One Anti-Fracking Ballot Issue Passes Overwhelmingly in Ohio; Three Others Fail

摘要

One local fracking ban measure on the ballot in Ohio passed Nov. 4, and three others were defeated. Seventy-eight percent of those voting in Athens endorsed Issue 7, a community bill-of-rights initiative to ban hydraulic fracturing of shale-locked oil and gas within city limits. However, voters rejected similar ballot issues in Kent, Gates Mills and Youngstown, where the measure lost for a fourth time and by the largest margin of defeat since it first appeared on a ballot in May 2013. All the measures were drafted by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, which has helped citizens draft and enact 160 community bill-of-rights laws nationwide. CELDF Ohio organizer Tish O'Dell told Bloomberg BNA Nov. 5 that she expects to see the three defeated measures put on the ballot again, driven by citizens realizing that their environmental rights are secondary to those of corporate interests.