In keeping with recent moves across the country to chip away at local control over fracking operations, a Louisiana state judge ruled Monday that St. Tammany Parish, located on the northern shore of Lake Pontchartrain, cannot use its zoning regulations to block a proposed oil drilling and fracking project within parish borders.
Though an immediate blow to the people of Tammany Parish who are trying to stop oil/gas drilling and fracking in their local communities, hopefully this ruling will give them a clearer picture that they are losing control over decisions that effect them most directly,
…and that local control is being wrested from them by state governments (and judges),
…and that state governments (many under republican control) are in turn, controlled by corporations and the wealthy.
The people of local communities and municipalities need to pay attention to these decisions and come together to begin the work of returning decision-making to the people who are most directly affected by drilling and fracking.
