Entries by Guest Author

Fracking in Dairy Country

A dairy farmer in Wisconsin reflects upon a new industry in town: frac sand mining, how it is perceived, and where the industry is headed. By Paul Jereczek Jereczek Homestead Dairy, Dodge, Wisconsin In 4th grade, every Wisconsin student learns about their state. Topics pertaining to Wisconsin’s economy, geography, and history along with ethnicity and traditions […]

Radium Watersheds a Risk

By Greg Pace – Columbus Community Bill of Rights, and Julie Weatherington-Rice – Environmental Consultant Most Ohio residents are unaware of the frack fluid deep underground injection occurring north of Columbus, underneath the region’s source water protection watersheds (Figure 1). Materials injected are liquids that have as much as ten times the salt concentration of sea-water. Mixed […]

World Class Dunes and Great Lakes Barrens at Risk at Ludington

By Dave Dister, Consulting Ecologist, Ludington, MI One of the prime reasons I moved to the Ludington, Michigan area in 2008 was the aesthetic and biological diversity evident at Ludington State Park (LSP). As a field biologist nearing the end of his formal career, I was eager to conduct a study of the vascular plants […]

On a Dark Road to Nowhere

Teddy Roosevelt is rolling over in his grave. The progressive conservationist and one-time republican knew that healthy air, clean water, and stewardship of natural resources are tantamount to a high quality of life. Fifty years before Donald Trump drew his first infantile breath, Roosevelt was championing national parks and cities beautiful. America gained stature in the […]

“Polluting Pruitt:” A Wolf to Guard the Hen House?

Guest article by Dakota Raynes, Co-Organizer of Stop Fracking Payne County (OK) President Trump recently tapped Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), even though Pruitt is a self-proclaimed “leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda.” Pruitt is currently opposing investigation of Exxon Mobile’s handling of climate-change science based on […]

The Mississippi Fracking Fight: Saving Forests, Woodpeckers, and the Climate

By Wendy Park, senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity   If the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) gets its way, large areas of Mississippi’s Bienville and Homochitto national forests will be opened up to destructive fracking. This would harm one of the last strongholds for the rare and beautiful red-cockaded woodpecker, create a new […]

Documenting Oil and Gas Industry Damage in North Dakota

North Dakota is now in its third oil boom due to the drilling technologies of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing that have made once-inaccessible oil accessible. The Bakken formation covers western North Dakota, eastern Montana, and parts of Manitoba and Saskatchewan. At the height of the boom in 2014, just under 12,000 wells were active across […]