college after the frackers and direct faculty to do research illustrating the frackers’ essential goodness.

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