Keep the Fracking Drills out of St. Tammany

Drilling is set to begin around Mandeville but will potentially extend across the state along the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale Ridge. The toxic chemicals that fracking releases into the ground water, water reservoirs, and the air surrounding the fracking site contaminate the environment and increase the risks of illness, infertility, birth defects, and cancer. In a state so dependent on the natural landscape and the water for food, transportation, commerce, recreation, and tourism, it proves nonsensical to support practices that endanger those activities and the people who depend upon them. This state has a beautiful ecosystem and a proud heritage of people who live with the land. The proposed site sits in the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale Ridge, and successful drilling would lead to further drill sites throughout the Ridge, further contaminating the ecosystem of the state. Fracking is bad for the people, the ecosystem, and the economy. In short, fracking is destructive to the traditions and lifeways that make us proud to call Louisiana home.