VIDEO, Meeting Announcement re: Gas and Oil Drilling

The Ohio House schedule indicates that the Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee (see members here) will be taking opponent and interested party testimony regarding the issue of oil and gas drilling regulation, and specifically SB 165, on this Wednesday, January 26, starting at 9:30am in Room 018 in the basement of the Statehouse.  For those interested, the suggested way to prepare testimony is to describe your story, keep it to a very few minutes and review the testimony given last week by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (which you can see in the Scribd document below) in addition to SB 165 itself.

If you don't feel familiar enough with the issue, I suggest listening to this WCPN Sound of Ideas show with pro and con representatives here.  I also suggest watching this short trailer video about the pervasive expansion of drilling throughout the country as covered in the documentary, Split Estate, which will be screened this Friday, January 29, 6:30 p.m., at Lakeland Community College, 7700 Clocktower Dr., Room T129, Kirtland. Hattip Cleveland Scene.




Pepper Pike and other communities have passed resolutions that call for a "...moratorium on oil and gas well drilling in heavily populated residential areas until amendments to the Ohio Revised Code with respect to drilling have been made" and the local papers' editorial pages reflect a similar interest. Pepper Pike has been active with NEOGAP, the Northeast Ohio Gas Accountability Project, in an effort to stay on top of the issues.

It should be noted that there are residents in our communities who desire to drill.  I believe everyone just wants to be sure that it's done absolutely as safely and as non-intrusively as possible. Currently, the state has more control over the process than many communities prefer and the communities desire to regain and retain more control in order to better protect the desires of all their citizens - something which many communities feel they can do far better than the state.

Do you have an experience related to this issue to share? Please do. It can make a difference.

Here's the ODNR testimony:
ODNR Testimony before Ohio House re: SB 165