The Muskingham Watershed Conservancy District board recently decided to open public lands for horizontal 
hydraulic fracturing and sell water to support that industry. As public awareness has grown, the Southeast Ohio Alliance to Save Our Water has worked diligently to educate the public and hold MWCD accountable.
“Through our public records request, we have found where there are thousands of acres around reservoirs that are being requested for leasing by gas drillers, and plans are still being considered to leverage valuable freshwater resources to support the industry and to even provide profits to others, such as the City of Cadiz, at the expense of all other uses and property values in the district,” states, Lea Harper, co-founder of the Southeast Ohio Alliance. “We continue to be baffled about how the MWCD has the jurisdiction or even the will to be able to leverage public resources for their profit at the expense of all others; especially property owners who continue to pay the assessment to support the MWCD’s operations and unchecked expenditures. The MWCD has already made over $30 million from leasing and approximately $100,000 for water sales – when is there enough money for them, and why don’t they value our water and quality of life as we do as local residents?”