Anti-fracking Athens County just the mouse that roars

Disapproval and derision have come my way for showing mild sympathy for the idea that hydraulic fracturing in shale beds doesn't have to be the unalloyed evil that many Athens Countians make it out to be.

So it's probably a good idea to clarify my own opinion about it.

First, let's stipulate some things…

Fracking for shale gas and oil has damaged the water, roads, property and quality of life in many areas, including Pennsylvania, West Virginia and most recently eastern Ohio. Don't believe for a second oil and gas developers' avowal of no evidence that fracking has ever damaged water supplies anywhere (they really do say this).

With that acknowledged, fracking opponents should at least would acknowledge the positive benefits of pumping billions of dollars into struggling economies – whether it comes from sustainable agriculture, manufacturing steel, mining coal, building solar panels, making porn (L.A.'s San Fernando Valley does quite nicely off the porn industry), selling marijuana or fracking shale beds.

That's not to say that the tradeoff is always worth it (again, re: the San Fernando Valley porn example), just that to deny the straightforward economic benefits of dropping millions of dollars into a community – no matter what enterprise produced it – is willfully obtuse.

A fracking column I wrote in September pointed this out, while questioning how anyone who seriously acknowledges the profound poverty in our area could so quickly and reflexively reject an industry that has the potential to create jobs and inject mountains of money into our local economy for years into the future. (A study issued Tuesday by Food & Water Watch persuasively disputes the amount of job creation and economic development predicted by the oil and gas industry but doesn't go as far as to say that it won't happen at all.)

At the time of the earlier column, I didn't get into the fact that natural gas creates cleaner and/or safer energy than two other increasingly discredited power sources, coal and nuclear; that it produces a fraction of the greenhouse-gas emissions of coal-fired power while being much cleaner in general; and that there's a substantial foreign-policy benefit to weaning ourselves from Middle East oil. Power plants are already converting from coal to natural gas in Ohio, and the more the better in my opinion.

My point in the earlier column and again today isn't that everyone should discard their concerns about fracking and shout, "Yippee, fracking!" Rather, it's that everybody should take more than 30 seconds of deliberation – and peruse more websites than just those that confirm their locked-in beliefs – before coming to a conclusion on the topic. This applies to whatever side you approach this issue from.

If you read a variety of sources, and still come to the conclusion that fracking is not worth it in terms of costs versus benefits, then that's fine. I've almost come to that conclusion myself, though every time I think I've got it figured out, some new information arises that makes me reconsider.

Alas, here in Athens County, the idea that fracking is all bad, all the time, has become conventional wisdom over the past six months. And not just among the stereotypical "Athens hippies" (a term I used with fondness) but among a wide cross-section of residents, both inside and outside of Athens.

Lamentably, this has had the effect of intimidating some fracking supporters and undecideds into keeping their mouths shut about it. A township trustee from the southern part of Athens County called me the other day to point out that his township could benefit from the millions of dollars that would accompany fracking wells. Asked if he'd be willing to state this for the record in a future news article, he quickly said no, that his neighbors and constituents would tar and feather him if he came out publicly in favor of fracking. (Well, maybe honey and feather him, just to be politically correct.)

FOR THE RECORD, I will admit that some of my own stated sympathy for fracking is pure contrariness. Something in my newsman's brain just hates to see too much public sentiment assembled on one side of an issue, and hence, strives to reassert some balance.

So, this is basically one long prelude to explaining where I (currently) stand on fracking.

The difference between my position and that of local sworn opponents to fracking is simple. I think it can be a good thing if heavily and strictly regulated (with lots of taxation and fees), and hardcore opponents don't seem to think that any amount of regulation will make it safe.

For me, though, the potential benefits are so great – fewer greenhouse gases, less dirty coal, no nuclear, no more Middle Eastern wars over oil, more jobs, more economic development, more money for hard-pressed rural landowners – that I'm not ready to foreclose the possibility of safe hydraulic fracturing with minimal impacts on local water, land and quality of life.

On the other hand, it's not such a terrible thing in a macro sense that Athens County is so rabidly opposed to fracking. The drilling side of the argument has a huge advantage on a statewide and national level. For example, one of the congressmen who represents Athens County held a subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, for the express purpose of ridiculing EPA plans to regulate fracking wastewater (one of its main hazards) under the Clean Water Act. Rep. Bob Gibbs, R-18^th District, called the proposed rules "a solution in search of a problem," signaling precisely how open-minded he'll be to information that runs counter to his prejudices and self-interest.

When the suck-up who's supposed to be representing southeast Ohio's interests in Congress is so obviously tucked into the back pocket of the oil and gas industry, that's when I'm happy that the "people's republic of Athens" is behaving in character by fiercely opposing fracking.

The bottom line? They're going to frack and frack and frack no matter what anybody says. But if communities like Athens County fight it tooth and nail, that at least will increase pressure to properly regulate the industry.