“Ohio has already been designated as the sacrifice zone for fracking”

Most Ohioans have no idea of the destruction of the states’ clean air and water taking place right now in the Southeast part of the state in which the extreme energy extraction method of horizontal hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is taking place and has been for over five years. Once the huge pipeline infrastructure like Energy Transfer’s Rover pipeline and the Williams/Spectra Nexus pipeline are in commission, fracking will take off even more. The pipelines themselves threaten our drinking water and clear cut our forests, spoiling agricultural land and polluting the air with their compressor stations. The pipelines steal private property through the use of eminent domain and threats and false promises made to landowners. Ohio has already been designated as the sacrifice zone for fracking and its toxic, radioactive waste, with Ohio land fills and injection wells solving the industry’s biggest problem on the cheap. It is becoming widely documented of the environmental damage and health impacts of fracking, with a recent study showing an increase in infant mortality likely due to water polluted by fracking with an addition 50 infant deaths as a result (http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/2988876/fracking_kills_newborn_babies_polluted_water_likely_cause.html). The pipelines will cause even more death and destruction.

A climate bus leaves from NW Ohio in Bluffton this Friday at 8 p.m. (for tickets click) for the Peoples’ Climate March in Washington D.C..  We have many reasons to march for the climate and against extreme energy extraction.  When Rover ramps up, Ohio’s clean air and water will be sacrificed for fracking. When the LLC’s take their spoils and leave, Ohio taxpayers will be on the hook to clean up the mess, if even possible. Accompanying this article is a picture of Rover taken on April 25 with directional drilling going on under the Maumee River – threatening our drinking water. Rover has already spilled over 2 million gallons of toxic drilling fluids into Ohio wetlands (http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2017/04/19/rover-pipeline-spills-more-than-2-million-gallons-of-drilling-fluid-in-ohio-wetlands-one-month-after-construction-began).The destruction of Ohio’s environment and future economy has been taking place for awhile, and will be even more so soon. With Nexus and Rover giving frack gas access to higher-priced export markets, it will be a fracking free for all with Ohio’s cheap disposal of frack waste for in-state and out of state drillers compounding the pollution and destruction. The harms of fracking are well known and documented – and yet, our legislators, regulators and Governor Kasich look the other way. We will pay dearly for what the multi-national investor community with corporate complicity purchased through campaign contributions is doing to us to reap short-term gain at our long-term pain!  Anyone who cares about their children and grandchildren should be outraged. If you can’t be in Washington DC to march for the climate – do something – anything – to get involved. There’s much more at stake, especially here in Ohio, than most people realize, and that’s what the frackers count on to get away with destroying our clean air and water and children’s futures!