Fifty Towns in Connecticut Have Now Banned Fracking Waste

By a whopping 105-31-2 vote, the Greenwich Representative Town Meeting passed a comprehensive ban on all fracking and extraction wastes—which includes, but is not limited to, fracking waste.

The push for a comprehensive ban has been led by a local resident group called Greenwich Conservation Advocates, whose members put in many months of hard work, introducing the ban over a year ago. The residents who moved it forward faced unrelenting opposition from industry backers and fracking advocates.

“I am glad that the work of the RTM committees was respected and attempts to weaken the ordinance failed at the final meeting,” said Marija Mikolajczak, co-founder of Greenwich Conservation Advocates. “It’s a great feeling to see so many people in our community come together and support protecting Greenwich.”

The citizens who are coming together to protect the health and safety of their communities are a threat to the fracking industry. And against considerable odds, they are winning.

There is no fracking in the state, but the drilling frenzy in nearby Pennsylvania generates billions of gallons of liquid waste, and millions of tons of solid waste. This dangerous material must either be treated or disposed in some manner, or it can potentially be used as a de-icer, to control dust on roads, or as construction material. The risks to public health are considerable, including chemical and radioactive contamination of water and soil, and permanent damage to private and public property.

As a small, densely-populated state with several waste treatment facilities, Connecticut could potentially be a target for drilling waste treatment—bringing trucks filled with toxic, radioactive fracking waste onto our roads.

The movement to ban this waste has grown town by town. Just last April, we were celebrating the thirteenth waste ban. Now we are at 50, with more on the way. These actions are especially important as a comprehensive statewide ban remains stalled in the state legislature.

These grassroots anti-fracking movements are undoubtedly something to cheer—but not everyone is excited. Over the summer, the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM) unveiled its own waste ban ordinance for towns to consider. But this model legislation is seriously flawed; it offers a narrow definition of fracking waste, exempts oil and gas waste from conventional wells, and crafts exceptions for waste to be used in construction and roads. This potentially exposes people to serious toxic and radioactive contamination, and it is a practice that states like Pennsylvania have rejected.

The CCM ordinance is clearly advanced by corporate interests threatened by the citizen movements to pass comprehensive waste bans. And they have shown they will go to extreme lengths, making the ridiculous claim that Food & Water Watch has been ‘pressuring’ towns to pass bans, only to find themselves “paralyzed... from performing any infrastructure improvements or road projects, effectively chilling the economic development environment for many communities.”

There is absolutely no evidence to support this; towns that have passed comprehensive waste ban ordinances are not chilling their own economic development.

The truth is that the comprehensive bans being enacted across the state are all based on similar legislation passed in five counties in New York state, carefully crafted by experts in environmental law and public health. These laws clearly define extraction activities and wastes that are banned, and they do not ban products necessary for infrastructure and road projects.

The citizens who are coming together to protect the health and safety of their communities are a threat to the fracking industry. And against considerable odds, they are winning.