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Occupy group protests injection well in Hubbard
By Robert Guttersohn
Hubbard
About a dozen protesters from the Occupy Youngstown movement occupied the corner of Main Street and Hubbard Masury Road in protest of the brine injection well to be built there.
Injection wells accept brine water from well drilling, including fracking, a process in which water, chemicals and sand are blasted into rocks thousands of feet below the ground to unlock oil and natural gas.
The protesters worried that wells are being built in an area so desperate for jobs, they are being constructed faster than authorities understand their environmental impact.
“It’s like throwing a starving man a crumb,” said Tim Raridon.
Many of Wednesday’s protesters were present at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources informational meeting at the township administration building Dec. 12. At that meeting, township trustees and residents questioned the loca-tion of the injection well along the Little Yankee Run Creek, which eventually empties into the Shenango River in western Pennsylvania.
Steve Beck is a farmer living in New Bedford, Pa., one of the many communities that rely on the river for drinking water.
“There’s no way it’s safe,” Beck said while holding up a sign reading “SOS EPA.” “They make promises that give us a false sense of security. But common sense will tell you it’s not 100 percent safe.”