Gas Money

Last week, many news agencies reported on the EPA's conclusion that contamination of water wells around the town of Pavillion, WY was the result of natural gas drilling. The contaminants recovered from the aquifer included an assortment of carbon-based compounds, among them the carcinogens benzene, phenol, formadlehyde, and 2-butoxyethanol. These and hundreds of other chemicals are known to be used where gas extraction is accomplished using horizontal drilling and hydraulical fracturing – the two procedures commonly and simply referred to as “fracking”. Fracking had been done extensively in the Pavillion area for over a decade and, indeed, local residents had been complaining of smelly, oddly-colored water for about as long. They are not alone. According to the nonpartisan, nonprofit advocacy group Common Cause, at least 1000 complaints of water contamination connected to fracking have been reported across the country from the Rocky Mountains to our neighbors in Pennsylvania (most famously around the town of Dimock, PA). The industry continues to reject concerns and fight allegations with a substantial PR campaign and lobbying effort estimated to have cost the industry $747 million over the past ten years, with over $20 million of that going to current members of congress from both parties.

Their expenditures have paid off … for the gas industry. With tens of thousands of wells across the country the industry has been exempt from much regulation, including parts of the Clean Water Act, and to date no independent and comprehensive study of the safety of fracking has been conducted.

Meanwhile in Ohio, as gas lease brokers, with the lure of fast easy money, descend on rural areas across the state, two bills that advocate precaution are stalled in the Ohio state legislature. HR bill 345 and Senate bill 213 are easy to understand: pause natural gas extraction by fracking in the state until the EPA concludes a study – the first of its kind - on the safety of fracking with regard to water resources. (This study is expected to be done by 2014). Then require the ODNR to alter Ohio's regulation and oversight of fracking to address the safety concerns identified by the EPA's research.

Simple and common sense right? It's like making sure your kid knows how to drive before handing them the keys. I'm not sure our state politicians think that protecting the state's water resources is of particular importance, requiring urgent passage of these bills. Instead I've heard grumblings by many proponents of the moratorium that the bills will be killed in committee.

To contrast, let's look to Nebraska, where, over the course of weeks, republican governor Dave Heineman, with a unanimous bipartisan vote from the legislature, took control of the proposed TransCanada tar sands oil pipeline (the Keystone XL pipeline), re-routing its Nebraska pathway to avoid the Ogallala aquifer – a major source of water for that and surrounding states. While admittedly I'm no fan of the XL pipeline, I applaud the Nebraska state government for their recognition of the importance of ground water to the residents of that state and their quick action to protect it.

No one likes to believe that their representatives in government, especially state government, would hold moneyed interests above those of their ordinary constituents. That's why I am ignoring the report and accompanying impressive spread sheet called Deep Drilling, Deep Pockets, published last month by Common Cause, showing state leaders and committees received over $2.8 million in gas industry money over the past ten years. At the top of that list was the Ohio House Republican Organizational Committee ($95,500), the Republican Senate Campaign Committee ($114, 750), and Governor Kasich ($213,519). (To be fair, Ted Strickland was #4).

Instead, I'm going to urge law-makers to apply common sense precaution and pass the bill to impose a moratorium on fracking until we know how it can be done safely. Other states have done it – New York, Maryland, even New Jersey.

Utilizing domestic, even local, energy resources should be a priority for the country and the state. But it's foolish - even unpatriotic - to destroy our drinking water in the pursuit of a buck. And with this last sentence I'm talking to everyone from federal and state politicians to my neighbors signing gas leases.