“Drill, Baby, Drill” is Still the Wrong Mantra

We’re losing vast amounts of water.  So, what are we getting for this extravagant expenditure of our most vital resource? The fact is, we’re getting an increasingly smaller and smaller amount of product out of the ground despite using up ever more water to get that product. 

Is this a bargain we are willing to make—to jeopardize the future of our children and grandchildren? How will they live in an Ohio that is running out of safe drinking water? It’s thought that cities like Phoenix may become unlivable in the lifetimes of many of us. Do we really think Ohio towns and cities can escape this fate if we keep using water the way we do? And if we are left with water that is polluted and undrinkable, what good is that?

Advocates for water protection have reminded us that “We can’t drink oil.”  Most Ohioans get their drinking water from the ground, ground which is increasingly being filled with oil and gas drilling waste that is injected into Class II disposal wells. We know that once injected, this toxic and radioactive waste is not going to remain in one discreet zone. As one geologist in Cleveland stated, “Fluids injected this way migrate all over the place.”  

We need look no farther than Athens, Ohio where ODNR was finally compelled to shut down several injection wells that were leaking into production wells a couple miles away. The implications for water wells are obvious, though ODNR seems more motivated to protect the oil and gas industry than Ohio families.

With an incoming federal administration of the “Drill, Baby, Drill” philosophy, what can we do to protect Ohio’s most valuable resource – our fresh water? Resistance, of course! But how? In what form?

The first step is to better educate the public about this threat.  

The public needs to learn about the fossil fuel extraction technology that is threatening them, and they need to understand how high the stakes are. The public must also be much better educated on how the entire Politician-Industry money-influence complex operates in Ohio and beyond.  

Money from the oil and gas industry is used to buy the politicians that will do the industry’s bidding, including preventing regulatory agencies from properly regulating. Politicians also maintain gerrymandered districts to help keep themselves in power and prevent any turn of government toward the interests of the health and safety of Ohio families.

You think I’m exaggerating?  Have you ever attended an ODNR public comment event? What is supposed to be a public hearing has been turned into a controlled farce where the public is divided up and only allowed to speak in quiet tones to a bureaucrat one on one!  This is NOT democracy!

Our water will not be safe, nor will our health, safety, or sustainability be assured unless we get to the roots of the problem—money controlling public policy and politicians choosing their voters in gerrymandered districts rather than voters choosing their public officials and legislators.

So, our resistance will consist of educating, inspiring, organizing, and acting in massive numbers that cannot be ignored. 

Vive la Résistance:  NEVER GIVE UP. There is a powerful history within these words. I hope they embolden us all to stand up for what we believe, fight for the world we want and do so with love, joy, and courage!