As absentee oil and gas companies register with the state of Illinois this month, downstate citizens groups are taking the lead among statewide environmental groups and laying out scientific and legal standards for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) and Joint Committee on Administrative Rules to consider prior to drafting the controversial horizontal hydraulic fracking rules.
In a letter sent this week to the key legislative committee and state IDNR agency officials, the groups representing rural communities targeted for fracking operations cite “several new scientific studies and academic research papers that have become available, which should be evaluated and considered before proceeding with allowing permits for hydraulic fracturing in Illinois,” and conclude: “as legislators, the power to protect the citizens of Illinois rests with you. You have been armed with knowledge and research that would validate the need for an immediate halt to any drilling until the science was studied.”
Photo credit: Helen Slottje/ Shaleshock
Or, as IDNR Director Marc Miller‘s conservation hero Aldo Leopold once admonished in his “land ethics”: “a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” For the remainder of this important story please click the link to EcoWatch: http://ecowatch.com/2013/groups-send-requirements-fracking-regulations/