Dateline: 17 March 2012
Back in 1999 I took a job as an assistant teacher in the building trades at the Cayuga-Onondaga BOCES in Auburn.
I had graduated from Moravia high school 23 years earlier, my three children were homeschooled, and I had never worked as a teacher before. So I was out of touch with public school and, needles to say, it was a learning experience for me in many ways. One of the most disturbing things I learned that year concerned the “Golden Rule.”
One day I asked the class of around 20 kids (17 and 18 years old) if any of them had heard of the Golden Rule. A few hands were raised (only a few). I then asked if anyone could tell me what the Golden Rule was? My question was met with silence.
I asked again, in astonishment: “None of you can tell me what the Golden Rule is?”
One boy said, “My grandma knows what it is.”
Then another said, “Do unto others before they do unto you?”
Well, I took that opportunity to explain to those kids that the Golden Rule is NOT to do unto others before they do unto you. It is to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Or, simply, to treat other people the way you would want to be treated.
Then I explained that the wisdom and rightness of that saying is found in the Bible (Luke 6:31 and Matthew 7:12)
My point in discussing the Golden Rule to the class was to impart a practical and useful guiding principle for success in life. You can’t go wrong if you treat other people the way you would want to be treated.
That’s what I personally believe and that’s what bothers me so greatly about hydrofracking in Sempronius. I have read and heard a great deal of compelling personal testimony from people who have been seriously affected by hydrofracking activity in their community. This personal account by Jaime Frederick, from Coitsville, Ohio is just one story out of many.
The gas industry and landowner coalitions in favor of hydrofracking insist that hydrofracking happens so far underground that the poisonous fracking fluid can not get up through thousands of feet of solid rock to contaminate wells. Nevertheless, wherever hydrofracking is done, there are incidences of seriously contaminated wells, and people, like Jaime Frederick, getting very sick from drinking the water.
So we have a situation of industrial denial versus a growing preponderance of personal testimony to the contrary. It reminds me of the tobacco industry, which insisted for decades that there was no evidence that tobacco smoking caused cancer. Meanwhile, tobacco smokers were dying of cancer.
Back to the Golden Rule...
Personally, I don’t want to live next to a fracking pad, or anywhere near one. I don’t want to live with the fear that my water will be poisoned. I don’t want to suffer the horrible medical complications that other people in hydrofracked areas are suffering. And I don’t want my my family to suffer with such sicknesses. I don’t want to have to pay for expensive water tests (for years to come) to make sure my water is safe. I don’t want enormous amounts of truck traffic on my rural road (another hazard).
It is precisely because I would never want to deal with those things in my life that I would never want anyone else in my community to have to deal with those things either.
The Golden Rule and being a good neighbor are much the same thing. Good neighbors don’t want to see the people around them live in fear, and suffer harm from something they have done (or allowed to be done) on their land.
That’s my opinion. It is based on my personal beliefs about what is good, and right, and true, and honorable, and ethical.
That said, I believe the Golden Rule and being a good neighbor are ample justification for enacting a moratorium on hydrofracking in Sempronius.