The oil and gas industry is continuing its land grab across Ohio. Their main goal is to get landowners to sign on the dotted line of a fracking lease. In return they promise countless economic gains.
They never mention the negative side of high pressure horizontal hydraulic fracturing: fracking. Countless peer reviewed studies have been published that paint a much different picture about what happens to rural communities who have opened their doors to this relatively new industrial process.
Some Ohio communities have been dealing with oil and gas fracking for several years. While a few people have become rich, the streets are not paved with gold. In fact, many roads are damaged from heavy truck traffic which has resulted in accidents and even some deaths.
Residents now contend with polluted water, air pollution, light pollution, noise pollution, and pipelines criss crossing forests, streams, and pastures. Diverse ecosystems are being destroyed. Communities are the dumping sites for radioactive fracking waste. Earthquakes, once rare in Ohio, are triggered by fracking.
Even catastrophic explosions have occurred like the recent well pad explosion in Belmont County in February. Then there is the fact that fracked gas is a fossil fuel and a greenhouse gas that is much more virulent than carbon dioxide.
Don’t count on regulations to protect you: there aren’t any. Don’t count on local, state or federal politicians to help you: many are too preoccupied padding their pockets with oil and gas contributions. You can only count on yourself and your neighbors. Just say no when that stranger comes knocking on your door. The short term economic gain will never restore the ruined land, air, and water.
Randi Pokladnik
Uhrichsville, Ohio
