Concerns about oil drilling to be aired at meeting in Saline tonight
Residents in the Saline area concerned about oil drilling in the area will have a chance to learn about the issue from people on all sides of it Wednesday night at Saline’s Liberty School.
The meeting, initiated by State Rep. Mark Ouimet, will include discussion of oil and gas drilling currently taking place in Washtenaw County as well as the pros and cons of hydraulic fracturing.
Paxton Resources, which already has a few oil wells in Washtenaw County and has leased land for further exploration, has said it has no plans to do fracturing in Washtenaw County.
Besides Ouimet, those at the meeting will include Hal Fitch of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality; James Clift, of the Michigan Environmental Council; Gregory J. Vadnais and Mark Bailey, of Paxton Resources; and Mitch Rohde, of the "No Paxton" protest group; interested residents. Lucy Ann Lance will moderate.
The meeting will run from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at Liberty School gymnasium, 7265 Saline Ann Arbor Road.
Comments
Ron Granger
Thu, Apr 19, 2012 : 2:18 p.m.
Fracking seems like a great way to dispose of toxic chemicals in our communities. Those toxic chemicals would be very expensive to dispose of otherwise. But with fracking, they can pump them into the ground and keep the specific ingredients secret. It's a win-win if all you care about is making money. How long until we have earthquakes and tremors due to these practices? The studies on that are just catching up to the tremors - see below. This industry is not sufficiently regulated. Nor is it likely to because of the big money at stake and their influence over politicians. Do we really need another Gelman? http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/04/17/environment-fracking-earthquake-studies.html
Ignatz
Wed, Apr 18, 2012 : 8:25 p.m.
Tom Joad, You're totally missing the upside here. Every drop of oil we can get out of the ground will help Big Oil reach more record profits. With more money, they can "lobby" Congress to get more tax incentives so they can drill more and make more money.
Mike
Wed, Apr 18, 2012 : 9:28 p.m.
What's your idea of record profits? Could you live on 3% of $100,000 per year. Now take that 3% and apply it to multiple billions of volume. Different story , eh? Their margins are very reasonable and their equipment costs are enormous. Everytime the president passes a new law or creates a new regulation (think EPA) that cost is passed on to the consumer. Companies don't pay taxes, or bear the brunt of regulation; you do because they pass it through to you in the cost of higher prices. They don't teach that in school, do they? So, everytime you demand more regulation and higher taxes you are just increasing the cost of whatever product or service you pay for. The politicians just use all of the useful idiots out there to whip up a smokescreen against evil big business while they cover the fact that they just raised your taxes. Your being had, sucker.....Without big business you wouldn't have your computer, Prius, latte, twitter, facebook, and sustainable clothing...........
Tom Joad
Wed, Apr 18, 2012 : 6:03 p.m.
This is a colossal mistake to drill oil in Washtenaw County. Any amount of oil that can be hoped to be found is such a paltry amount that it's not worth the environmental risk. Already many areas in the country are suffering from disastrous effect of fracking, injecting highly toxic chemicals into the ground to eke out a relatively small amount of gas and oil. Despite their purported physical safeguards and claims to safety many people can't drink their water supplied by wells. America burns nearly 20 million barrels a day, a billion barrels every 50 days. A few million barrels found in Michigan, which is wildly optimistic is going to do nothing to solve our energy needs. We are in peak oil in the world supply and the USA peaked in 1970. These feeble attempts at searching for paltry supplies in Michigan only prove the above facts.
llspier
Wed, Apr 18, 2012 : 11:05 p.m.
A million bbls a year out of Jackson County is hardly what I'd call a 'paltry sum'. (http://www.mlive.com/news/jackson/index.ssf/2012/02/jackson_county_leads_michigan.html) And there's no 'fracking' and no plans for 'fracking'. Peak oil is a pretty-questionable theory . . .its starting to look like we dont understand how oil is produced at all . . .or how much of it there is. Meanwhile, the economy depends on oil.
Mike
Wed, Apr 18, 2012 : 9:19 p.m.
Why? The government is shutting down all of the public lands out in the middle of nowhere. The USA has more reserves than Saudi Arabia, it peaked because the environmentalists shut them down so we could be at the mercy of foreign governments before we developed alternative energy. Maybe the fat cats in DC are smarter than all the rest of us morons who elect them.............
MRunner73
Wed, Apr 18, 2012 : 7:35 p.m.
The "not in my backyard" arguement could ultimately prevail. I don't think Saline will look like Saudi Arabia in terms of oil well for one and two, the article states no fracking. We can use all the domestic oil we can get from just about anywhere. I would love to live to see the day that oil is not needed for any kind of use.