This coming Monday, April 26, 2010 at 9:30 a.m. in the Jim Thorpe Building, located at 2101 N. Lincoln Boulevard in Oklahoma City, the Town of Vian and the Cherokee Nation will appeal the Oklahoma Corporation Commission’s recommendation to permit a proposed saltwater (frackwater) disposal well within the city limits of Vian.
Over 800 Vian residents, including myself, signed a petition opposing the well. Following are the residents’ concerns:
1) Proximity of the proposed well to the K-12 Vian Public Schools, where 1,009 children — over half of them Cherokee — attend school, play on the playgrounds and compete on the open-air athletic fields. The proposed site is less than 1,000 feet away.
2) Radioactive wastes deposited nearby at the Sequoyah Fuels site would be disturbed by shallow, high pressure and high capacity injection and rise to the surface.
3) Bald eagles, migratory birds and two endangered species — the American burying beetle and the interior least tern — occur at the Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge, approximately 21,000 acres of preserved land 3 miles south of the proposed well site.
4) Pollution of ground, soil and water that would negatively affect the Town’s horticultural and agricultural activities which includes personal gardens, commercial farming and horse and cattle ranching.
5) Pollution from the trucks hauling the injection fluids in the forms of odor, gas and noise would affect the school, homes and local businesses as they are well within the radius of exposure.
6) Origin and content of the deleterious substance, as hundreds of unmonitored trucks bring in out-of-state waste.
7) Loss in real estate value. With hundreds of single-family homes in such close proximity, the widespread loss in value to the residents would be staggering.
I urge not only the 800 residents who signed the petition to attend the hearing, but also the residents of Sequoyah County. Waste disposal is turning neighbor upon neighbor, as some of our neighbors choose the easy way - by selling out the rest of us, our health, homes and safety – to make a dollar. It is important that we stand unified to keep the industrial toxic waste dumpers out and keep our land and resources safe for the future generations of Sequoyah County residents to come.
LACY HORN, VIAN
