Will the Ohio Department of Natural Resources approve a permit application for a coal mining operation in Carroll County, Ohio, to be done by the same corporate complex responsible for the recent, massive water pollution in West Virginia?
As reported by Bob Downing in the Akron Beacon Journal on Feb. 12, Rosebud Mining, the company applying for the permit, is owned by J. Clifford Forrest of Kittanning, Pa., who also owns Chemstream Holdings, Inc., which owns Freedom Industries, whose facilities caused the toxic leak that rendered the water of 300,000 West Virginians unusable. Rosebud itself, in other mining operations, has had 26 violations over the past two years, and Freedom Industries, already $3.6 million in debt from failure to pay federal taxes and Bureau of Workman’s Compensation bills, has now declared bankruptcy to protect itself from 25 lawsuits that have been filed against it from the West Virginian spill. (More details can be found in the letter submitted to ODNR by Richard Sahli, attorney for Carroll Concerned Citizens, at www.acfan.org; scroll down to “the still unfolding WV Elk River spill tragedy…” and click on “letter.”) That record does not suggest Rosebud’s mining operations can be trusted to protect the water supply of Carroll County, or that the company would have the resources to remediate a pollution problem it might cause. ODNR Director James Zehringer’s boss, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, might be able to exert some influence here.
The Ohio Supreme Court is currently hearing a case in which the people of Munroe Falls, Ohio, are claiming the right to enforce their own local zoning laws, which regulate drilling in residential neighborhoods, to protect themselves from fracking by Beck Energy Co. in people’s yards (The Dispatch, Feb. 27). Athens city voters will have the chance to approve their own local fracking ban on the November ballot.
By handing to ODNR sole authority for permitting mining and drilling, our legislators at both the state and federal levels have forsaken the people in favor of their corporate benefactors. J. Clifford Forrest maxed out his contributions to Rep. Bill Johnson, who represents Carroll County in Washington, and contributed to John Boehner and to Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia (BillMoyers.com, Jan. 24).
Without reversing the 2010 Citizens United decision of the U.S. Supreme Court and imposing restrictions on campaign spending in elections, legislatures and other government agencies will continue to support corporate bottom lines over life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of the people they are elected to serve.
John Howell is an associate professor of physiology emeritus from Ohio University.
