Jim Hennessy wants to take the Brookfield anti-injection well campaign on the road.
Well opponents have appeared before Hubbard Township trustees – eliciting support – and plan to do more within Trumbull County, but Hennessy wants state officials to see their faces and their signs – in Columbus.
“It’s time for the people of Brookfield to let them know who we are,” Hennessey said Saturday at a meeting of Brookfield Citizens Against Injection Wells.
Jim Hennessy
Hennessy, whose property borders a proposed well site, is trying to initiate a bus trip to the Ohio State House and the headquarters of Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which issues well construction and injection permits.
“Take action ourselves,” he said. “We have to do something. Go after them.”
The trip would cost $25 a person, and the bus can hold 50 to 60 people.
Highland Field Services LLC has received permission to build two injection wells on property north of Wyngate Manor Mobile Home Park on Route 7. Applications for three more wells on the same property are pending. The wells would be used for the disposal of oil and gas drilling waste water.
Opponents fear the wells have the potential to induce earthquakes, contaminate water wells and defile the area if there is a spill. They also predict the tanker trucks delivering the waste water would gum up traffic on Route 7, which could slow the response of Brookfield firefighters, whose station is just to the south.
Hennessy has said he is disappointed with the turnout at anti-well events, and has been approached by people who told him the wells “won’t be as bad as you think.”
Resident Don Gibson said there are many people who don’t think the wells will affect them.
“It affects the value of the whole township,” Gibson said. “The rest of Brookfield needs to know this affects all of Brookfield.”
Resident Traci Downie suggested the township trustees, who are opposed to the wells, write a letter to residents to make more people aware of the issue.
Trustee Dan Suttles said he is “as fired up as you are” about the wells and said he would do what he can to support the anti-well campaign.
“We need to do more,” he said.
Suttles supported the bus trip idea and said he would be willing to go door-to-door for the cause.
“They can clear all they want back there,” Suttles said of the well site, where workers have been building a road. “Until they put a well in there, I’m of the belief that we can stop this.”
Anyone who wants to sign up for the bus trip can call Hennessy at 330-406-7652.
The group will next meet at 2 p.m. March 3 at the Brookfield Branch Library of the Warren-Trumbull County Public Library, 7032 Grove St.
