Letter to the Editor: Environmental protections are being stripped away at our expense
Tappan Lake resident warns deregulation, fracking and industrial growth threaten health, water and communities.
Published
This summer I turned 70, and in doing so I outlived both my parents. My mom and dad didn't drink or smoke but both died from cancer before their 70th birthdays. When I asked their oncologist in Pittsburgh why they might have contracted cancer, his reply was, “They grew up in the Ohio River Valley when air and water pollution were unregulated.”
During the 1940s, the Ohio River was used as an industrial sewer and smoke blanketed the Ohio River Valley; at times even blocking out the sun.
President Nixon recognized the need to address these issues, saying we should “make peace with nature and begin to make reparations for the damage we have done to our air, land, and water.” He signed into law several environmental regulations, including: the National Environmental Policy Act, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Air Act of 1970, the creation of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the creation of the Legacy of Parks program. The life-saving policies of Nixon’s administration are being eroded away by an administration that denies science and scientific studies.
On March 12, Trump’s head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, announced the “most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history.” Thirty-one acts of legislation that were created to protect human health and the environment are now being abolished in favor of industry profits. One of the rollbacks includes the 2009 Endangerment Finding which states that the EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act and that these gases pose a significant danger to human health.
The 2009 Endangerment Finding is backed by an overwhelming amount of scientific evidence. Last week, Trump’s EPA announced it will no longer require polluting industries to report their air emissions and is tossing out PFAS limits that protect drinking water.
Ohio’s politicians also fail to protect Ohioans as they continue to ignore the documented health and environmental effects from fracking. Citizens question the ability of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to protect drinking water from toxic brine injected into Class II wells. Now Ohio communities are being targeted for data centers, which will be powered by fracked gas. This means more destruction of ecosystems and communities in SE Ohio, as well as the communities that will host these enormous water-hogging, energy-hogging data centers.
Our home is located less than a mile from a fracking operation. We spent the better part of the summer listening to the sound of drilling and fracking; the sounds of nature were obliterated. Additionally, roads surrounding the well pad saw a steady barrage of sand, water and toxic radioactive brine trucks.
Governor DeWine is fooling himself if he thinks fracking state parks won't affect tourism or the health of local communities; it has and will continue to do so.
My environmental engineering professor put it this way, “You can’t live in a toilet and expect to be healthy.”
