Have you noticed that every oil and gas drilling rig has an American flag anchored to the top? For most Americans, that flag represents freedom. So, it’s ironic that Ohio’s pro-fossil fuel Republicans in the General Assembly usurp many rights and freedoms from Ohio citizens while they cater to the oil and gas industry.

Exemptions from Regulations for Ohio’s Oil and Gas Industry The fossil fuel industry enjoys several freedoms and rights that many other industries do not. Because of the Haliburton laws, the oil and gas industry is exempt from most federal regulations, including the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and the Toxic Release Inventory under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act. In 1980, the Federal EPA acknowledged that the billions and billions of barrels of produced water from fracking wells is hazardous. However, the Federal EPA determined that it would be an economic burden for this industry to try to adhere to the laws. Therefore, “The Federal EPA exempted wastes from the federal laws written to protect the public from toxic waste.” In Ohio, these wastes are trucked up and down the roads of our rural communities to be injected into Class II injection wells.
Ohio’s Republican lawmakers have opened the state to fracking, allowing the industry to exploit every molecule of gas that lies beneath southeast Ohio counties. Countless laws have been passed to pave the way for fracking while thwarting renewable energy development ([HB 52],(https://farmoffice.osu.edu/blog-tags/senate-bill-52#:~:text=New%20powers%20in%20Senate%20Bill%2052.&text=The%20new%20law%20states%20that,facility%20or%20limit%20its%20size.) HB6 and HB483). Additionally, pro fossil fuel laws have attacked our freedoms, limiting free speech and public protests.
Ohio citizens, trying to protect their homes and rural communities from the horrendous externalities visited on them, have been essentially gagged by laws like SB 33, passed in 2021.

Fracking in Ohio’s State Parks A prime example of the power that fossil fuels wield over Ohio’s citizens was obvious in 2023 when HB 507 opened up the state’s parks to fracking. The bill was passed during the 2022 General Assembly lame duck session, and was quickly signed into law by Governor Mike DeWine. The bill set in motion the ability of out-of-state oil and gas companies to propose leases under state parks.

A puppet-like public participation process was carried out over the year with meetings in Columbus. Citizens were prohibited from asking questions or commenting. The public meeting on November 15, 2023 was a sad day for Ohio’s public lands. Democracy was fracked, and leasing was approved for several tracts of land, including all 20,000 acres of Salt Fork State Park.

The five-member Oil and Gas Land Management Commission ignored the nine criteria contained in the statue. They also ignored the vocal disagreement of over 100 informed, angry Ohio citizens and the peer-reviewed health and environmental studies in the over 5000 written comments submitted to them by Ohio citizens.

After that decision, many citizens were devastated and realized that ordinary freedoms we took for granted have been eroded away by an industry that controls the state legislature in Ohio. Southeast Ohio has become a mineral colony open for business, regardless of how that business ruins our communities.

Forced Pooling Takes Away Individual Rights Sadly, my family has learned that our precious forested property has been targeted by the industry for a forced pooling or mandatory unitization action. Ohio Revised Code § 1509.27 provides a mechanism to force Ohio landowners to participate in oil and gas development without their consent. Once again, this process favors industry profits over private property rights.

Forced pooling happens when “person who has obtained the consent of the owners of at least sixty-five per cent of the land area overlying a pool or a part of a pool submits an application for the operation as a unit of the entire pool or part of the pool to the chief of the division of oil and gas resources management.” (OHR)If approved, the application forces the remaining thirty-five percent of landowners to become part of the fracked unit.

The best way to describe this is by using a puzzle. Pieces of the puzzle represent various parcels of lands owned by different people. A drilling unit is a long, horizontal tract of land (rectangle drawn on that puzzle). If sixty-five percent of the puzzle pieces in that tract are agreeable to lease their land, then the other thirty-five percent who do not want to lease their land are forced into the process.

There are only three criteria that need to be met in order for the Chief of the Division of Oil and Gas at ODNR to approve a mandatory pooling application (see OHIO REV. CODE ANN. § 1509.27). They are: -Protecting correlative rights (those who have leased); -Providing for effective development and use; and -Promoting conservation of oil and gas. Concerns over environmental harms or health effects are not considered.

Since 2014, we have been repeatedly contacted by oil and gas landmen trying to get us to sign a lease. We have refused for many reasons including health, environmental damage, and climate change. Now we are being forced to do something that goes against everything we believe.

We are learning even more about this process as we dig deeper into legal documentation. If we do not sign a lease agreement for our land, we are considered a non-consenting owner. There have been many amendments to the original laws written in 1965. In 2010, amendments were added to prevent liability from attaching to nonparticipant owners. However, these amendments do not address one of the most critical aspects of the laws, the risk-penalty provision. Landowners subject to the order only have the choice between the following: (1) relent and become a participant in the drilling unit or (2) become a non-participating owner and pay a penalty of up to 200% of the reasonable costs and expenses of production.

This penalty is a way to encourage non-consenting owners to ultimately lease, and helps the well operators by shielding them from additional application fees and paperwork.

In a conversation I had with another landowner who was also force-pooled, we discovered that by refusing to sign a lease, we may relinquish the ability to write legal protections for our land. If we sign a lease, we can at least list the various stipulations that limit the drilling company from surface access to our land. This would prohibit pipeline construction, the use of hydrocarbon storage tanks on our land, and the drilling of injection wells to inject waste fluids.

Forced Pooling Options Basically, if we want to protect our property, we have no real options; we are forced to sign a lease. It is a horrible position for any Ohio citizen and legal property owner to be pushed into.

We built our eco-log home from salvaged forest-fire-killed trees; we have an 8.4kW solar system on our garage; and we have a new geothermal heating system. We have tried to reduce our carbon footprint as much as possible. Now, without our consent, our land will be fracked.

In 2018, I was honored to be selected as the Fractivist of the Year by a grassroots organization fighting fracking. In 2020, that same group gave me another award, the Passion for Justice award. Those plaques hang on my wall as a constant reminder of why I keep fighting unjust fossil fuel expansion.

Unfortunately, the fight to save our property will not be won. The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District leased 7300 acres around Tappan Lake to Encino Energy in June of 2022, which led to the mandatory pooling of our land where we built our home. We recently received the notification that our land is no longer truly ours, but instead is now part of Encino’s Akers HN FRA NE Unit.

Make no mistake, I am enraged by the fact that we, as property-owning citizens, have no rights to stop this heinous process. Encino’s monster horizontal laterals will snake under our land and steal our resources.

Despite their control of our state government, they cannot steal my resolve to continue speaking out against the harms of fossil fuels and the lack of democracy in Ohio’s government. Our state government needs to be reshaped so that it is truly “of the people, by the people, or for the people.”

Dr. Randi Pokladnik was born and raised in Ohio. She earned an associate degree in Environmental Engineering, a BA in Chemistry, MA and PhD in Environmental Studies. She is certified in hazardous materials regulations and holds a teaching license in science and math. She worked as a research chemist for National Steel Corporation for 12 years and taught secondary and post-secondary science and math classes for more than 20 years. Her research includes an analysis of organic farming regulations and environmental issues impacting the Appalachian region of Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia. She lives near Tappan Lake in an eco- log home that she and her husband built in 2001. Her hobbies include running, gardening, sewing and doing fun things with her granddaughters.