Athens County has the highest percentage of impoverished residents in Ohio. Without counting students, 21 percent live below the poverty level in the county and 23 percent in the city. Unemployment this past August was 6.1 percent, which was higher than the state’s unemployment level of 5.3 percent. Want to help these residents? If yes, then vote against the anti-fracking ballot, Issue No. 7, the so-called “Save Our Water” initiative.
Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, has been found to be a safe form of extracting natural gas and oil.
In a study funded by the National Science Foundation and Duke University, and published by the National Academy of Sciences this past September, researchers from OSU, Duke, Stanford, Dartmouth and the University of Rochester found that when properly conducted, no groundwater or aquifer pollution was caused by fracking. They examined 130 wells and found seepage in only eight cases. This was due to faulty well construction or cementing as opposed to fracking itself. As noted by the researchers, these problems can be avoided by improving construction standards for cement well linings and casings.
The EPA has found no link between fracking and water contamination in three separate studies. Also, the DOE released its study this past September. It showed fracking was not harming drinking water supplies in the Marcellus Shale region. This is the second time the DOE has found no evidence of drinking water contamination. Its 2013 study of Pennsylvania gas wells found no evidence of drinking water contamination as a result of fracking. This conclusion was based on a year of monitoring the wells by injecting special tracers into fracking fluid to see if any chemicals migrated up toward drinking water.
Little wonder that President Obama’s former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told Congress that she was “not aware of any proven case where the fracking process has affected water.” Other former Obama administrators — Steven Chu, former secretary of energy, and Ken Salazar, former secretary of interior — share this view. It is worth noting that fracking has been going on since 1947. Since then there have been over a million instances of fracking in the USA without any serious harm. It does not result in burning tap water or cause earthquakes or endanger birds and wildlife (unlike wind turbines).
How, then, can fracking deal with the problem of poverty and unemployment in Athens? Simple — job creation and well-paying jobs. For example, a study conducted by the University of Illinois-Chicago found that the Marcellus Shale formation, which includes Ohio, created over 45,000 jobs. Marietta has experienced an economic boom with its median household increasing more than 20 percent in one year to a 2013 estimate of $40,286, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Marietta car dealer, Jim Cobb, says customers are coming in and buying a $60,000 truck and paying cash for it.
In short, Issue 7, Save Our Water, is not only unnecessary, it is harmful to the impoverished, to those who have lost their jobs because of the war on coal and cheap energy, and to the poor rural farmers unable to tap the Marcellus Shale riches beneath their land, as has occurred in New York. Therefore, vote no on Issue No. 7.
Thomas Oellerich is an Associate Professor at Ohio University and retired Chairman of the Department of Social Work.
