Seismic Threat
I was beside myself on reading the news that seismic testing trucks surveyed the western edge of Geauga county for oil and gas reserves along route 306 last Sunday morning, apparently without alerting locals, township trustees, or even the police chief. Granted, this type of testing has happened before in the county, along Auburn Road this past September, for example. But there is an audacity that has accompanied this shale drilling frenzy that never ceases to shock me.
The truth is: Locals just don't matter.
We repeatedly hear how our country is so deeply divided between right and left. But here, rolling slowly down our streets and peering through the ground beneath our houses, is the perfect unifying force. No matter your political leanings, your enemy is in your midst.
For the right, the enemy is the 'nanny state” in Columbus, which removed local decision-making from the shale drilling process with the passage of H.B 278 in 2004. Laws since adopted by state officials to regulate drilling will have to suffice for you and me. Bureaucrats in Columbus say that 50 feet is far enough away from your favorite fishing or swimming hole to extract oil and gas. Columbus has decided that 150 feet is enough of a buffer between the your house or your child's school and the drill rigs, gas pipe, diesel engines, and retention ponds. And they've also decided that you don't need to know each and every chemical used in the extraction process. Beyond your decision to lease your mineral rights, you need not worry about taking personal responsibility for yourself, your land, your neighbor, your community. Just sit back; Big Government will take care of everything from here.
For the left, we have the perfect nemesis: An arm of the fossil fuel industry that subverts democracy at every turn by paying off politicians to gain favorable legislation, by funding junk science that concludes their processes are safe (as recently reported), by spreading misinformation about their safety record and silencing victims and witnesses of their calamities with gag orders and legal threats.
Of course, the politicians and the industry are united by money and favor.
And so, we Geauga residents, no matter our political persuasion, are united by what we stand to lose:
The freedom to live in a cherished place of our own making.
So far I've seen mostly complacency from my neighbors. We should be following the lead of Cincinnati and Mansfield, Longmont, CO and Pittsburgh, PA and the growing number of other places where locals are coming together to retake control of their rights, resources, and destinies by passing legislation – under threat of lawsuits from both their state and the industry - to regulate drilling in their communities as local residents see fit.
Can we come together as a community and decide what's best for ourselves? I've reserved the Log Cabin on Chardon Square - 7 PM on Tuesday, December 18. Anyone motivated to come with constructive ideas, proposed solutions, and New Year resolutions, please meet me there, at our county seat of public representation.
And / or contact me at my new email: citizens.uniting@gmail.com
Steve Corso
Claridon Township
