An Illinois ban on fracking is inevitable. The question is whether it will happen beforeor after a major fracking disaster.
The public comment period on Illinois' draft regulations ended January 3 with groups in potentially impacted areas repeating their call for a ban on fracking. A group of southern Illinois residents representing several grassroots groups drove to Illinois Department of Natural Resources headquarters in Springfield to join with Frack Free Illinois in delivering comments on the regulation and a petition asking Governor Quinn to oversee a rewrite.
Tabitha Tripp, of Anna-Jonesboro, said in a statement, "these inadequate rules will leave nothing but legacies of disasters to those who voted on this irresponsible law and abandon Illinois tax payers who will indeed foot the bill for public health issues like cancer and leukemia."
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One purpose of this essay is to promote my new MoveOn.org petition to ban fracking in Illinois. I was selected as one of 100 MoveOn.org Fracking Fighters so the petition is part of that effort. It's got off to a fast start and is still growing steadily!
I know I get cynical about so many petitions around and whether they'll be noticed by anyone. I'm working with people on fun ways to make sure this one is noticed by elected officials. It's part of an ongoing organizing effort so sharing this petition will help build the effort to stop fracking in Illinois. Please sign and share if you haven't already!