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The chief of public utilities in Richmond is warning City Council members against going along with a proposal to ban hydraulic fracturing within the city of Richmond.

Department of Public Utilities Director Robert Steidel said he doesn’t want to preserve fracking as a default permitted use in city industrial districts because he thinks there’s any gas or oil to be mined under the city — there is not, he said, citing state geological surveys.

Instead, he said he was concerned adopting a ban would send a message to the city’s gas customers that the product it sells is produced in an unsafe and undesirable way.

“It would put doubt into peoples’ mind that natural gas is a good product to buy,” Steidel said. “The language states that the way we all get our gas is controversial and we don’t want it done in the city.”

Councilman Parker Agelasto, who proposed the ban, was unmoved by Steidel’s concern.

“The issue shouldn’t be whether the practice is good or bad. It’s a matter of whether we want it in Richmond,” he said. “I like bacon, but if I think hog slaughterhouses shouldn’t be in Richmond, well, I can still eat my bacon.”