 |
|
|
|
Press Releases
|
Monday, 27 February 2012 |
|
Nathan Johnson
Staff Attorney
Buckeye Forest Council
Testimony on “Natural Gas – America’s New Energy
Opportunity: Creating Jobs, Energy and Community Growth”
February 27, 2012
Chairman
Lamborn, Ranking Member Holt, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you and
good morning.
My name is Nathan Johnson. I am the staff attorney for the Buckeye
Forest Council, a 501(c)(3) public interest organization. I speak on behalf of Buckeye Forest Council
today. The Buckeye Forest Council (BFC)
is a membership-based, grassroots organization dedicated to protecting Ohio’s
native forests and their inhabitants. We
seek to instill in Ohioans a sense of personal connection to and responsibility
for Ohio's native forests and to challenge the exploitation of land, wildlife
and people.
I am here today to remark on the
need for adequate analysis of deep shale development on Ohio’s public lands and
for adequate health and environmental safety standards regarding the same. Ohioans want jobs, but we want healthy
families and a clean environment, too.
There is nothing incompatible about jobs and adequate protection.
However,
Ohio currently lacks adequate health and safety standards to protect the public
and our land from the potential water, soil, and air pollution generated by a
rapidly growing shale industry in the state.
For example, Ohio law does not require any pre-drilling water testing or
water monitoring requirements in rural areas.
Ohio law allows shale gas drilling sites to store toxic wastewater in
open pits with no fencing. These pits
attract and kill wildlife, including large numbers of bats and birds. Nothing in Ohio law prevents the burial of
contaminated drill cuttings on site, and Ohio law allows highly toxic oil and
gas field waste to be spread on community roads for dust and ice control.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Thursday, 10 November 2011 |
|
Is Hazardous Fracking Wastewater Being
Sprayed On Your Community Roadways?
Through
BFC public records requests, we now have a comprehensive list of all Ohio
political subdivisions (counties, cities, towns, and townships) that spray
fracking brine on their roadways.
Please visit the link below to see if your community is on the list.
Political
Subdivision Brine Applications:
http://bit.ly/Atg9xh
Note that the second tab of this document also contains the complete list of localities that allow private
companies to spray brine on their roadways. The information contained in this second list is additional to, and
not contained in, the first political subdivisions tab.
Section
1509.226 of the Ohio Revised Code allows political subdivisions to authorize
brine spraying on local roads for dust and ice control purposes. However, under ORC Section 1509.226,
political subdivisions must pass an authorizing resolution before any brine
spraying can occur. We strongly
encourage concerned citizens to press their local governing bodies to repeal
any brine application resolutions that are currently on the books.
###
|
|
|
Monday, 03 October 2011 |
|
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
October
3, 2011
Contact:
Nathan
Johnson, 614-949-6622 - nathan@buckeyeforestcouncil.org
Heather Cantino, 740-594-3338, heather.cantino@gmail.com
BLM Planning To
Lease Wayne National Forest For Oil And Gas Drilling
ATHENS,
OHIO – The Bureau of Land Management plans to lease 3,302 acres of the Wayne
National Forest for oil and gas development.
The BLM will be auctioning off five parcels of the Wayne on December 7,
2011 at their offices in Springfield, Virginia.
For those wishing to protest the sales, formal protest letters must be
faxed to the BLM office at
(703) 440-1551
by close of business on Friday, October
7.
BLM
documents show that three of the five parcels, totaling 2623 acres, are in
Athens County along the Hocking River and closeby tributaries. Another, in
Perry County, is over 528 acres and one in Gallia County about 151 acres. The Athens County and Perry County parcels sit
atop the Utica shale, which the oil and gas industry is currently developing
using high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.”
Government
officials, local residents and community organizations are concerned that
fracking on the Wayne along the Hocking River could result in significant
environmental damage to the local water supplies as well as the forest itself. “The aquifer that feeds Athens, the Burr Oak
Water District, and the Le-Ax Water District appears to underlie several of the
parcels,” said Heather Cantino, Athens City resident and Board Chair of the Buckeye
Forest Council. “Local officials and residents
are concerned that water withdrawals of millions of gallons of water per well from
the Hocking and our aquifer and pollution from spills, leaks, and chemical
injections will threaten our drinking water. Our cities do not have the
resources to monitor or remediate radioactive and toxic pollution,” Cantino added.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
| << Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next > End >>
| | Results 1 - 3 of 31 |
|
|
|
