Dem commish candidates sound off on county’s hottest issue (and can you imagine what it is?)

Two Democrats are squaring off in the March 6 primary to face Republican Larry Payne in November for his seat on the Athens County Board of Commissioners.

This week, they addressed two of the biggest topics facing Athens County: balancing the budget and dealing with the controversial horizontal hydraulic fracturing oil and gas drilling technique widely known as fracking. This article will focus on the fracking issue, while a follow-up on Monday will look at the budgetary issues facing the county.

In the race are retired Ohio University brick mason and union president Charlie Adkins and the owner of Nelsonville's Pit-Stop drive-through, Gary Edwards.

(The question of county commissioner involvement in the fracking debate has an important subtext in that the state of Ohio actually prohibits local governments from regulating either oil and gas drilling or the disposal of resulting wastewater.)

Adkins said last week that he believes people who own property and pay taxes on that property have the right to sell their mineral rights if they choose to do so.

"There are a lot of regulations out there, and they (drilling companies) should follow those regulations to make fracking as safe as it can be and as environmentally friendly as possible," he said. "But I do think those folks have a right to sell their rights. It's their land."

Adkins said that he does see a role for county involvement insofar as making sure that emergency personnel have a plan and are ready to respond to any situation that could arise.

"They have to know what's going on; have to be updated; have to be part of the process," he said. "I think the county commissioners have to play a role and be at the table any time they have a group talking about the environment and putting these wells in. I think it's important that they are engaged. And I'll take the time to be engaged."

Adkins said that he does not support drilling on public lands or selling leasing rights to any public lands. He also said that the county should play a role in monitoring whatever drilling that does occur because he said he doesn't think the state has adequate resources or sufficient employees to monitor oil and gas drilling like they should be.

Adkins said that as a commissioner he would want to sit down with both the landowners and the anti-fracking groups and mediate a conversation that could lead to an inclusive resolution taking into account everybody's concerns.

"If I was there, I would want to mediate and try to bargain something that both sides can live with," he said. "And if both sides can't live with it, the buck stops with me. And I would make a decision."

Edwards, for his part, said that he's not opposed to hydraulic fracturing or any economic development that can be done in the county that can be monitored to make sure it's safe.

"I'm not opposed to a property owner exercising his mineral rights to sell his product," he said, pointing out that fracking is nothing new. "The technology to go deeper, which is more environmentally safe, has just come around in recent years. That's why we're in the situation we're in."

He said that actually the previous vertical hydraulic fracturing that nobody complained about was less environmentally safe than the horizontal technique used today. He said that he has visited drilling sites.

"I found it comforting to see all the regulations and how it was monitored," he said.

Rather than trying to stop the practice, Edwards added, county commissioners should be proactive and work with the drilling companies, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the state Legislature to make sure that all appropriate regulations are in place.

"I think we have to work with the people involved," he said. "By law there's nothing the county can do to stop it, so I think we should work with them."

With regard to drilling on public lands, Edwards said that he is not in favor of a government entity entering into that contract.

"I think if we have property that was to be drilled, I think the property ought to be sold off and an individual owner should have it," he said. "I don't like the idea of a public entity dealing with these things. I don't think they keep track of it well enough."

With regard to the role of the county itself in dealing with drilling operations, Edwards said a commissioner has a duty to address concerns that are brought to them by citizens.

"I don't think it's a county commissioner's job to look down the hole and see that everything's OK," he said. "But as it pertains to clean water and clean air, we have a right to investigate the concerns of our citizens."

He said that the rights of all citizens have to be protected, including landowners.