Ohio woman says fracking forced her out of her home

BELMONT COUNTY, Ohio ( WTRF ) — A Belmont County woman says fracking drove her out of her quiet rural home, even though she never signed a drilling lease.

She says a policy called “unitization”—legal in Ohio—allows them to drill in your area as long as 65 percent of the property owners have signed on.

Hunkler, born and raised in Belmont County, was away for years but came back and built a home in a remote, peaceful area.

“Slope Creek Reservoir, where I built my own home with my own hands over several years, and it’s at the headwaters of the Captina Creek Watershed, which has historically been pristine, so yeah, I had a little piece of heaven where I decided to build my home. I was in the hollow, with Slope Creek running through my yard and yeah it was just perfect.”

Jill Hunkler, Belmont County resident

Five years later, everything changed.

Hunkler says fracking operations moved in five years later and changed her life.

She described illnesses, noise, odor, and chaos that forced her to sell her home and move.

“First, it’s the noise and the light pollution that you experience. But then pretty immediately, oh, your head starts to hurt, your neck starts to hurt, your eyes are burning, you have a metal taste in your mouth, feel like you’re gonna throw up.”

Jill

There are 1,625 fracking wells in Belmont County, up 25% from last year.

Hunkler sold her property and started fresh in another place, where she says more fracking made life unbearable.

“It was like you were living next to an airport with jets taking off. It was so loud and they frack most often at night because it’s a huge cloud of silica sand which is never supposed to be airborne because it’s highly toxic to the lungs.”

Jill

The director of public relations for the Ohio Oil and Gas Association contends fracking is safe and clean.

We have seen data from the state, from the federal goverment that shows that our environment has actually never been cleaner. You know carbon emissions, sulfur dioxide emissions, fine particulate matter, all of those have gone down with the increased production of natural gas.”

Mike Chadsey, Director of Public Relations, Ohio Oil & Gas Association

Hunkler says her choice of a remote pristine place to live was ruined, in her words, “stolen,” by fracking.

That’s why I chose to build my own home over years in that place because there was clean air, clean water, the night sky and the stars were incredible. All you heard was the stream running through my yard. To me, that’s heaven. And that was all gone.”

Jill

Jill Hunkler’s story was recently featured on ABC News.

And an upcoming documentary will feature her also.

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