I have refrained from submitting a letter about the Charter Amendment (CA) because I might be
considered an "outsider" even though I lived in Bowling Green, had a business here for 10 years,
sponsored the Earth Day celebration for many years and my husband, daughter and I have all graduated from
BGSU. For the last seven years, after my husband’s job relocation, we lived in SE Ohio in an idyllic
community next to the third largest inland lake in Ohio. Now we wonder where we will live next because of
fracking. The gas drillers, toxic waste haulers and largest "conservancy" district in the state
have all worked together to frack the area to the point we no longer feel safe or healthy to live there.
It’s difficult to witness the heavy truck traffic, clearcutting for pipelines, massive water extraction, air
contamination and huge ponds filled with freshwater to be destroyed for a one-time consumptive use for
fracking. I started the FreshWater Accountability Project and am helping the CA Committee because I have the
research and experience of the industry’s impacts and don’t want to see it happen here.I’m dismayed by the
political opposition to the CA. A group of concerned people asked the Community Environmental Legal Defense
Fund to help put a CA on the ballot. The city had the opportunity for input before signatures were
collected. Now that the CA is on the ballot, the City has formed a PAC with city officials and others in
positions of political and financial power wielding their influence to defeat the people’s initiative. This
could have been avoided by working with the committee from the outset.I hope voters will look at the
influence of "outsiders" and differentiate between the industry outsiders who would exploit local
resources for exporting profits, and fellow Ohio residents who will be affected by the negative impacts of
this industry. I care about BG and have friends here. I may want to live here again. While the landmen seek
leases and the toxic waste dumpers eye the landfill and geology of Wood County, opposition against important
protections was mounted based upon politics and misinterpretations. We need both a CA and an ordinance to
protect ourselves. Fracking is known to divide communities; unfortunately, it is happening here. Despite the
misleading campaign against the CA, please vote YES to protect BG!Leatra HarperSenecaville