
Frackfree Mahoning Valley
The ODNR has permitted a horizontal fracking well inside the environmentally-protected zone of the Meander Reservoir in Ohio's Mahoning Valley without consulting the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or the overseeing Mahoning Valley Sanitary District.
Today, activists with Frackfree Mahoning Valley protested this well site and formed a blockade at the entrance of the site, refusing to move. They arrived at 10:30 a.m. and after more than four hours of blockading the entrance, activists decided to peacefully resolve the blockade with no arrests or confrontations.
The goal of the protesters was to bring attention to this issue and with a great turnout from the local media, they have been successful.
One of the protesters John Bergen from Ohio said,“Yes, I am afraid, but I can no longer deny the urgency of stopping this—this toxic practice. There wasn't even an environmental impact assessment for this project. It's drill first, ask questions later.”
When asked what elected officials are doing, Allison Monroe from Ohio, replied, “State and federal government isn't protecting us, so we have to protect ourselves.”
Fracking contaminates ground and surface water. An internal industry report found that six percent of wells have leaks immediately upon completion. Fracking uses a secret blend of toxic chemicals to shatter rocks deep within the Earth. Those chemicals can contaminate the water through negligence and through mechanical failure. No matter the safety record of a company—in this case Console Energy—wells fail, and overtime all wells break, becoming sources for water contamination.
The Cadle fracking well site sits less than 100' from a stream—a direct tributary of the Meander Reservoir. The Ohio EPA is responsible for the environmentally protected zone. The ODNR should have consulted with the Ohio EPA before granting the permit for this well.
“What we are looking at is a clear and present danger to the public health, safety and welfare of the citizens of the Mahoning Valley,” said John Williams, resident of Niles, Ohio. “Once again the ODNR has decided to put the profit of corporations before the people. We are looking at a crisis of legitimacy for the State of Ohio right now. This well threatens to contaminate the Meander Reservoir with heavy metals, carcinogens and a host of toxic chemicals."
“What is especially troubling is that this is going forward. We are gathered here today because right now we have no other option to keep our families safe—we have to stop the construction,” Williams continued. “I guess if you asked me, that’s what I would say: that we’re here to keep our families and neighbors safe.”
This action comes just days before Youngstown City Council will decide whether or not to lease city lands for fracking.
And while a moratorium and stringent regulations on drilling and disposal of toxic fracking wastewater has been introduced in Ohio, many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are following Ohio Gov. Kasich's embrace of big oil exploitation as a “Godsend” for Ohio, despite having no other evidence besides the word of industry to make that claim.
National lawmakers are little help for struggling communities, while the federal FRACK Act continues to languish in committee. The Ohio General Assembly, for the most part, remains beholden to the gas industry. Bills that have been introduced that would tighten regulations have been stuck in committee for nearly a year. Most local governments have proven ineffective so far, as many local officials are pleading powerlessness to the State of Ohio.
Organizer Sam Rubin, said, “Direct action is currently justified and necessary. As the established mechanisms for institutional change continue to choose the dirty money and deceitful tales of the gasmen over our communities' health and safe drinking water we are forced into action—the question is not whether we will defend ourselves, but how.”
Take Action Now by calling on Youngstown officials to shut down the Meander well and not sell its mineral rights for fracking.
Visit EcoWatch’s FRACKING page for more related news on this topic.
Sweden's reindeer have a problem. In winter, they feed on lichens buried beneath the snow. But the climate crisis is making this difficult. Warmer temperatures mean moisture sometimes falls as rain instead of snow. When the air refreezes, a layer of ice forms between the reindeer and their meal, forcing them to wander further in search of ideal conditions. And sometimes, this means crossing busy roads.
- San Antonio, Texas Unveils Largest Highway Crossing for Wildlife in ... ›
- Wildlife Crossings a Huge Success - EcoWatch ›
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
Heatwaves are not just distinct to the land. A recent study found lakes are susceptible to temperature rise too, causing "lake heatwaves," The Independent reported.
- Climate Change Will Be Sudden and Cataclysmic Unless We Act Now ›
- There's a Heatwave at the Arctic 'Doomsday Vault' - EcoWatch ›
- Marine Heatwaves Destroy Ocean Ecosystems Like Wildfires ... ›
Trending
By Aaron W Hunter
A chance discovery of a beautifully preserved fossil in the desert landscape of Morocco has solved one of the great mysteries of biology and paleontology: how starfish evolved their arms.
The Pompeii of palaeontology. Aaron Hunter, Author provided
<h2></h2><p>Although starfish might appear very robust animals, they are typically made up of lots of hard parts attached by ligaments and soft tissue which, upon death, quickly degrade. This means we rely on places like the Fezouata formations to provide snapshots of their evolution.</p><p>The starfish fossil record is patchy, especially at the critical time when many of these animal groups first appeared. Sorting out how each of the various types of ancient starfish relate to each other is like putting a puzzle together when many of the parts are missing.</p><h2>The Oldest Starfish</h2><p><em><a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/216101v1.full.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Cantabrigiaster</a></em> is the most primitive starfish-like animal to be discovered in the fossil record. It was discovered in 2003, but it has taken over 17 years to work out its true significance.</p><p>What makes <em>Cantabrigiaster</em> unique is that it lacks almost all the characteristics we find in brittle stars and starfish.</p><p>Starfish and brittle stars belong to the family Asterozoa. Their ancestors, the Somasteroids were especially fragile - before <em>Cantabrigiaster</em> we only had a handful of specimens. The celebrated Moroccan paleontologist Mohamed <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2016.06.041" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Ben Moula</a> and his local team was instrumental in discovering <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031018216302334?via%3Dihub" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">these amazing fossils</a> near the town of Zagora, in Morocco.</p><h2>The Breakthrough</h2><p>Our breakthrough moment came when I compared the arms of <em>Cantabrigiaster</em> with those of modern sea lilles, filter feeders with long feathery arms that tend to be attached to the sea floor by a stem or stalk.</p><p>The striking similarity between these modern filter feeders and the ancient starfish led our team from the University of Cambridge and Harvard University to create a new analysis. We applied a biological model to the features of all the current early Asterozoa fossils in existence, along with a sample of their closest relatives.</p>Cantabrigiaster is the most primitive starfish-like animal to be discovered in the fossil record. Aaron Hunter, Author provided
<p>Our results demonstrate <em>Cantabrigiaster</em> is the most primitive of all the Asterozoa, and most likely evolved from ancient animals called crinoids that lived 250 million years before dinosaurs. The five arms of starfish are a relic left over from these ancestors. In the case of <em>Cantabrigiaster</em>, and its starfish descendants, it evolved by flipping upside-down so its arms are face down on the sediment to feed.</p><p>Although we sampled a relatively small numbers of those ancestors, one of the unexpected outcomes was it provided an idea of how they could be related to each other. Paleontologists studying echinoderms are often lost in detail as all the different groups are so radically different from each other, so it is hard to tell which evolved first.</p>President Joe Biden officially took office Wednesday, and immediately set to work reversing some of former President Donald Trump's environmental policies.
- Biden Reaffirms Commitment to Rejoining Paris Agreement ... ›
- Biden Likely Plans to Cancel Keystone XL Pipeline on Day One ... ›
- Joe Biden Appoints Climate Crisis Team - EcoWatch ›
In many schools, the study of climate change is limited to the science. But at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, students in one class also learn how to take climate action.