Gas well destroys serenity of Hubbard neighborhood

Gas well destroys serenity of Hubbard neighborhood
EDITOR:
Fox Street in Hubbard used to be a quiet well groomed neighborhood, a peaceful oasis on a street that ended with beautiful green woods filled with hiking trails, a meandering stream and blackberry patches. The wooded glade was a place where neighborhood children liked to play. I moved here seeking the quiet and solitude that comes with a little street with almost no traffic. A place where summertime brings breakfast on the porch with birds singing, far removed from life in the city. Life here was good.
Until three weeks ago. That's when the equipment started to arrive.
First came a huge bulldozer and power shovel that rumbled into the woods at the end of the street and proceeded to destroy every tree in several acres. For days the air was filled with the crack and thud of magnificent hundred-year-old trees as they were knocked over, and the area was totally flattened.
Then came the dump trucks, mammoth, loud 10- and 12-wheel behemoths that made literally hundreds of trips up and down our formerly quiet street, carrying thousands of tons of dirt, rock and gravel. Day after day they kept coming, leaving a coating of mud that remains today. When it rains the normal clean street is covered with brown slime. When it dries, it turns into a thick coating of dust that belies the new paving that was put down just last year. No attempt has been made to take the mud and dust away, only to spread it around. Everything in the neighborhood has a coating of dust now.
Then came even bigger trucks, full-sized 18-wheel semis on our little street. They brought additional tons of equipment.
Hubbard is getting the very first gas well in the city, right at the end of Fox Street.
So what is life like in our quiet little "oasis" now? Since last week a drilling rig has been sending off loud mechanical noise that has made it difficult, if not impossible, to get a good night's sleep. It runs 24 hours a day, spewing out diesel fumes in addition to the non-stop noise. Breakfast on the porch? No more. In the morning the air smells like a fleet of buses had been running in the driveway at night. And the noise is relentless.
Large trucks and workers' vehicles speed up and down the street and kick up dust clouds that send people choking into their homes. Neighbors pick up the rocks that the trucks drop on the street and know that somehow their lives will never be quite the same.
Are there laws that guard us from this unwelcome invasion and disruption of our lives? Laws that protect the peaceful enjoyment of our homes and property? If such laws exist, why aren't they being enforced. If they do not exist, why not?
It should come as no surprise that the people who will profit from this travesty don't live in this neighborhood. They don't have to put up with a major disruption of their lives. They don't have the noise and the fumes and the trucks and the dust. They only have to sit comfortably and wait for the cash to start rolling in.
If you live in Hubbard and have a cherished woodland near you, beware! Precedent has been set, and you may be next.
I invite all of you to take a trip to the end of Fox Street or, even better, take a loop around the west side of Union Cemetery. Since all of the bordering trees have been ripped out, you'll have a clear view of the big mud pit where the woods used to be, where a gas well will sit waiting to explode when it is hit by lightning.
JAMES VIELE
Hubbard
Judge Krichbaum thankedfor giving 84-year sentence
EDITOR:
Thank you Judge Krichbaum for defending our elderly and for the 84-year prison sentence you imposed on a man, who obviously has no respect for life.
Throughout the years, there have been judges who have been so wrong in their sentencing of people for horrible crimes; so I just had to say thank you.
KAREN FURLONG
Austintown