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Munson man wants fracking stopped
(by Joseph Koziol Jr. - November 23, 2011)
Munson man wants fracking stopped
By JOSEPH KOZIOL JR.
Munson Township resident George Collins said he is looking for a reasonably priced attorney. If he finds one, he said, he may be able to save Geauga County and the rest of the country, he said.
"If you happen to be worried about the future of this planet, it's important," Mr. Collins said.
Mr. Collins, who has taught theoretical astrophysics for nearly a half-century, appeared before Munson Township Trustees last week to detail his plans for stopping the flow of waste from hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as fracking, from coming into the state and potentially contaminating ground water.
Fracking involves drilling vertically into the earth, then horizontally and injecting water infused with sand and chemicals at high pressure into shale formations to unlock reservoirs of natural gas. The first operation in Geauga County has been planned on Newcomb Road in Parkman Township.
Mr. Collins said he is most concerned with the waste product from the process, which is often laced with such carcinogenic elements as uranium and thorium. He said he checked with a local water treatment company, which told him there is not an available process to remove such radioactive elements.
"I'm very concerned about the storage of those wastes," Mr. Collins said.
He said he hopes to find an attorney willing to work cheap to file a case in federal court to stop the waste from being injected into abandoned gas wells in the area. If the ground water is contaminated, he said, it will be little more than two years before the pollution reaches Lake Erie.
"If it's done badly, it could screw up Lake Erie and violate our treaty with Canada," Mr. Collins said.
Contaminating the lake, which rivers from the upper one-third of Ohio drain into, would disrupt water supplies for cities in Canada and the United States, he said. "If we screw up Lake Erie, the Canadians will not be pleased."
If he can file the lawsuit, he said, he is hopeful that federal prosecutors will intervene and handle the case to protect the treaty between the two countries. That treaty could be used as leverage against the state's policy of allowing fracking waste to be brought in from other states and dumped in Ohio. "Federal treaties take precedent over state law," he said.
He said the state has little incentive to stop the practice on its own because of the money involved. He said the state receives $1,000 for every truckload brought into the state. Now, he said, it is starting to be brought in on trains in tank cars. "There's a lot of money involved," he said.
Two injection wells are already operating in Geauga County in Hambden and Montville townships, he said, but the state lacks sufficient numbers of inspectors to ensure the processes are being handled safely.
He said, if the state follows through on its pledge to allow drilling in state parks, Punderson State Park in Newbury Township could be on the list. Because an outlet from Lake Punderson flows into the Cuyahoga River watershed, he said, there is a risk of polluting the water source for cities such as Akron.
He said some of the waste has even been injected into dry water wells in Southeast Ohio. "I can't think of any way to get it into the water supply faster," Mr. Collins said.
"I see it as a major problem for the entire state," he said.
He said much of the fracking process has been exempted from the U.S. Clean Water and Clean Air acts.
"If I wrote the laws, I would have them recycle it," Mr. Collins said. "Since that's not going to happen, I ask just don't export it to us, please."
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