Dressed as citizen referees, activists “blew the whistle” on the gas industry’s influence over the Ohio legislature. Students, farmers, and concerned citizens from central Ohio overwhelmed an Agricultural and Natural Resources Committee hearing yesterday, frustrated with the deliberate stonewalling of six bills to slow or halt fracking and injection waste and the repression of the public’s voice on this critical issue.

In what activists deemed to be an effort to quell resistance, the Ohio House pushed back the hearings of the six bills for hours until many activists could no longer stay. Activists believe the delay on hearings of these bills is directly linked with the $2.8 million the Gas Industry has poured into the Ohio Legislature, including $213,000 in campaign contributions allotted to Governor Kasich.

Ohio students are ready for action after the Ohio Student Environmental Coalition winter training retreat. Over 30 student leaders from nine different colleges converged at Kenyon College for a weekend full of trainings for organizers, leadership development, and state networking.  Many colleges including Ohio State University, Ohio University, the University of Cincinnati, Oberlin College, Wooster, and Kenyon are ready to tackle big polluters with effective organizing tools learned over the weekend.

The last few weeks have been a wicked ride for the anti-fracking movement in Ohio, after a series of intense earthquakes linked to a fracking waste injection well rocked Youngstown and 'shook up' our Governors idea of 'a safe and regulated industry'.

On November 30th, Ohio's first natural gas conference was met with determination and resistance: close to 200 concerned citizens marched in the streets of Youngstown, rallied outside of the industry conference, and exposed fracking in Ohio for the 'State of Emergency' it really is. Simultaneously and nearby, a group of activists shut down a fracking-waste injection well by successfully blockading the entrance gates, despite blatant industry aggression and intimidation as brine trucks pushed into the peaceful blockade.