What Should We Do about Natural Gas Drilling & Fracking?

[irishbobcat]

What Should We Do about Natural Gas Drilling & Fracking?
The Mahoning Valley Green Party of Ohio believes that despite the apparent short-term economic benefits, Marcellus Shale gas drilling will have a net negative economic and environmental impact for Ohio. We do not need these fossil fuels. We should instead be conserving energy, and developing clean, renewable energy sources, activities which if structured effectively can also create jobs and spur economic development.
The Mahoning Valley Green Party Calls For The Following:

Termination and prohibition of all natural gas drilling involving the use of chemical additives or fracking in the state of Ohio. Natural gas drillers must be required to comply with the Clean Water Act and must not be allowed to pump poisons in Ohio.

Drillers conformance to existing environmental laws should be vigorously enforced. Severe penalties should be placed on violations to ensure that all drill operations place a high value on protecting the environment and complying with the law.

Prohibition on any and all natural gas or other fossil fuel drilling on public lands. At the very least, no drilling should be allowed on public lands without the specific approval of the owners, i.e. the voters of Ohio, in a public referendum.

No drilling should be allowed without a water use and reclamation plan approved by both the state environmental agencies and the local communities whose water resources would be adversely impacted. Such a plan must make the drillers responsible for the costs, rather than allow them to externalize costs to the community, avoid adversely impacting aquifers, and require that fracking water be recovered from the drill site, cleaned, and reclaimed.

Promotion and investment instead in sustainable clean energy sources, e.g. solar and wind power.

The Green Party also supports the right of local communities to protect their local water systems from poisoning by drillers who frack by enacting local taxes and environmental ordinances. While the state believes their authority supersedes that of localities, the Green Party contends that power rests ultimately with the people in communities, who should in principle be free to enact local environmental protections more stringent than those enacted by the state, and that as a matter of self-defense, it is imperative that they do so. Local communities need to develop local ordinances governing what is and is not acceptable to them, and vigorously enforce the statutes they create.