Highland joins the towns of Tusten and Bethel to the north, and Lumberland to the south, to ban fracking within their borders. In February, two State Supreme Court judges, in separate decisions, upheld the rule that allows towns to pass fracking bans.
Some hunting club members in Highland opposed the ban, saying it robbed them of their mineral rights and their right to make money from their property.
But Supervisor Andy Boyar, a longtime member of one of the hunting clubs, said the clubs inherited their land from the previous generation, and were morally obliged to preserve them for the next. He said he was saddened and distressed that his support for the law had lost him some friends.
Several more beach homes have crashed into the ocean along North Carolina’s Outer Banks, littering the...
