Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
Donate
The Post - Athens, OH
The Post

NEWS BLOGS

The Post

Fracking protestors feel ignored amid barge dock plans

By M.C. Tilton | Oct. 5, 2014

Almost 3,000 people who submitted public comments condemning a proposed Ohio River barge dock for hydraulic fracturing waste are saying they’ve been told their comments are meaningless.The dock — set to be located just downriver of the fork of the Ohio and Hocking rivers  in Meigs County — has activists and local politicians heated about its potential negative effects on the regional water supply. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers accepted public comments regarding the dock from June 27 to Aug. 24.The Corps instructed commenters to submit letters as hard copies or emails. However, nearly three-quarters of the 4,000 commenters chose to submit their letters through an alert on the Food and Water Watch website, an environmental advocacy group.The Corps has invalidated those letters and will only count the fewer than 1,000 letters that came via email and mail, according to Heather Cantino from the Athens County Fracking Action Network. Cantino said the the Corps hasn’t set a deadline for a decision on the building of the dock, but a release from ACFAN added that Teresa Spagna, a Corps project manager, told group members that she would now accept letters until the decision date. “They alone are making the choice to sit on the letters,” Cantino said. “The Food and Water Watch comments include names and contact information that make them just as valid as the emailed and mailed comments.”Cantino has sent out a press release asking that the excluded commenters request the Corps to count their original letters.The barge dock would hold waste from hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, directly on the Ohio River by GreenHunter Resources, a Texas oil field management company that activists have long pinpointed as a threat to local flora and fauna. GreenHunter already owns and operates a waste storage site in Washington County, northeast of Athens.The Corps must approve GreenHunter’s application before the dock can be built.Members of Athens City Council passed a non-binding resolution in late July condemning the move. At the time, Mayor Paul Wiehl said he was bracing himself for a worst-case scenario, in light of the water crisis in West Virginia this winter, when thousands of gallons of a chemical spilled into the Elk River and kept hundreds of thousands of people without drinkable water.Representatives from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could not be reached for comment by press time.@MCTILTONMT522913@ohio.edu

The Post

GSS to address medical leave

Oct. 5, 2014

The graduate student emergency medical/parental leave policy will be discussed at Graduate Student Senate’s bi-monthly meeting Monday at 7:30 p.m.“Graduate students have many of the duties and responsibilities of faculty, but they have only the rights and protections of students,” said Carl Edward Smith III, president of Graduate Student Senate. “Graduate students are in a really ill-defined space." Graduate students who have children have no ability to get maternity or paternity leave, Smith said, adding that students can lose their funding or place in a program. It is the same scenario for medical leave. Emergency surgery could mean that a student gets fired for not doing their work while they are in the hospital, Smith said.Susanne B. Dietzel, director of OU’s Women’s Center, will give a presentation on the leave policy at Monday's meeting. A resolution to create a liaison to Athens City Council from GSS will be voted on during Monday’s meeting.“Rather than only talking to city council or the mayor whenever we have an issue or see a problem, by appointing a city council liaison for graduate student senate, we can be more regularly involved and attend city council meetings,” Smith said.Smith said he's pushing for GSS to enact more policy reforms this year, and the leave policy and liaison proposals are examples of that action. This year, each commission has to produce a proposal for policy reform and a proposal to benefit their constituency, per term. New members will also be appointed be to Graduate Student Senate at Monday’s meeting.@megankhenryMH573113@ohio.edu 

The Post

Not-so planned power outage

By EMILY BOHATCH | Oct. 1, 2014

There will be a power outage on Court Street from Union Street to Washington Street from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Thursday. Businesses received no notice of the outage.

The Post

State Supreme Court rules strip mining OK

By M.C. Tilton | Oct. 1, 2014

The Ohio Supreme Court has released a ruling affirming mineral owners’ right to strip mine in state wildlife parks, potentially setting a precedent for future mining cases throughout the state.

upport Us
Trending
The Post on
Powered by SNworks Solutions by The State News
All Content © 2016-2026 The Post, Athens OH