To: The Alabama State House, The Alabama State Senate, and Governor Kay Ivey
Ban Tar Sands Mining in Alabama
The only environmentally responsible regulation for Alabama's Oil and Gas industry is one which states clearly, "TAR SANDS MINING IS NOT PERMITTED IN THE STATE OF ALABAMA." Help our Oil and Gas Board write the new regulation to Ban Tar Sands Mining and Fracking in North Alabama. MS Industries, our Tar Sands developer, should go home after they properly fill the 2700 bore holes they drilled throughout the area.
Why is this important?
Big Oil has big plans to mine Tar Sands in North Alabama. These plans threaten our land and our people. Strip mining and fracking wells will be used to remove the Tar Sands from thousands of acres. How do we benefit? For a few temporary jobs that will last for about five years, Governor Robert Bentley will destroy our forests, contaminate our air, and poison the water we drink. It is a dumb idea and one based on an obsolete fossil fuel technology.
The Alabama Oil and Gas Board is writing a new regulation for this dangerous activity, and claims they want to mine the Tar Sands in a safe manner. Tar Sands Mining is inherently dangerous and cannot be done safely, and so far Alabama has not proved capable of writing a regulation that does not favor industry. This state has long been known as pollution friendly and the state EPA, known as ADEM, would not say "boo" to big industry. They can't even police the damage already done by the developer. The Alabama Oil and Gas Board regulation, once written, must state clearly that, "TAR SANDS MINING IS NOT PERMITTED IN THE STATE OF ALABAMA!" Thirty pieces of silver in a politician's pocket is not worth the risk.