Stories from local activists inspire current and future generations to act! Please contact us to share your stories if you organized any social justice efforts in Ashtabula County – past or present!

We are audio recording interviews of Ashtabula County activists, from the past and present. In particular, we are interested in capturing the stories of those we may soon lose. Many youth today do not see or feel the spirit of action and change that has historically been a part of our county. As long as there was oppression, ignorance, and injustice in our community, there too have been resisters fighting the good fight! Activists stories are the ones left untold and unrecorded in history. These are the stories we want to capture NOW! Before they are gone!

Please help us! Are you an activist? Was someone you know once an activist? Please contact us! Help us get these stories on record so we can share and inspire!

Thanks to the Buckeye Environmental Network for compiling 2017 total amounts of Fracking Wastewater (“brine”) being brought into our communities. Below click on each image to see how much toxic waste was brought into your own OH county, if it came from in state or out, and which companies in Ashtabula County are bringing how much. Petrowater tops the charts here; a local company owned by Phil Dietrich.

Join us! We’re soliciting volunteers to help us with an awesome oral history project!

Ashtabula County Water Watch has some incredible members and acquaintances who have been fighting the good fight for a long time. Help us interview activists from the anti-nuke era of the 1970s all the way up through the activists fighting injection wells today. Hear about long term campaigns to stop Perry Nuclear Power Plant from being built, marches on Washington, the Sunflower Alliance, and actions that shut down the Ashtabula Harbor!

When activists organize in our community, they never just do it for the environment – they do it for the people! Many environmental campaigns tied into welfare rights and the labors of love that brought Head Start to our county. The individuals who fought for the poor also fought for clean water. These inspirational people who lived these amazing stories are RIGHT HERE in our own town! We need to capture their flame and help pass it on!

We need volunteers of all abilities and interests in this project – interviewers, filmmakers, people with recording equipment, journalists, editors of recorded media, and more I’m sure!

Help connect the past to the present! Be the conduit for these powerful stories!

Ashtabula County Water Watch volunteers are currently accepting donations for water testing. We hope to organize fundraisers and solicit donations throughout the next few years. We want to test for radioactive materials in the springs around Ashtabula County, where many people get their drinking water (for example, the one on Rt 193, just downstream of all those toxic plants along Middle Rd. in Ashtabula).

The water tests that reveal radioactive elements and other toxins are much more expensive than regular water tests. They can be over $200 for each sample. Also, samples are collected very carefully and taken straight to the closest testing lab – which is all the way in Cuyahoga Falls – a trek from Ashtabula. Expenses to gather this important information add up quickly.

We are soliciting volunteers to help us fund raise for this cause! Please contact us to volunteer today!

If anyone wishes to test their own water, this lab is accredited to test drinking water for radiologicals by EPA Region V. Be sure to ask them ahead of time what the procedure is – they may need to take the sample themselves.

This Mother’s Day, activists dramatized a “battle on the border” of Ohio and Pennsylvania to defend Mother Earth! It was a networking potluck with a bit of playful theater.

Despite cold weather, activists from PA and OH turned out in high spirits! A reporter from the Gazette came, as well as about 2 dozen people from Erie, Butler Co PA, Columbus, Youngstown, Cleveland, and Ashtabula Co OH. We enjoyed each other’s company, and shared stories. Great networking! There is a clear thirst for these kinds of activities, as many more wanted to come but couldn’t. We’ll have to organize something again with more schedules involved.

Unfortunately, the environmental movement is treated as terrorism and government arms came out in unnecessary numbers. ODNR, OH police, and PA police were all the first to arrive! 🙂 They expressed concerns about property damage and mostly traffic safety on the bridge for our photo-op, Barrel-Battle-At-The-Border. After ample discussion, we decided to stay off the causeway and made a dramatized state line instead. We had fun pretending to fight over who is taking the toxic fracking waste that comes from PA and OH natural gas well fracking. Maybe one day peace-lovers will be able to get together without government arms chaperoning.

Here is more about the event from our press release:

Ohioans are sick of being the dumping ground for the radioactive toxic wastewater that comes from hydraulic fracturing of natural gas wells in Pennsylvania. Likewise, Pennsylvanians don’t want nasty drilling waste in their backyards either! Activists will butt heads this Mother’s Day, as residents from each state refuse fracking wastewater in their own communities.

Ohio’s “Ashtabula County Water Watch” (ACWW) is joining forces with Pennsylvania’s “Our Water, Our Air, Our Rights” (OWOAOR) to battle over our common Mother. Anti-fracking sentiment is building in our region, and passions collide on the border! Activists will play “hot potato” with a barrel of “fracking waste” on the bridge connecting Ohio to Pennsylvania, as they each battle to defend Mother Earth.

Activists from both states are encouraged to attend to network and build ties toward common goals. Other groups expected to attend include: Marcellus Outreach Butler, Committee for the Youngstown Community Bill of Rights, Cleveland Environmental Action Network (CLEAN), Northeast Ohio Sierra Club, and more. Come out to build bridges with fellow activists – or to battle on them! It’s a “Barrel Battle at the Border!”

Fracking for natural gas in PA (and elsewhere) requires enormous amounts of fresh water that can never be used again once turned into “brine” wastewater that is injected into one of OH’s many Class II injection wells (among other disposal methods). Pymatuning Reservoir is a beautiful fresh water system enjoyed by OH and PA residents alike, making it the perfect setting to highlight frack-water issues in both OH and PA. Come learn about the threats to fresh water that our states share.

Sunday, May 14, 2017, Mother’s Day

4pm: Event begins

5pm: Barrel Battle at the Border! – Photo opportunity

Followed by potluck and networking – bring a dish to share if you are able

Join us as we highlight our county’s growing legacy of environmental abuses! In solidarity with the “National Day of Action: Freedom from Toxic Fracking Waste and Earthquakes,” we tour injection wells, earthquake epicenters, Superfund sites, and successful remediation cleanups.

The tour kicks off at 1 p.m. from the Harbor Topky Library in Ashtabula. We start with a brief presentation by Vanessa Pesec of NEOGAP (Network for Oil and Gas Accountability and Protection). Pesec gives an overview of fracking activity in the area and provides information about the hazards of horizontal drilling and the impact of injection wells and drilling by-products.

Attendees are then invited to get on board the bus for a tour of local sites of environmental abuse and remediation. The tour is expected to take two hours and will include narration about each site.

Attendees are welcome to drive separately if needed – maps will be provided.

To reserve a seat on the bus, or to coordinate travel plans with tour, please contact us via email at acwaterwatch@gmail.com, by phone at (440) 549-0111, or via the facebook event page.

The USGS recently announced, “7 million Americans at risk of man-made earthquakes,” and we are some of them! Read the article in the Washington Post. Scroll down to the second map and see that the USGS put the Perry Nuclear Power Plant on their map of earthquakes induced by injection wells.