Petitions to ban 
fracking statewide are being distributed now after the Michigan Board of State Canvassers has approved the initiative’s format.
LuAnne Kozma campaign director for the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan, said the goal is to have the question placed on the ballot for the November 2016 election.
The signature gathering effort began in late May. The required number of valid signatures is 252,523. The Committee plans to collect at least 340,000 signatures to ensure placement on the 2016 ballot.
Kozma said, “Michigan voters understand that fracking and frack wastes are causing serious harm to people’s health and to the air, water, land, property and businesses in every state that is fracking or taking in toxic frack wastes. Everyone who wants to see this get on the ballot should step up now by contributing to or volunteering for the Committee to Ban Fracking campaign at www.letsbanfracking.org.
The Committee improved the language of the proposal for 2016. The proposal amends the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act of 1994, in “part 615,” which controls oil and gas drilling.
“In addition to a better definition of frack wastes, we made a better connection to Michigan’s constitutional language of protecting air, water and other natural resources from ‘pollution, impairment and destruction.’” Kozma said. “We remove the state’s mandate of fostering the oil and gas industry ‘along the most favorable conditions’ and maximizing oil and gas production, and replace it with protecting human health and the environment. We also include a prohibition of acidizing in horizontal wellbores in addition to horizontal hydraulic fracturing. The two processes have similar chemicals, waste streams, and harms to human health, water, land, air, and climate.”
The new ballot language can be found at the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan’s website www.letsbanfracking.org and on the Michigan Secretary of State’s website.
For more information, call (231) 944-8750 or visitluanne@letsbanfracking.org
