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Activists Blast Water Sale at Commissioners Hearing
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Mahoning County commissioners got an earful Thursday from two environmental activists, one of whom criticized both local officials and residents of “willful ignorance.”
The comments by Youngstown residents Lynn Anderson and Susie Beiersdorfer were prompted by commissioners’ decision last week to sell up to 500,000 gallons of water per day to CNX Gas Group LLC to frack a well it has drilled on Blott Road in Jackson Township.
“We must shut them down. We must get them out of there,” Anderson said. “They frack those wells with 6 million gallons of water and 300-plus chemicals plus silica sand. Now that’s each frack. They could be fracked multiple times. This is not a use for our [Mahoning Valley Sanitary District] water.”
Anderson also questioned why commissioners would vote to sell water to CNX, which she claimed has more than 20 violations lodged against it in Pennsylvania.
Following the meeting, Mahoning County Commissioner Carol Remidio-Righetti said the environmental issues “checked out” when they were investigated, and there were no issues that would hinder the water supply or sanitary sewer system.
“This is lunacy,” Anderson remarked during the meeting. She called on the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to revoke CNX’s permit for the well, which was drilled in the protected area of the Meander Watershed.
“They drilled in the water-protected area and the [Ohio Environmental Protection Agency] did not know that the ODNR had given a permit,” Beiersdorfer said.
“Myself and many of the citizens are tired of the willful ignorance by both officials and citizens,” she remarked.
That drew a rebuke from Springfield Township Trustee Robert Orr, who attended Thursday’s meeting at the Mahoning County Courthouse. Local officials are going through “as much training as they can about this” and trying to discover the facts, he said.
“We are not willfully ignorant,” he responded. “No one has an inroad with us. No company has an inroad with us. We want what’s best for the people of these townships just like everybody else so I’m offended by that remark.”
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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