By Shannon Biggs and Tish O’Dell

imagesAround the country, communities fighting fracking took their cause to the ballot box in the 2014 cycle — or tried to. But even before voters got a chance to voice their values some were preempted by nefariously oily means.  In Butte County, CA the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) —California’s biggest lobby — found a “formatting error” on residents’ petition (meaning: a few words that should have been in bold face type on the petition). Although Frack-Free Butte County won in court, their ordinance was delayed beyond the election season.

For some places, the corporate dollars were too big to beat.  In Santa Barbara California, Chevron, ExxonMobil and other corporate oil interests donated $7 million to drown local efforts, confuse voters and sink endorsements of the defeated Measure P. They were not alone.

As Common Cause has reported, Big Oil spent $267 million in the last 15 years on California lobbying and political contributions in Sacramento, the lion’s share of which coincides with fracking’s ugly rise as the short-term future of the fossil fuel industry.  Others made it on to the ballot, only to find millions of dollars being poured into their local elections by Big Oil and Gas lobbies.

In Colorado, statehouse officials denied democracy by refusing to let communities vote on fracking. In August, Colorado’s Democratic Governor, John Hickenlooper convinced U.S. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Boulder) to pull his support for the citizen initiative process that would have enabled two anti-fracking initiatives on the ballot and ammended the state constitution to give more control over drilling and fracking to local communities.

dentonnofrack

Victory denied? Less than 24 hours after their win, the state was already threatening to ignore Denton’s ban.

And in the most talked about local victory of the elections, residents of Denton, Texas, “the birthplace of fracking” overwhelmingly saw past the big lobby money to ban fracking on election day, only to have state officials and the Texas oil lobby sue to overturn the ordinance, telling residents that its “not their job” to approve or deny fracking permits in their town.

Even in San Benito California, CA, where residents passed a fracking  ban despite the big lobby dollars, they may face a new post-election hurdle.  “It’s a regulatory taking because it’s the regulation which is depriving property owners of the ability to extract value from their minerals or property,” Armen Nahabedian of Citadel Exploration, a company that’s developing an oil project in San Benito told KQED. “So it’s the duty of the county at this point to either allow people to continue to extract value from their property and not enforce the initiative or to compensate them accordingly with the fair market value of what they’ve been deprived of,” he says.

All of these point to a problem that is (unbelievably) even bigger than frackingthe state of democracy.

photo[3] Two Communities Doing it Differently: In their Own Words

Two very different communities — Athens, Ohio and Mendocino County, CA also banned fracking this November, but did so by asserting their local right to make governing decisions, AND taking a stand against corporate violations of community rights “permitted” by state and federal governments.

On November 4, 2014, Mendocino County, known for wineries, farming redwood forests and the Pacific, became the first California community to adopt a Community Bill of Rights, placing the rights of people and their ecosystem above the interests of fracking companies. “Measure S”, put forward by the CRNMC (Community Rights Network of Mendocino County) declares the right of County residents to exercise their unalienable right to local community self-governance, the right of natural communities and ecosystems to exist and flourish, the right to clean water, air, and soil, and the right to be free from chemical trespass. Measure S prohibits fracking in Mendocino County because fracking is a clear violation of those rights. It passed with a 67% majority.

Mendocino small farmer and volunteer Jamie Lee said: “This is only the beginning of local self-governance for us up here in Mendocino, the first step of many toward changing the rules about ‘who decides’ what happens here. WE do.”

 Peter Norris  who helped spur the ordinance effort early on said, ” We reject the notion that corporations are people, (and that they have the constitutional right to plunder our resources for their profit), and also reject the unjust practice of state and federal preeminence over local governments.”

Charles Cresson Wood, local organizer for Mendocino Coast Transition Towns had this analysis: “Measure S was not the work of some hippie fringe group in the woods of Northern California. It was instead just another in a long string of communities across America who are standing up for their rights, and acknowledging in law the fact that we are all connected. It is not possible to simultaneously poison our precious drinking water with fracking chemicals and also have a vibrant agricultural sector in Mendocino County. So this new measure is only aligning the law with the laws of nature, is only recognizing that we are all in this together, and only acknowledging that we cannot allow short-term profit-driven activities of the fracking companies to harm the long-term health and wealth of our County.”

Baile Oakes, father, sculptor and land steward told us, “This is an important step along the way to true local self governance and to preserve the unalienable rights to a healthy ecosystem for all. Its local survival and laws to follow that rely on our community’s full support.”

fracking_2

“Thanks to fracking, we call it Ohiofornia because of the earthquakes we have now” says Tish O’dell

In Athens, Ohio, election night 2014 was one of great celebration. Over a year and a half after beginning their attempt to pass a Community Bill of Rights in their community and being kept off the ballot last November, the residents of Athens won and they won big—78% big!

According to Dick McGinn, spokesperson for the community group, “With this overwhelming demonstration of support, Athens residents are sending a clear message to the oil and gas industry and to the state of Ohio: We have a right to clean air and water. We have a right to local self-governance. And there will be no fracking or frack waste disposal within our city.”

Athens now joins Yellow Springs, Oberlin, Mansfield, and Broadview Heights, OH, which also adopted Community Bills of Rights banning fracking, beginning in 2012. Upon hearing the news of Athens, OH, Mendocino County, CA and Denton, TX, many residents of Ohio had an opinion on community rights and the people asserting their right to local self governance:

Susie Beiersdorfer, Ohio Community Rights Network (OHCRN) Board Member said,The state has permitted injection wells in our city and one, shut down but not plugged, has triggered over 550 earthquakes, the largest a 4.0 in December of 2011. In April 2014, a radioactive frack waste processing facility was state approved and located along the Mahoning River just north of downtown without the knowledge of any city or county official. Like the residents of Denton, we first went through the normal channels of trying to engage our local and state politicians and received mixed results; silence, willful ignorance or active opposition.  Those of us working to pass rights-based bans, stand in solidarity with the citizens of Denton, as they enforce their citizens’ ban and hold the government, state agencies and industry accountable.”

Gwen B. Fischer, OHCRN Board Member Portage County and member of Concerned Citizens Ohio, told us, “When I read that despite the vote to ban in Denton,  the Chair of the TX Railroad Commission, presumably a governmental agency that works for the people declare she will continue to issue permits for drilling in Denton, ‘because that’s her job’ that tells me that the inalienable rights  of the citizens of Denton are being violated.  [We] do not live in a democracy.   Because that can (and has) happened everywhere local people have conflicts with corporate profit-making, we must recognize that none of us lives in a democracy.”

Sherry Fleming, OHCRN Board member Williams County, Ohio said,The valiant efforts of Denton, TX, to prohibit fracking through the existing structure of law has collided with the misconception that citizens may act at the local level to protect their health and welfare from corporate threats. … We are one of many communities across the country, facing a corporate harm, which is exploring a new path; one that takes a civil rights approach, using rights based ordinances to protect the community and the surrounding environment, in order to expose the imbalance of power between corporations and communities, and to test existing law to create change where communities may act in their best interest.”

 Residents are Looking to the future

1969125_768268426538543_5066547460394226227_nLisa Kochheiser, OHCRN Board Member Wood County and Community Rights Activist, Bowling Green, OH  “Community Bill of Rights are spreading not only across the state of Ohio but across the country in PA, NH, NM, CO, OR, and WA, as well. Community Rights is at work in many communities today, stopping corporate harm in the places where people live. Be the change – join the Community Rights Movement.”

Charles Cresson Woods added, “There is one message that we can teach now, and that THERE IS HOPE, that the average person like you and me can make a significant difference, and that grass-roots activism can actually bring about significant change. The corporations would have us think that we can do nothing, and that we must accept the established order. They are doing their best to redefine freedom and other core American values in ways that suit their commercial purposes.”

 

 

ShanVID02930non Biggs is the Community Rights Director for Global Exchange, and the co-author of two books, Building the Green Economy: Success Stories from the Grass Roots and The Rights of Nature. Her current work focuses on assisting communities confronted by corporate harms to enact binding laws that place the rights of communities and nature above the claimed legal “rights” of corporations.

 

 O'Dell Head ShotTish O’Dell is the CELDF Ohio Community Organizer. Tish co-founded the grass-roots organization MADION (Mothers Against Drilling in Our Neighborhoods) in Broadview Heights, OH, that successfully campaigned to adopt a Home Rule Charter amendment creating a Community Bill of Rights banning oil/gas drilling and fracking.

Mendocino County Becomes First in California to pass a Community Bill of Rights

photo[2]At 8:00 pm on Election Night 2014, residents of picturesque Mendocino County concerned about the availability and quality of local water waited anxiously for the first results on Measure “S”, the Community Bill of Rights Ordinance that bans fracking, dumping of frack waste and protects their water from being used for fracking anywhere in the state. Global Exchange and our partners and allies were proud to support the Community Rights Network of Mendocino County (CRNMC), the group behind this initiative.

Just after midnight it was clear they had made California history, passing Measure S by a whopping 67% of the county vote. It was not the only measure in the state to ban fracking—San Benito, CA voters passed Measure J despite the heavy influx of Big Oil funding to defeat it, while Santa Barbara’s anti-fracking measure succumbed to corporate money influence.

But residents of Mendocino county did far more than ban fracking this election.

With the passage of Measure S, residents in Mendocino County made history as the first California community to adopt a Community Bill of Rights, placing their rights above corporate interests. Residents see enactment of this ordinance as the first step in asserting their right to local self-government, and a rejection of the idea that their community will be a sacrifice zone for corporate profits. This is a huge milestone for the community rights movement in California—joining with over 180 communities across the country who have also changed the structure of law by passingphoto[3] rights-based legislation.

The Mendocino County Community Bill of Rights Fracking and Water Use Initiative, (Measure S) establishes the rights of the people of Mendocino County to a healthy environment, including clean air and water, and the rights of ecosystems to exist and flourish. The measure also secures the rights of residents to local self-governance. Fracking is banned as a violation of those rights, and directly challenges constitutional so-called “rights” of corporations to frack in their County. The extraction or sale of local water for use in fracking anywhere in the state is also banned, along with the dumping of toxic frack waste. Further, the measure bans the transfer of offshore fracking oil or waste through the County.

Jamie Lee, a community-based farmer in the Anderson Valley of Mendocino attended the very first Democracy School, a weekend rights-based training, in California in 2006, hosted by Global Exchange and CELDF. “Who knew back then that we would be celebrating this victory today.”  Over the years Jamie Lee brought Global Exchange’s Shannon Biggs to Mendocino many times to meet with groups and residents, hold public lectures, along with other practicioners and educators of the Community Rights framework, including long time advocate Paul Cienfuegos.

So by the time Peter Norris of Willits reached out to Global Exchange in 2013, there was already a strong sense of community self-governance throughout the far-flung county. A county wide Democracy School was held with 50 people, followed by steady flow of rights-based organizing support from Global Exchange, and the encouragement of the anti-fracking movement of California.   David Braun, part of the coalition Californians Against Fracking was a regular visitor to Mendocino throughout the election cycle, “Starting today, in Mendocino, community rights trump those of big money and corporations, but they also ensure that fracking doesn’t destroy precious and irreplaceable water air soil and biodiversity.  Big congratulations are in order to the people of Mendocino for their hard won battle against big oil.   Now we need to double down and make sure all the people of California and around the country are protected from fracking.  There is a lot to build on for all of us – and we will.”

IMG_0004

Resident members of CRNMC turning in signatures for the ballot in June, 2014

 

But it was the community that came together to put this into law. A core group of 30 and countless volunteers worked tirelessly throughout 2014 to collect the signatures for the ballot, host public events, write letters to the editor, paint lawn signs and go door-to-door with the message that decisions about water protection in Mendocino belong to residents and residents alone. As key CRNMC member Kelly Larson said, “Measure S was organized around a network model, rather than the old hierarchical top-down leadership, thereby modeling the ‘community’ in community rights.”

CELDF’s Ben Price offered congratulations to the people of Mendocino County, and to the organizers of the effort, stating, “With this vote, the people of Mendocino are challenging a legal structure that protects a corporate “right” to frack above the rights of communities to not be fracked.”

As resident Carrie Durkee proclaimed, “The passage of Measure S looks like a milestone to me. I’m filled with appreciation, admiration, and gratitude to all for the creation of the Community Bill of Rights.”

Kelly Larson added, Measure S is an important challenge to corporate constitutional rights, and the oil and gas industry.    We’re grateful that the voters of Mendocino County so strongly support community rights…Local people deciding for local control and decision making.  Democracy won here today!” Jamie Lee echoed this, saying, “this is only the beginning of local self-governance for us up here in Mendocino, the first step of many toward changing the rules about ‘who decides’ what happens here. WE do.”

 

 

By Kiara Collins, Community Rights program intern, Global Exchange

Mora County, New Mexico is not the first place that comes to mind for challenging the ‘rights’ of corporations. This is high desert, and life moves pretty slowly for the 5,000 residents—at least until fracking arrived.

This sparsely populated county is politically conservative, with a large Native American population. Over half of those living in Mora County are native Spanish speakers, and for just about everybody, homesteading, ranching and living close to the land is a way of life. As resident Roger Alcon told the Los Angeles Times, “We’ve lived off the land for five generations.  I don’t want to destroy our water, [and] you can’t drink oil.”

In 2013, Mora County became the first county in the U.S to ban hydraulic fracturing by exercising their right to local self-governance. By enacting these rights, they passed a local law—the Community Water Rights and Local Self-Governance ordinance—that bans all fossil-fuel extraction in their county, because to do so would be a violation of residents’ civil rights. The ordinance also strips corporations of their “right” to frack, and recognizes that the ecosystem upon which all life depends has a right to be free of the contamination that fracking brings.

BIG OIL TAKES ON THE PEOPLE OF MORA COUNTY

Shortly after the ordinance was passed, the Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico and three landowners in a federal district court sued Mora County. They protested that Mora County had violated corporate constitutional rights “commemorated in the 1st, 5th, and 14th amendments,” — the Constitution and a Supreme Court that has “found” that large corporations are rights bearing “persons”—which means as long as they have a permit, unwanted industry can set up shop where we live—even over our community objections.

Then in January of 2014, Shell Western E&P Inc. (SWEPI), a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell also sued Mora County claiming that enacting the Community Water Rights and Local Self-Governance ordinance was a violation of the corporation’s Constitutional rights.

Despite what the Supreme Court has said, Mora County residents don’t see the justice in corporate decision makers wielding the law to turn their community into a sacrifice zone for profit.  The Mora County ordinance clearly states “…corporate entities and their directors and managers shall not enjoy special privileges and powers under the law which make community majorities subordinate to them.”

MORA COUNTY FIGHTS CORPORATE POWER

Mora County is not giving in to Big Oil & Gas’ exploitation of welfare, property values, health and the ecosystem all residents depend on. They stand behind the Bill of Rights ordinance which says that, “corporations in violation of the prohibitions enacted by this ordinance, or seeking to engage in activities prohibited by this ordinance, shall not have the rights of ‘persons’ afforded by the United States and New Mexico constitutions…”

With support from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), Mora County Commissioners are working to defend this Community Bill of Rights, but even more so to defend themselves from laws that elevate corporate “rights” over community rights. CELDF and the New Mexico Environmental Law Center stand in solidarity with Mora County to exercise their inherent rights of environmental health and safety. Mora County Commissioners are calling on all communities across the U.S to stand in solidarity with the people of Mora county to challenge a structure of law that permits exploitation of  the ecosystems and the poisoning of residents for the profit of corporate frackers.

As said by Ben Price, National Organizing Director of CELDF,

“Why is the outcome of this fight important beyond Mora County? Because at the heart of it is the question: ‘who has rights; people or corporations?’”

The Community Bill Of Rights aims to take back power that people have been stripped of due to corporate greed. People have a right and a duty to protect themselves from corporate elites who desire only to increase profit margins, and in the process, destroy local environments and families.

Nearly 170 communities have passed similar laws that aim to place the rights of residents and ecosystems above corporate interests. In Mendocino County, California, residents have formed the  Community Rights Network of Mendocino County (CRNMC) in partnership with Global Exchange to  pass a similar rights-based ordinance banning fracking.

CRNMC spokesperson Ed Oberweiser believes this is a time for standing in solidarity with residents in Mora County, saying

“Congratulations to Mora County for standing up against an unjust system that says communities don’t have the authority to decide what happens in their community. We here in Mendocino County, California are working to get a community rights ordinance on our November ballot for a vote by we the people. We hope to join Mora County soon with a passed ordinance.”

HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT MORA COUNTY’s STAND FOR RIGHTS

If you’d like to support the people of Mora County in this battle with big oil and the corporate elite, please visit the Mora County Legal Defense Fund. The Mora County Legal Defense Fund recognizes that Mora’s Community Bill of Rights Ordinance, and the lawsuits filed in an attempt to overturn it, are about much more than simply fracking—so they have filed to intervene in the case.

In a recent press release from the intervenors, their civil rights attorney Jeffrey Haas stated,

“This case is about who controls the water, the land, the natural environment in Mora County, the residents of the County who have passed the ordinance to protect their rights and the rights of nature, or an out of State Corporation.”

photo[1]

Because a picture says 1,000 words, check out this short video on fracking, and get informed about  Community Rights by downloading Global Exchange’s new toolkit!

Kiara Collins is the Community Rights Program intern at Global Exchange. She aims to create positive change in her local and global community through acute social action and education. She currently attends Sonoma State University where she will be a sophomore this Fall.

 

2 color Mendo sticker

Increasingly, communities throughout California are facing the dangers of hydro-fracturing (fracking). Despite the severe drought plaguing farmers, farming communities in the Central Valley and throughout the state are being siphoned for water for fracking operations, or being used as a dumping ground for the toxic waste fracking generates. But residents in Mendocino County have another idea for water protection—local control.  A growing movement in this northern county—home to wineries, farms and redwood forests—is concerned about their already short supply of water, and are not willing to allow the toxic infrastructure and heavy water use that fracking brings. As Peter Norris, a Willits spokesperson for the newly formed Community Rights Network of Mendocino County (CRNMC) says, “Residents feel strongly that decisions about water here should be made locally and should be focused on the rights of community and our ecosystems, and enforced by laws.”

Fracking is slated to come to Mendocino in 18 months, though residents seek to stop it before it begins by putting a ban on the ballot this November—but the ordinance they seek to pass is more than just a fracking ban.  Partnering with Global Exchange’s Community Rights program, residents there have recently formed the CRNMC specifically to assert their right to protect the community and local water by banning fracking for the extraction of hydrocarbons, banning the use of local water for fracking outside the county, as well as banning the dumping or transport of toxic fracking waste through the county. To do this, their ordinance will recognize their local authority to make decisions that directly affect them and their ecosystems in order to ban all practices related to fracking, and strip fracking corporations of the legal tools corporate executives use to turn communities into sacrifice zones for profit.

3116586

CRNMC’s Jane McCabe and Kimbal Dodge, with event posters.

The CRNMC is gathering some 6,000 signatures throughout the county in order to put the idea of community rights on the ballot this November. If passed, Mendocino County will join the ranks of over 160 communities—from big cities to conservative rural townships across the US that have protected the health safety and welfare of residents and local ecosystems by asserting their right to decide what happens where they live.

The CRNMC will be enlisting volunteers and signature gathering at a series of four public events sprinkled throughout the county:2014 Fracking-Who Decides

  • Friday June 6, 2014, 7PM in Willits: LL Grange, 291 School Street
  • Saturday June 7, 7 pm in Ft. Bragg:  Town Hall, 363 N Main Street
  • Sunday June 8 at 1 PM in Boonville:  Anderson Valley Grange, Hwy 128
  • Sunday June 8, 4 PM in Ukiah: Methodist Church, 270 N Pine Street

The events will feature local speakers from the CRNMC, Global Exchange’s Community Rights program director, Shannon Biggs, and Americans Against Fracking’s founder, David Braun.  Come join a lively discussion, sign the petition, or volunteer with the campaign!

toolkitcover

For more information on the events, contact Peter Norris 707.456.9968, or visit the CRNMC’s website or facebook page.

Because a picture says 1,000 words, check out this short video on fracking, and get informed about  Community Rights by downloading Global Exchange’s new toolkit!

The following post was written by Caitlin Kawaguchi, summer intern with the Global Exchange Community Rights Program.

When J. Stephen Cleghorn realized that Paradise Gardens and Farm, his certified-organic farm in Pennsylvania that sits above the Marcellus Shale formation, was at risk of being “fracked” for shale gas extraction, he knew he had to act. But he did more than just act against fracking when he became the first private property owner in the United States to use a deed easement recognizing the Rights of Nature to ban all activities that would do systemic harm to the ecosystem both above and deep below the surface of his farm.

“We wanted to preserve organic agriculture on these 50 acres to be sure, but also wanted to employ this recognition of Rights of Nature to deter any activity that would threaten those rights at the surface in the deep biosphere below this farm,” said Cleghorn.

Subsurface rights, sometimes called the mineral estate or ‘split’ estate, are often leased or sold to fracking companies in order to drill and dump millions of gallons of toxins below private property and ground water. In most states, these mineral “rights” were sold as long ago as 100 years or more, affording residents no say over what happens under their feet — and sometimes even on their property.

Cleghorn describes himself and his late wife, Dr. Lucinda Hart Gonzalez, as environmentally conscious, although they didn’t leave the city to take up farming with the intention of making a huge statement. His wife wanted to be a cheese maker and Cleghorn wanted to farm again after a short experience he had as a young adult. Together they thought that, while they might not be able to change the world, on their 50 acres they could make a positive contribution, farming as true stewards of the land, be part of a vibrant local food system and community, and reduce their carbon footprint. They set out to transition the farm to a local, organic, sustainable farm and hoped it would be a place to inspire and train future generations of farmers.

When Lucinda passed away in 2011, Cleghorn decided to use the easement to memorialize Lucinda’s legacy of very difficult work by which she and Cleghorn built a viable and thriving organic farm. He named the easement after her and enacted it on the first anniversary of her passing, November 14, 2012. With  THE DR. LUCINDA HART-GONZÁLEZ CONSERVATION EASEMENT, Cleghorn sees himself as living the change the world needs and setting an example of working in partnership with Nature. That could change the world, he hopes, as the Rights of Nature are asserted, fully recognized, and protected under the law. He hopes that this easement will inspire other individuals to also take a stand for Nature and the future of the planet.

“This easement is not only about about preserving land for organic agriculture; it also speaks to a paradigm shift that is needed in our thinking so that we recognize that we are part of nature, not lords over it. Our long history is catching up with us. We’re either going to turn around our thinking and behavior, or we are going to leave a wasteland for future generations,” said Cleghorn.

Cleghorn accepts that the easement could devalue his property because it restricts the use of the land, but he believes that defending Nature’s rights is more important. Since it is attached to the deed, even when the deed changes hands, the new owners will have to comply with its terms.

“The groundbreaking idea of affirming the Rights of Nature is that this property is not so much longitudes and latitudes divided up into commodities. It’s first of all Earth, Nature, and it is indivisible,” said Cleghorn.

Cleghorn says he no longer recognizes Pennsylvania state laws that speak of supposed surface and subsurface “rights” to the land. “The state’s practice of splitting a part of Nature into who owns the surface versus who owns the subsurface, as well as considering each surveyed property as only ‘private’ property without respect to its origins within and connection to Nature as a whole, those are ‘rights’ I don’t recognize anymore. What we’re trying to do is make the gas companies come into court and argue against the rights of Nature , to make them argue that their industrial activity they call “fracking” gets to threaten those living systems by which all of life is sustained. We don’t think they will want to do that. The easement is one of a number of steps I’m willing to take to hold them off.”

It isn’t only individuals that can take a stand, and are taking a stand, in this way. Cities, townships, and municipalities are adopting community bills of rights that put their right to a clean ecosystem and the Rights of Nature into law. Pittsburgh has banned fracking within its city limits on such a basis. These local ordinances display a paradigm shift in our culture towards recognizing Nature’s rights and asserting our community rights. If the government won’t protect Nature, it’s time that others follow Cleghorn’s example and take action, as individuals or in our communities, to protect the world we live in.

Anyone interested in discussing a similar easement for their land should contact Shannon Biggs at Global Exchange, or the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). CELDF helped Cleghorn write his easement and is a signatory to it, standing ready to defend the easement in court if that becomes necessary.  Stephen Cleghorn is also an active boardmember of the Stop The Frack Attack Network.

First-in-California law seeks to make sustainability legal

Santa_Monica_PCHOn April 9, the City Council of Santa Monica voted 7-0 to adopt the state’s first ever Bill of Rights for Sustainability, directing the city to “recognize the rights of people, natural communities and ecosystems to exist, regenerate and flourish.” Santa Monica joins dozens of U.S. communities, the nations of Ecuador, Bolivia, and New Zealand in the fast-growing movement for Nature’s Rights.

With the passage of this ordinance, Santa Monica challenges the legal status of nature as merely property, and empowers the City or residents to bring suit on behalf of local ecosystems. While not eliminating property ownership, these new laws seek to eliminate the authority of a property owner to destroy entire ecosystems that exist and depend upon that property. The ordinance also mandates the City to follow the Sustainable City Plan as a guide for decision-making to maximize environmental benefits and reduce or eliminate negative environmental impacts.

“Becoming a model for sustainability and moving toward self-reliance is important for our community’s long term well-being,” says Cris Gutierez, organizer for Santa Monica Neighbors Unite!, a group that organized and mobilized residents to support the law. “We’re proud to be on the cutting edge of environmental protection.”

The idea came about from conversations between Mark Gold, the 20-year Chair of Santa Monica’s Task Force on the Environment, and Linda Sheehan, who now directs the nonprofit Earth Law Center. “Linda and I had been pretty successful over the years in the water quality arena,” says Gold. “But we realized that despite all our good work protecting public health and environmental resources, we were still as a society going backwards in the big picture. It was time to shake things up, recognize the existing environmental laws just weren’t doing the job and that sustainability wasn’t actually possible as long as we treat nature as a thing to be exploited.”

In a water-poor community, recycling water is part of sustainable living.

In a water-poor community, recycling water is part of sustainable living.

Sheehan, also an environmental attorney, brought in California-based Global Exchange and Pennsylvania law group, the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), organizations specializing in assisting communities to write new laws to place the rights of communities and ecosystems above corporate profits, to hold a 3-day “Democracy School” training in Santa Monica.

Sheehan and Global Exchange’s Community Rights program director, Shannon Biggs then presented draft ordinances to the Task Force on The Environment. As Shannon Biggs, Community Rights Director for Global Exchange told the Task Force, “Recognizing rights for nature does not stop development; rather it stops the kind of development that interferes with the existence and vitality of those ecosystems.”

The process took about three years in total, and the ordinance went through several changes during the course of numerous Task Force and other public meetings.  The ordinance was eventually submitted to the city council in 2012.  At that time, before a packed chamber, dozens of residents spoke in support of the ordinance, spurring the council to pass a resolution in support of its Rights of Nature provisions.

Then, in a surprise move, Santa Monica’s City Attorney, Marsha Jones Moutrie, met with Sheehan and Gold to talk about the ordinance and its framework of rights, and ended up drafting a new version — ultimately becoming the ordinance that passed by unanimous vote of the Council this year. “The final ordinance is not as strong as the original, notes Global Exchange’s Biggs, citing a few examples, “it doesn’t strip Constitutional protections like corporate personhood or the Commerce Clause that enable corporations to override community concerns, and it doesn’t strictly prohibit any activities, which means it is up to the community to keep the pressure on the city to enforce it when something comes up. But it’s a step forward for brand new environmental protections.”

Gold and Gutierez don’t believe holding the City’s feet to the fire will be a problem, and the ordinance does mandate regular public reviews of the Sustainability City Plan and forces the city to take action if goals aren’t being met. As Gutierez notes, “Working to educate people about rights of nature and the ordinance was a challenge, but now our work really begins. Many goals we could not lay out in the ordinance, but at the same time, that’s what we should be driving for, practical measurable goals. Turning it into an educational tool is exciting. Sustainability is now our legal commitment.”

The following post was written by Alina Evans and Anna Campanelli, interns with the Global Exchange Community Rights Program.

community_rightsHydraulic Fracturing (Fracking) is one of the most destructive energy processes on planet Earth – even the EPA reports show that fracking is the second-biggest contributor of U.S. Greenhouse gases. But as California activist RL Miller reports in the Daily Kos, “California’s oil is as dirty as the Canadian tar sands. State data shows that several California oil fields produce just as much carbon dioxide per barrel of oil as the tar sands do. A handful of fields yield even more.”

Contrary to gas and oil company propaganda, this drilling process is unsafe, unclean, and absolutely not renewable. The truth is fracking is yet another dirty energy scheme poisoning our air, soil and groundwater, and now it’s poisoning us. Gas and oil companies are quietly bringing fracking to the Golden State, placing not just Californians, but the planet at risk. In fact the process has already begun, promising to make California the #1 oil producing state, or as some call it—the Saudi Arabia of the USA—but at what cost? Global Exchange is working with communities to say “no” and along with our partners we’re leading a speaking tour April 15-22 through California’s  fracklands to educate and mobilize for action.

images

Photo: thinkprogress.org

 

How Fracking works:
Fracking is an enhanced drilling technique that through a process of vertical and horizontal drilling enables fracking rigs to extract natural gas and/or oil from shale formations. Millions of gallons of water, sand, and “proprietary” carcinogenic chemicals are injected at high pressures, fracturing the underground shale and releasing “trapped” natural gas and oil. Vertical fracking is employed to increase the lifespan of a pre-existing well, while horizontal fracking is used to tap previously inaccessible shale deposits through an injection process. For a good fracking primer, check out EARTHWORK’s Hydraulic Fracturing 101.

Doing the numbers:

  • Between 3-5 million gallons of water are used to frack a single well one time; one well can be fracked 18 times; this means that one fracked well requires between 54-90 million gallons of water in its lifetime-that’s enough to fill up to 9 Yankee Stadiums!

    YankeeStadium-NewYork-SeatingBowl-990x442

    Water used for fracking just one well fills up to 9 Yankee Stadiums (Photo: Populus.com)

  • 90% of wells in the United States are currently being fracked, that’s over 800,000 wells and counting.
  • 596 chemicals (known carcinogens) are used in fracking.  These chemicals are undisclosed under the trade secret provision protecting energy companies’ proprietary “recipes”
  • Each time a well is fracked, millions of gallons of these toxic chemicals are pumped into our earth along with our water.
  • On average, 330 tons of chemicals are used per fracking operation—2/3 of the toxic chemicals remain underground.
  • Earthquakes in frack zones have skyrocketed in places like Ohio, (not a state previously known for seismic activity) placing geologically sensitive California at extreme risk.
  • Extreme energy methods = climate chaos. California’s 15 billion barrels of fracked oil will release 6.45 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, on par with the Keystone XL pipeline’s carrying capacity in its lifetime (7 million metric tons).

The millions of gallons of toxic waste water produced cannot be processed by wastewater treatment. If the steel/cement casing of a well cracks from the pressure the toxins seep into the water aquifers that we drink from. Exploding wells, dwindling ecosystems, toxic sink water, sickness and deaths of animals and even humans are not uncommon reports coming from US communities who have been subjected to fracking, depending on whether it is natural gas or oil being fracked. The latest report come from Columbus, Ohio where, since March of this year, 11 earthquakes have resulted from fracking operations in the area.

aerialFracking

Baldwin Hills (Los Angeles County) California’s largest frack field (photo Transition Culver City)

California’s Dirty Secret is about to blow
In the Golden state, fracking is unregulated and unmonitored. Corporations do not need to disclose the toxic chemicals they are using or inform communities that fracking is happening. As a water-poor state, fracking and its toxic wastewater presents a serious danger to our communities and ecosystems. And in a state prone to earthquakes, human induced fault pressures present an alarming geological risk. Fracking proponents claim fracking has been going on for 70 years in California with no harmful effects—a misleading apples and oranges statement at best.  Old-school fracking did not use the same chemicals or drill as deeply or horizontally, nor inject the kinds of chemicals that modern fracking uses. As a result of all of this, fracking in California is a well-kept secret: only 50% of residents know what fracking is.But that is about to change. Here in California, as communities are learning about fracking’s dangers, they want to stop it.

Along with our partners, Global Exchange’s Community Rights Program is embarking on a 7-day speaking tour from April 15-22. The tour will visit impacted California communities from San Francisco to San Diego and expose the reality of fracking in the state and engage community members in the movement to oppose and stop this harmful and dangerous practice, exploring with our partners all of the efforts underway statewide to stop fracking from transforming the state and the climate.

 

Tour stops include: San Francisco, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Culver City, and San Diego, **with others still to be added.**

Each stop on the tour will include a day of action: along with our allies, we are working with host communities to strategize and develop unique actions that meet each community’s needs. Each day’s activity will be preceded by a local media plan, social media outreach, collaborative efforts, and planned meetings with various community groups. We expect much of the energy we generate on this tour will build toward larger statewide action.

don't frack shannon

Community Rights Director Shannon Biggs

Confirmed Speakers and partners on the road:  We’ll bring Doug Shields, former Pittsburgh PA councilman enacting the first “rights-based” ban on fracking in the nation,

scientists, fractivists, and fracking experts from our partner organizations, many of whom take different approaches to regulate or ban or place a moratorium on the process.  Our allies on the road include the Center for Biological Diversity, Food and Water Watch, 350.org, Clean Water Action, Transitions Towns, community-based groups, host community partners, and you! If you are concerned about fracking in your community or in general we are here to help you too! If you would like to join the tour, if you are interested in having us visit your community or if you would like to attend one of the events set up for the tour we’d love to hear from you.

photo[4]

Jessica Nuti and Executive Director Carleen Pickard at the Global Frackdown Bay Area

Global Exchange is helping Communities assert their right to say “NO fracking”

Five years ago, Global Exchange launched the Community Rights Program confronting corporate power at its core: by challenging unjust law and shifting the balance of power from one that protects the rights of corporations, to one that protects the rights of our communities and the environment. The Community Rights Program enters the California and national fracking debate via our expertise in grassroots, “rights-based” organizing, where we work with communities confronted by various corporate harms to enact local laws that place the rights of residents and nature above corporate interests. A right-based approach not only offers communities a way to stop the harmful practices of fracking in their midst, but addresses the core issue of a system of law that legalizes harmful corporate practices like fracking.

We’ve already been working with a handful of communities to pass rights-based fracking bans, including San Luis Obispo, and Culver City, and we hope to be working with many more. This efforts builds on the success of more than nine communities who have stopped fracking through passing rights-based fracking bans – the most notable in Pittsburgh, PA, led by featured tour speaker, Doug Shields.  Across Pennsylvania, New Mexico and New York, nine other communities have followed suit (with many more underway), declaring their right as communities to protect the health safety and welfare of residents and the groundwater they depend on.

LEARN MORE:  Want to be a part of the tour? Want the tour to come to YOU?

Contact Community Rights Program Director Shannon Biggs at: Shannon@globalexchange.org or 415.575.5540.
Stay updated on the specifics for the tour at our webpage: or join our list serve (emails twice monthly)

For another take on fracking in California from our Global Exchange colleague Corey Hill, check out this article at the East Bay Express.

Alina Evans and Anna Campanelli, authors of this blog post are interns with the Global Exchange Community Rights Program.

Pittsburgh is the first major U.S. city to adopt a rights-based ordinance that includes the legal rights for nature.

Global Exchange’s Community Rights Program has been working to expand rights-based organizing in California by working with communities to embrace ordinances like the one that was recently passed in Pittsburgh.  One such is Mt. Shasta, CA where GX continues to support an ordinance that would put the interests of the community above those of corporate cloud seeders and water bottlers.  Our long time partner, the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) drafted this first ever ordinance that will stop harmful gas drilling within the city limits of Pittsburgh. Passed unanimously by the city council this week, the ordinance was sponsored by Councilman Doug Shields who sees beyond the single-issue of drilling.  He says, “It’s about our authority as a community to decide, not corporations deciding for us.”

The largest source of domestic natural gas in the United States, the Marcellus Shale geological formation sits a mile below the city… an energy company’s gold mine. The ordinance bans the new practice of “fracking” or hydraulic fracturing, which essentially injects toxic chemical laced water underground to create explosions that release the gas. Fracking contaminates groundwater, local rivers and streams, along with many other negative impacts to the community. Because “regulating” or lessening the harm will never solve the problem, Pittsburgh has gone to the root cause; they do not want drilling at all. While Pittsburgh’s issue differs from Mt. Shasta there is the same underlying problem: who decides–communities or corporations?  Read here for more on what the ordinance does in an article from YES! Magazine http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/pittsburg-bans-natural-gas-drilling

The ordinance is also the first in the nation to recognize the legally binding rights of nature. Nature and the resources it offers has for too long been seen as property. And damage done is only gauged by human impact.  Drilling, for example, could only be challenged by its harm to humans; not the water, land, and animals that it violates. By seeing nature as more than a means to an end, but rather for its innate right to exist the city is protecting the ecosystems and natural communities by which it relies on and residents are empowered by this ordinance to enforce those rights.

Communities like Pittsburgh are discovering their lack of decision-making power in their own communities and are taking a stand through a rights-based approach.  Pittsburgh’s ability to take on corporate injustice says a lot about the future of communities to truly stop unwanted harm rather than just postpone it.  Buffalo, NY is considering adopting a similar ordinance.

For more information on rights-based work in California please contact Shannon Biggs, Director of Community Rights Program at GX shannon@globalexchange.org or to find out more about Pittsburgh contact Ben Price at benprice@celdf.org

Written by Juli Stelmaszyk