Guest Editorial: Ohio does not need "fracking"

Posted by Desmond Strooh 

Ohio is bracing itself for a significant increase in drilling operations across the state. Much is yet unknown, because the EPA report on the topic is not due out until 2014.

What we do know right now is that drilling is unnecessary, unwanted and unsafe.

Drilling is unnecessary: If over 99 percent of Ohio is drillable, we do not need to open state lands to drilling.

The state estimates that it owns less than one third of the mineral rights under state parks. The promised revenues are simply not realistic.

Drilling is unwanted: According to the Columbus Dispatch, most Ohioans do not want drilling in their state parks. The drilling legislation actually burdens state agencies and requires them to try to create "drillable parcels" out of land parcels that are currently unqualified for drilling.

Drilling is unsafe: We've heard that this process is completely safe but people all over the continent are taking a step back: New York is trying to stop drilling in the Delaware River basin.

Pennsylvania and Colorado have fined drilling corporations for contamination of water. Texas had to fight a drilling operation fire in a state park. The fire lasted 15 days.

States and provinces are considering moratoriums on drilling.

What are we doing here? If you don't have a lot of resources, you shouldn't gamble away the ones you do have. Opening our state parks to drilling is simply too great a gamble.

Copyright 2011 WTOL. All rights reserved.

Energy industry shapes lessons in public schools

Eager to burnish its reputation, the energy industry is spending significant sums of money on education in communities with sensitive coal, natural gas and oil exploration projects. The industry aims to teach students about its contributions to local economies and counter criticism from environmental groups.

These outreach efforts have drawn scrutiny after news in May that Scholastic, the world’s largest publisher of children’s books, distributed fourth-grade curriculum materials funded by the American Coal Foundation. The “United States of Energy” lesson plan, which the foundation paid $300,000 to develop, went to 66,000 fourth-grade teachers in 2009. After critics raised questions about potential bias, Scholastic announced that it will no longer publish the material in question.

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