Fracking and its infrastructure is not safe. It doesn't belong anywhere but it is particularly dangerous when it is located nearby. It is linked to premature births, low birth weight, problem pregnancies, admissions to local emergency rooms for cardiac incidents, childhood asthma and a host of other medical conditions. Fracking has also been linked to groundwater contamination, air pollution, and methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas. Accidents at drill sites can have catastrophic consequences and evacuation zones extend beyond the half mile separating the Geyer well and the Mars Campus (and certainly the 700 feet from the Kozic Brothers well to Summit Elementary); putting children and their teachers at risk is not acceptable.
Communities in Butler County have, for too long, been subjected to industry malpractice, governmental negligence and collusion, and unneighborly acts of aggression by leaseholders who assert rights to "improve" property while endangering people nearby.
Drilling needs to stop. The short and sordid history of shale extraction in Butler County shows that it is too dangerous, its practitioners too reckless, and government oversight inadequate to nonexistent.
We, the undersigned, demand that Rex and other drilling companies, the Butler County Commissioners, leaseholders (including Commissioner-elect Kim Geyer), other local government officials, our representatives in State and Federal government act to protect our communities and vulnerable children, restore water to the Woodlands, stop drilling and give more than lip service to the concept of neighborliness. We further demand an investment in "green" technologies and conservation measures.
