How
Things Have Changed
Mom and I went for a drive down St. Rte.
332 out of Carrollton, Ohio, towards Scio, Ohio yesterday, and returned via St. Rt. 151 and St.
Rt. 212 and I was hardly prepared for the changes we encountered while
travelling this route. The oil and gas industry has been busy reshaping this
area into their version of northern Texas
or Louisiana as great swaths of trees are eliminated to make way first
for power lines to run the new fractionization plant at Scio and also for gas supply lines to this same
plant from remote outlying areas where the new horizontal shale wells exist on
their huge drilling pads forever shaping our area.
I believe everyone needs to get an idea
of just what is involved and what may soon happen to our area here as they
begin developing the Utica shale fields here in eastern Ohio and is impact on
our environment here and how it is going to forever change our landscape here.
I remember about ten years ago I flew from
Tampa, Florida to Akron- Canton airport here in Ohio with a commercial airline
and after we took off I remember as I sat beside the window how wonderful
everything looked below as we cruised along in perfect open air. You could tell
geographic features as we seemingly floated along at close to 450 miles per hour.
One thing I did notice below was the criss cross network of utility lines
seemingly undaunted by the features of the landscape as these clear cut right
of ways would straight shot themselves over mountain ranges and cross rivers
seemingly unfazed by the obstacle in front of them as they link towns and
cities in a grid like pattern. These right
of ways would cut through vast forests and my thoughts of just how wide these
had to be at 23000 feet above, to make
them appear so evidently as they were. I have noticed when high tension supply
lines often seen with the huge towers require 100 foot wide right of ways and
gas lines require about the same as link their facilities together. The sad
part was there was no one area below my plane on that trip that wasn’t cut up
by these cross country supply lines, let alone the evidence of mountain top
removal for coal one could see over West Virginia and Kentucky. How much
acreage is required to just provide a right of way for these giant utilities is
probably better left unknown as I am sure it is staggering what has been lost
in terms of trees and how it has impacted wildlife?
We are talking vast amounts of land under
the permanent control of utilities that are trying to provide unlimited gas and
electric to consumers throughout our country. And in the process are seemingly
stripping our land of valuable resources of timber and affecting our wildlife
as they try to provide a sound return for dollars invested, regardless of how
it affects our wildlife and the aesthetic appeal of our area. In some ways when
farming in this area was in its infancy I
am sure the same was thought about farmers as they employed the slash and burn
concept to create open fields to grow crops out of forest soil. Creating large
swaths of open land upon which we grew crops. But then we didn’t have this
global economy and the crops raised were used to support the local people as
well, and shipping costs were too great to transport very far. Also there is
nutritional value in crops as compared to oil and gas that one can’t eat.
But what is happening now is different,
and much the same as it is for shipping of oil from the tar sands in Alberta to
the gulf ports in Louisiana. These petroleum products are destined for use in China
and other developing nations short on fuel resources. This plant will condense
and liquefy natural gas to be shipped via rail line through heron nesting
grounds I have personally witnessed and exist not more than five miles away
from this plant. The herons are but one of the many species including us humans
that will be affected by this new growth in industry that seemingly transforms
open fields into major industrial plants in short time of months and is
designed to extract enormous amounts of energy that may be best used where it
is produced, instead is shipped worldwide at the same time requiring energy to
transport it there. The trip down St. Rt. 332 and into Scio on St. Rt. 154 was accentuated by this construction
through an area I know well which is Petersburg
landing where the Algonquin Mill festival is in the path of this major construction
project.
This whole area is being cut up with
drilling pads for Utica wells and almost the entire length from Carrolton to Scio
is now impacted by construction of electric lines or gas supply lines and I imagine
that soon the railroads will expand to accommodate the product produced by this
new fractionization plant. This will create growth and jobs while impacting the
environment more in what was once a relatively pristine area.
Don’t know if you have travelled that way
lately but it is well worth a look to see what may be coming to us as soon as
the oil and gas industry sets up to take over our backyards soon. We may have
to move to Texas to avoid this boom and not expose ourselves to the rampant
bullying of the oil and gas industry as they attempt to dwindle and wring the
last dollar of oil and gas out of the ground in the name of progress as we ship
the product overseas for someone else to use. Sounds like a plan?
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