Take Action!

Like a freight train in the night, you can hear it at a distance, getting louder, horns sounding in warning. Just as a train is coming, the gas and oil drilling train of City Council, the Mayor and Oil Companies want to come and take your minerals and affect our subdivisions air quality and quiet enjoyment of our property. This is the time to get in front of this issue — heed the call and let the City Council know you want protection from the actions they have brought to our community. You want strict ordinance regulations on the well feeder pipelines that the oil companies want to run through the subdivisions and to their oil and gas processing and separation plant. There could be up to and over 5,000 oil trucks per year moving about our roadways to transport oil to the Marathon refinery in Detroit – you want weight limits on city roads that these oil trucks want to use. There would also be venting of gasses such as BTEX (toxic) and Radon gasses at the well head and at the processing plant(s). Processing plants typically are located one to two miles from the well heads – the fumes coming off of holding tanks filling and emptying daily will waif over subdivisions and portions of our city. Request that ordinances include sensors monitored by the hour 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. Ordinances also to include stiff daily fines for violations of the EPA PPM limits for VOC’s and other toxic gasses (according to EPA Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants Reviews
40 CFR Parts 60 and 63) to be assessed to the operators of these Oil and Gas processing plants. What can you do? Get involved, inform your neighbors, inform your subdivision homeowners association there is no need to sign leases. Should compulsory pooling come about, the 1/8 proportion of royalties are the same as signing a lease, plus you receive a your portion of the remaining 7/8 production as a business partner – after drilling expenses are recovered — according to the Michigan State University Extension, Being compulsory pooled offers far greater compensation — the Oil companies prefer you to sign their lease so they do not have to share their 7/8 remaining profits with you.

We just went through something very similar where we used to lived in the village of New Haven in Macomb County, before our move to beautiful Rochester Hills. Our New Haven village president and trustees entered into a host agreement with Rizzo Environmental Services to build a second landfill directly across the street from the huge and only existing active landfill in Macomb County, located between 28 & 29 Mile Roads, East of Gratiot. The new landfill would have encompassed a large area between 27 & 28 Mile Roads. This agreement was done without the knowledge or vote of the people and there was a huge public outcry. The trustees had to back down, rescinding the agreement and Rizzo agreed to not pursue the landfill. Subsequently, THREE trustees of the village of New Haven, plus the village president were removed from office through recall and other members were elected. Things can get FIXED if people will stick together and let their voices be heard!