Ohio’s oil and gas industry continues to spread one of its cruel, bald-faced lies.

Industry spokespeople claim fracking oil and gas from state parks and wildlife areas is “responsible development” of Ohio public lands.

But parks don’t belong to one supermajority political party to lease, industrialize, monetize, and destroy. Ohio public lands belong to all Ohioans across generations. 

We have a collective responsibility to steward them wisely. 

Muckraker Upton Sinclair said it well: “It’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding.”

An industry fueled by greed

Climate scientists, the United Nations and International Protocol on Climate Change have pleaded for decades for a fossil fuels energy phase-out. That phase-out has begun because energy markets want it.

Renewable energy is on course to meet almost half global electric demand by 2030, with solar leading the pack. 

Wind and solar are now cheaper, reliable with battery storage and have zero-carbon footprints.

This is great for Ohio pocketbooks, renewable energy jobs and hope for a livable planet. 

It’s not great for a greedy industry eager to lock in fossil fuel energy markets allowing them to power polluting AI data centers for the next 20 to 30 years.

Wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Iran have damaged gas and oil production and transportation infrastructure throughout conflict areas. The Strait of Hormuz is now a flashpoint. 

India, Pakistan and Australia, which experience some of the worst droughts and highest temperatures as the planet warms, are racing toward renewables. And Germany, a longtime energy innovator, has embraced balcony solar.

Gov. Mike DeWine and Republican Party lawmakers captured by gas and oil and their 19th-century fossil fuels energy policy and are beginning to be exposed.

Save Ohio Parks research shows Ohio’s supermajority quashed the equivalent of 5.3 GW of renewable energy over the last 12 years while simultaneously creating or amending energy laws to expand natural gas fracking. 

This is intentional. And it’s killing our state and planet.

See how this works?

Since 2010, the oil and gas industry has donated the vast majority of its donation dollars to GOP candidates. Utility donations keep the GOP in power in Ohio, too— in gerrymandered voting districts the Republican Party selects. Supermajority lawmakers, including Gov. Mike DeWine, support and pass laws to frack Ohio.

The Oil and Gas Land Management Commission (OGLMC) has rubberstamped fracking 22,000 acres of Ohio state parks, wildlife areas, and public rights-of-way since DeWine’s 2022 reelection as governor. Fracking pollutes the air; depletes and destroys our fresh water; endangers biodiversity; and increases greenhouse gas emissions that supercharge climate warming.

The question is, have voters had enough?

Interestingly, Ohio’s AI data center explosion has elevated public consciousness of industry threats to Ohio’s air, water and lands. 

Fracking used to be a NIMBY issue for Appalachian Ohio. Now, because of hyperscale centers using fracked gas plants and gas fuel cells across Ohio, it’s in everyone’s backyard. 

Yet the GOP is slow-rolling regulation of Ohio’s 240 already-sited data centers. Most will run on gas fracked from public lands.

This is a seminal election. The public needs to understand this. If we want clean air, fresh water and pristine parks, we need to vote only for candidates dedicated to protecting them.

Fracking’s Achilles heel: what do we do with the waste?

The public is just realizing fracking’s true, irrevocable harms: billions of gallons of toxic, radioactive wastewater are inexplicably deposited each year into U. S. injection wells for storage. Last month, Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) shut down four Class II injection wells in Washington County because pressurized toxic, radioactive wastewater brine migrated miles away from injection sites and contaminated conventional oil wells.

Frack waste now poses a serious threat to drinking water aquifers for tens of thousands of people in Marietta and surrounding communities— while lawmakers and regulators remain willfully oblivious to the looming catastrophe. 

Instead, the industry and lawmakers hope the toxic waste will stay underground.

But it doesn’t.

Search for terms like “Dimock contamination,” “Gasland” or “Texas Groundwater Contamination” to learn how fracking and reckless waste management in Ohio and other states have destroyed or threaten to destroy drinking water across the country.

To claim fracking public lands is “responsible” is a horrifying lie. 

Cheaper, reliable and zero-carbon wind and solar works for the rest of the world. 

It will work for Ohio, too. 

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.