UPDATE: More Leaking Wells, and A Fox Guarding the Ohio Henhouse
At the risk of souring your Sunday mood, I have an update on a story from my recent visit to Athens.
You’ll recall the nightmare—Ohio’s five-member Ohio Oil and Gas Commission voted to re-open an injection well that had been found leaking dangerous chemicals, which led to six more months of leaking. And you’ll recall that the makeup of the commission (all appointed by the Governor) which made that decision comprised a stacked deck in favor of industry.
Well, it gets worse….
Further digging by Cleveland.Com (kudos, they are on a real roll of late) found that one of the five Commission members who voted to allow the leaking to re-start owns a company with its own history of leaking injection wells, including a leak that led to the “releas[e] of oilfield brine into a nearby intermittent stream.” The state spent $1.3 million cleaning up one of the “blowouts” caused by the company. And last year, the state suspended the company’s operations.
And wouldn’t you know it? Governor DeWine appointed that member to the commission after the company’s wells were already leaking.
This isn’t just the fox guarding the hen house…
It’s a fox with a bloody hen hanging out of its mouth guarding that hen house—and Governor DeWine put him there.
And it means that once DeWine made that appointment, and at the time the Oil and Gas Commission voted to re-start the operations of a leaking well, companies with a history of toxic leaks had more representation on the commission than the public(!)
Talk about a perfectly awful symbol of just how much Ohio public and regulatory power is being handed over to special/private interests. Sort of like the PUCO.
There’s a lot more to the story, so you should read it HERE.
One other thing: that commission member is now a member of the Ohio Senate—again appointed, which should alarm us about who’s rewarded by GOP political appointments.
Folks, this is Ohio today. It’s what happens when a broken culture, which places private interests over the public good, infects every level of government. It seeps into every crevice of decision-making. Corrupts it in truly unseemly—and dangerous—ways.
And it will never change until we root out that broken culture, at all levels.
Just read today's post of Seeking Rents by Jason Garcia. He is also shining light on corruption of desantis and his partners in fl legislature. They've been beyond emboldened to not even pretend to have any shame in their open corruption and looting the very people who voted them in. We're still thankful that doughsantis is limited to destroying fl.
Ohio, the Heart of it All. ( All the corruption at the Heart of the State Legislature )