On Sunday, July 13th, I joined over a thousand people at our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., to protest the proposed Dominion Cove Point Liquid Natural Gas Export Facility in Lusby, MD.
The approval of this new facility will drive up a national demand for fracking, a dangerous process of natural gas extraction that has been proved of causing neurological, respiratory, and sensory damage to people of communities where fracking runs rampant. Water has been reported to catch on fire due to the high levels and dangerous types of chemicals that seep into the aquifer from the injection of the chemical frack cocktail used to break up the shale gas deep underground.
Natural gas has been heralded as the fuel of the future because it burns cleaner than coal. Natural gas is primarily composed of methane, a greenhouse gas that’s actually worse than coal. As Mike Tidwell, the head of Chesapeake Climate Action Network so brilliantly put it, “You can’t solve climate change by switching to a fuel that’s worse than coal.” The Department of Energy has approved the project. Now, the final say lies in the hands of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). FERC has given every indication that it is going to approve Dominion Cove Point, judging by its less than adequate environmental assessment, released May 15, followed by a 30-day comment period. Now that the comment period is over, FERC can approve the project any day now. Climate activists, Lusby families, and opponents of dirty fuels are waiting with bated breath for the decision.
But people weren’t standing idly by while FERC rubber-stamps its way to approving dangerous, dirty fuel export facilities. Everyone from climate activists, environmentalists, mothers, fathers, grandparents, students, and children rallied together on that hot Sunday to publicly and loudly say NO to Cove Point, NO to dirty fuels, and NO fracking. People called on Obama and FERC to stop selling the people out to big oil and gas companies, and do what government is supposed to do: protect the people. This rally was one of the most beautiful things I have experienced. It reminded me that I am not alone in my fight to end Cove Point and ban fracking.
I’m a student at Oberlin College in Ohio. Ohio sits on the Marcellus Shale, a vast underground field of natural gas. Fracking presents serious health consequences. I have seen community members who have lesions from drinking poisoned water, are too sick to work, got cancer when they were otherwise healthy, and have damaged homes due to earthquakes in places that had never experienced an earthquake before. I have done everything I can to protect my fellow students and community members at Oberlin from fracking. Last November, we passed a Community Bill of Rights, effectively banning fracking from the City of Oberlin, and fighting the new natural gas power plant on campus.
Now, my fight continues to Maryland. I have lived in Darnestown, MD for my entire life. My closest friends live here. My mother, father, and little sister live here. My grandparents and little cousins live here. I will not stand for these people that I love so much getting sick or having to move from their homes due to greedy companies invading their land and risking their health for profit. I will not have Cove Point LNG Export Facility increase the amount of fracking nationwide. The rally showed me that we do have the power to stop big oil and gas from ruining our livelihoods and health. Citizens coming together and fighting against big corporations with dirty fuel agendas with this loud, collective voice is something so beautiful and reinvigorating.
So wake up FERC, big oil and gas, and President Obama: we’re not leaving this fight quietly.