Thursday, March 15, 2012

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Olive Defense Against Fracking (ODAF)
Local Group Takes Action
by Proposing a Rights-Based Town Ordinance



We are Town of Olive residents concerned about the possibility of Hydraulic Fracturing coming to our area.  All of Ulster County sits on a natural-gas bearing formation called the Utica Shale.  

In the face of increasing scientific evidence revealing the dangers to our WATER, AIR, ROADS, LOCAL ECONOMIES and WAY OF LIFE posed by hydraulic fracturing (fracking) by drilling for natural gas, Town of Olive residents are asserting their RIGHTS TO PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM HARM through passing a local law based on our Inalienable Rights as espoused in the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.

The RIGHTS-based Ordinance is modeled on a local law passed by the City of Pittsburgh.  The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, CELDF is a regional pro bono law group based in Pennsylvania, helping us in this effort. They have helped 130 towns and cities to prevent corporate incursions that would irrevocably harm them, and have been successful in having their ordinances upheld.

We are creating “a network of people committed to securing the right to local, community self-government, the reversal of political, legal, and cultural doctrines that interfere with that right, and the creation of a new system and doctrines that support that right.”

According to CELDF, it’s necessary to stay a step ahead of corporate challenges.  A local law based on a Bill of Rights does not accord any legal rights or powers within the community higher than the right of the community to protect the water, air, land and lives of its residents.  It declares that state-issued permits that violate the Bill of Rights section of the ordinance are invalid within the municipality.

A Community Bill of Rights creates a framework that fosters economic and environmental sustainability at the community level. It’s not complicated. The ordinances turn the myth of popular sovereignty into reality. With the fracking boom in full swing, and our communities becoming resource colonies for a corporations, if the time isn’t now, then when will it be? If our communities are not the ones to lead the way, then who will? How long will we continue to allow corporate directors, in complicity with federal and state legislators, to govern our communities?




Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund:  www.celdf.org

Olive Defense Against Fracking
ODAF@gmail.org



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