A contingent of advocates from across Ohio again sent a letter to Gov. Mike DeWine on Monday asking that he put a pause on new nominations, bids or leases to frack under state public lands.
Cathy Cowan Becker, Jenny Morgan and three other women with Save Ohio Parks—including one who wore a mask of DeWine’s face and talked in “gangster” slang—came to Columbus to leave the letter with DeWine’s office. In it, they argue drilling practices are unsafe and that Ohio is unprepared for a more major accident.
“The risks outweigh any financial benefits that can come from this,” Morgan said in an interview.
Their letter, cosigned by Sierra Club Ohio and Sunrise Columbus, among others, focuses on a January explosion at a Gulfport Appalachia well pad site. The explosion was minutes away from Salt Fork State Park, which has hundreds of acres being bid on for further drilling.
“That was an extremely serious accident,” Cowan Becker said in an interview. “There was a fire with flames 100 feet in the air and a huge plume of toxic smoke that went for 18 hours.”
Rep. Tristan Rader (D-Lakewood), a freshman lawmaker who came by to talk with Cowan Becker and Morgan on Monday, said he’s against fracking altogether and plans to push for methane regulations this session.
“At the very least, if they're going to do it, we want to make sure that all the rules are being followed,” Rader said in an interview.
The GOP-majority General Assembly, however, likely won’t change course anytime soon.
In December, lawmakers added fracking provisions to a once-bipartisan bill adding natural gas and nuclear reactions to the state’s definition of “green” energy. Standard lease terms to drill under state parks and public lands were three years, but this extended the standard contract offered to five.
Just two days before that vote, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Oil and Gas Land Management Commission allowed more acreage in Salt Fork to go for bidding, at the protest of Save Ohio Parks. Almost all of the submitted comments, 98%, were against the commission vote.
DeWine signed the bill with the standard lease term extension, which goes into effect in March. DeWine has not sat down with anyone from Save Ohio Parks yet, Cowan Becker said.
