Lea Harper, Managing Director of FreshWater Accountability Project, addressed the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District’s Annual Meeting of the Conservancy Court, the overseeing body of the conservancy, in another attempt to convince the district that they should not be selling massive quantities of water to be destroyed to support a temporary, toxic and abnormally dangerous industry like fracking. Lea also pointed out the pollution by the industry due to the massive amount of waste being injected and left in long laterals under ground water supplies and reservoirs.
Lea’s testimony was supported by Dr. Ted Auch of FracTracker who cited the data sets that their organization has compiled to show that adverse impacts will be experienced in a significant way in the future if current trends continue. Dr. Auch also summarized his presentation to state that the MWCD should have better knowledge of the watershed before making the decisions to allow the permanent removal of such massive quantities of freshwater at such a low price to a single industry.
FWAP arranged the presentations today to go on record to state that the taxpayer and water rate payer should not have to pay for the future consequences of bad decisions made by the MWCD today for short-term profit at long-term public expense.
I was looking at waterfront property in the area. I’ll be looking at another state.