Friends -

We have a lot planned for next weekend. A LOT.

I’m going to try to break it all down for you in this email, but before I do, I wanted to let you know that Danny, Katie and I will be hosting a video chat on Sunday to talk about the action, and answer any questions you may have.

Just go to www.dontfrackoh.org/video-chat at 7 PM on Sunday and we’ll talk about plans for the coming week, what the action on Sunday will look like, and how you can best support what’s planned. (we’ll send a reminder Sunday, but I wanted to put it on your calendar)

OK, on to what’s happening.

First, here are some of the people who are coming:

• Hundreds and hundreds of people like you from all corners of Ohio, plus dozens of other states affected by fracking.
• Bill McKibben of 350.org, and Josh Fox, director of Gasland
• The gas industry (yep, they’ll be there to counter protest us)

Those people are the best reason to be there – it’s the human connections that make our movement work. We’re planning for 3 days of strategy sessions and trainings from June 14th to 16th to learn from each other and work together to build a stronger movement.

Trainings will be held at the Ohio Urban Arts Center, and a full agenda is available at www.dontfrackoh.org/schedule

Here’s a bit of what’s planned:

• A non-violent direct action training led by 350.org‘s awesome trainers who helped make last year’s Tar Sands Action a success
• Workshops in organizing for a local control led by Ohio’s strongest local organizers
• Updates and discussions about political strategy to outflank Gov. Kasich and the oil industry in Ohio
• Deeper trainings in media outreach, researching campaign contributions and the economics of fracking
• Art builds to make our march shine

These workshops are just a piece of the action – there are also bands and dance party on Friday night, a panel with Bill McKibben and Josh Fox on Saturday night, and a Don’t Frack Ohio contingent in Columbus’ Pride Parade Saturday at Noon.

So: it’s a full couple of days, and if you can make it, not to be missed. If you need it, there’s affordable camping space available near Columbus (sign up here), and a ride and housing board to help you make it to the action available here.

That brings us to what’s happening Sunday the 17th – the main event. If you can make it for only one day, try to make it this day.

At 11 AM we’ll gather at Arch Park, (McFerson Commons) in downtown Columbus. There, we’ll rally and get fired up for our march to the Statehouse, where we will occupy the statehouse and send an unmistakable message to Gov. Kasich: Don’t Frack Ohio! After we’ve assembled and passed people’s legislation to protect Ohio from the oil industry, we’ll march back to the park and talk about what we’re doing next. We will be wrapped up by 2:30 PM or so.

On Sunday we’ll hear from Josh and Bill, as well as green business owners, landowners affected by the gas and coal industries, and grassroots activists leading this fight at the front lines. If you’re a part of this movement, you’ll either see friends there, or make new ones.

This action, and our movement, runs on people power. If you are able to step up to do more, there’s plenty to do – from marshaling the march, to helping prep food to building art.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s an honor and a pleasure to be a part of this growing movement.

Duncan Meisel
Don’t Frack Ohio

Zack Malitz is an online organizer for waterdefense.org.

Zack Malitz is an online organizer for waterdefense.org – Governor Kasich promised the people of Ohio a comprehensive chemical disclosure bill that protects the health, safety and property of Ohio citizens. Instead, the bill that the governor helped maneuver through the Senate last week is chock full of loopholes large enough to drive a tanker filled with frack fluid through.

Senate Bill 315 (SB 315) does technically require fracking companies to disclose many of the chemicals they use to drill wells to the Ohio government. But the bill also includes a ‘trade secrets’ loophole allowing drilling companies to assert that their chemical cocktails are trade secrets. The Ohio government is barred from disclosing chemicals designated as trade secrets to the public.

Ohio citizens have no way of contesting whether a company’s frack fluid formula is really a trade secret. As a result, the Senate’s bill gives the fracking industry total freedom to decide which chemicals to disclose to the public.

The law even gets between patients and their doctors. The bill empowers doctors to obtain access to chemical disclosure records in the case of a medical emergency – say, if a gas worker is poisoned by frack fluid. But doctors who learn what’s in frack fluid aren’t allowed to tell anyone, including their patients.

In cases where drilling companies do decide to disclose frack chemicals, they aren’t required to disclose them until after they’ve already completed drilling, which prevents concerned landowners from ordering baseline water testing prior to drilling. Baseline water testing is the first line of defense against water contamination because it establishes a firm foundation for a lawsuit if gas drilling poisons an aquifer or well. Without it, there’s nothing to stop the gas industry from asserting that water contamination is naturally occurring.

If SB 315 becomes law it will guarantee that fracking in Ohio remains a lawless, Wild West-style operation that endangers the lives of people across the state. That’s why it’s so important to gather in Columbus June 14-17, pack the statehouse, and show Ohio’s lawmakers what real energy reform looks like.

Read more about SB 315: http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2012/05/gov_john_kasichs_proposed_frac.html

Zack Malitz is an online organizer for WaterDefense.org. – With the endless parade of nightmarish news reports about earthquakes, radioactive wastewater, flammable tap water, carcinogenic air emissions, and planet-melting methane emissions, it’s easy to forget that the corporations responsible for fracking America have their feet firmly planted in the world of speculative finance. Reuters’ recent series about Aubrey McClendon’s criminal misconduct as Chesapeake Energy’s CEO is a stark reminder that even people who live far from any fracking sites stand to lose big as this rapacious industry digs its claws into our country.

As it turns out, McClendon isn’t just the self-proclaimed ‘biggest fracker in the world’ – he’s also a crook. A couple of weeks ago, Reuters revealed that McClendon had used $1.1 billion in personal loans to finance his 2.5% stake in Chesapeake’s drilling operations. For collateral, he used his stake in those very same wells and used a shell corporation to shield himself from responsibility for the loans.

If Chesapeake makes a killing, McClendon gets rich. If Chesapeake goes belly up, McClendon walks away unscathed and his investors are left holding the bag.

Then, yesterday, Reuters dropped another bombshell: between 2004 and 2008, McClendon and Chesapeake co-founder Tom Ward ran a secret $200 million energy commodities hedge fund out of the Chesapeake offices. There’s no need to beat around the bush, McClendon and Ward were engaged in insider trading, and they were brazen enough to do it out of the Chesapeake Energy offices. McClendon and the Chesapeake board insist that Aubrey never used the insider knowledge he gained as Chesapeake’s CEO to make investment decisions.

Sure they didn’t.

The scandal at Chesapeake is more than the story of a few bad apples. McClendon’s secret financial dealings helps to explain why Chesapeake Energy, which has a $10 billion revenue shortfall and no plan to recover, is on the brink of collapse. McClendon pays 2.5% of the cost of each well that Chesapeake drills, a fact that Chesapeake’s board claims aligns his interests with the company’s. However, Chesapeake is as much a land speculation company as it is an oil and gas company. It debt-finances huge land grabs in hopes of finding gas, then pays to drill on gas-rich land. Chesapeake eats the bill for every acre of land it leases and explores, whether it drills a productive well or not; McClendon only pays for the wells Chesapeake drills.

Not only is McClendon off the hook for most of the costs of the gas revenue he collects, but he actually has a financial incentive to drive Chesapeake towards ever-riskier, more expensive land speculation. The more land Chesapeake buys, the more productive wells it drills, the more McClendon makes. The costs of land speculation are passed on to the investors and McClendon goes to the bank.

Chesapeake’s investors are not just faceless corporations and billionaire fat cats, many of them are ordinary people who are trying to retire or send their kids to college. The bulk of McClendon’s off-book loans, for example, came from EIG, an energy investment firm that raised money from state pension funds that included Alaska, Connecticut, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri and Texas, along with other large institutional investors like MetLife and a Teamsters pension plan. Other states, including Ohio, own Chesapeake stock, either directly or through an investment fund.

When Chesapeake goes under, it will be ordinary folks on Main Street who are left holding the bag. McClendon made a half-hearted apology yesterday, but that doesn’t pay back Ohio’s pension fund or remove heavy metals from our water. It’s the same story we’ve heard over and over again, from Enron to Worldcom to Wall Street bailouts. And it’s another good reason to join us in Columbus next month for the biggest anti-fracking mobilization this country has ever seen.

Click here to sign up for the action

Yesterday Circle of Blue reported on the catastrophic state of clean energy development in the midwest, with a focus on Ohio.

Ohio is the poster child for how fracking can ruin a clean energy economy. Just two years ago, Ohio renewables were booming, with 106 companies working in the sector, employing thousands on thousands of people. Now, many of those companies have had to lay off workers, as investment money from energy producers has shifted to supporting fracking.

Supported by loopholes, subsidies and aggressive political donations to ease their entry into the market, the fracking industry has crowded out clean energy and turned Ohio into a sacrifice zone to support our fossil fuel addiction. Now Ohio is under threat from thousands of dangerous fracking wells, and hundreds more wastewater injection wells like the one that triggered the New Year’s Eve earthquake in Youngstown.

Click here to read more at Circle of Blue