Help me, internet, you're my only hope
Last year, my local college Lakeland Community College was approached by several oil and gas companies courting them for the rights to dig natural gas wells on their campus. John D. Oil and Gas Company won the bid to dig five natural gas oil wells on the campus. ("LCC was the first college in Ohio to be founded by a vote of the people." yet we, the people and students had no say in the matter.) One of the primary investors and the leader of the board of trustees for Lakeland Community College was one of the Holden Family, big environmentalists in the area. (They created and oversee the Holden Arboretum.) When I spoke to Mike Mayher about the wells he assured me that John D. Oil and Gas Company was being as environmentally responsible as possible that they were using new tools and "wet drilling" technology to invoke as little disturbance to the environment as possible.
Today, (12/13/08) I went to a meeting today headed by NEOGAP a local group tied to OGAP (Oil and Gas Accountability Project) among the many people who showed up to the event were three graduate students from MIT, who have founded a group called extrACT, and came to Lakeland Community College from the south in Texas and New Mexico as well as Colorado where this kind of business is already happening. What I heard at this meeting was disheartening at best. Natural gas wells like the ones on Lakeland's campus have been popping up all over Ohio, some without any permission, with few if any royalties being paid to the land owners whom have the well on their properties. A week ago, Neogap was involved in a meeting at a Unitarian Church where a spokeswoman from OOGEEP (Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program)claimed that the drilling processes used throughout Ohio were environmentally safe and sound, the stuff used to perform this drilling is mostly soil and sand and 1% Mystery Substance. I was not at the meeting myself, but Nick O'Neal, an employee of the Lake Metroparks was and he said the woman claimed that the mystery substance was "also in diapers" and so obviously MUST be safe.
A lot of these sites have the bulk of the information and they definitely know more than I do but here is how it all runs down: A state, in this case Ohio, "deregulates" oil and gas drilling within the confines of its state removing the rights of local governments to decide where drilling can and cannot happen in their communities giving that power to a new branch of government. In our case, that branch was a sub office of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the Minerals division. (House Bill 278) Natural Gas oil wells begin popping up all over the state with little or no consideration for their location and bypassing and ignoring all local laws regulating them. (Especially laws that keep them from digging near where children play) People are then forced, via mandatory polling, to have wells dug on there property even if they do not agree to it because the rest of the community does. Frank Skalla was one of the men who spoke to us at this meeting, he is part of a non-profit organization called LOGS (Love Our Green Spaces) recently a city park in Highland Heights was targeted by Bass Energy for a natural gas well, and the community in Highland Heights revolted against the drilling. The petitioned the city to slow down the process then started a charter amendment to protect the city park. Contained within that amendment was specific wording that protected the city parks and other green places from commercial interests. The people of Highland Heights voted overwhelmingly for the amendment and stopped the drilling, now, Bass Energy is suing the city of Highland Heights.
Ohio is now one of the least regulated states in regards to Natural Gas and Oil drilling. The MIT Group, extrACT is supported by MIT's Center For Future Civic Media and they will soon be implementing new tools to help local areas chart and report dealings with oil and gas companies, as well as health and illness outbreaks in areas where wells are pre-existing (the ODNR (Ohio Department of Natural Resources) refuses to, and does not report on illnesses or incidents.) These tolls will include Landman Report Card (It will probably be renamed something else here for Ohio as Landmen is mostly a southern term that we do not have up here) which is basically a review site, kind of like rotten tomatoes, but for oil and gas businesses so users can write about their experiences with these companies and write up and report issues with these companies for others to view. Also, a Drill Well program, which will be using something like google maps to chart where oil wells are as land owners are not obligated to inform you if you have a well on your property when you rent or lease land from them. (Also, the EPA is forbidden from getting onvolved in this at all, as there is a special law that excludes oil and gas companies from the Clean Air and Clean Water acts) Once these sites go up online I will be updating this entry with the relevant information. Please, if you live in the greater NE Ohio area, or if you are an environmentalist at all, spread the word. We need people to contact Senator Tim Grendell who is sympathetic to the works of the environmental organizations like OGAP, NEOGAP and extrACT who are speaking out against this and needs your letters. I am also looking for information on Norbert Lauder and and Tom Kneehouse who both seem to be involved in this matter in some manner according to speculation.
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