How Fracking Gave Me Faith in Democracy

I'm probably the first one to jump on the bandwagon of apathy toward democracy and the democratic process in this county. So many of us are disillusioned with a system that we perceive as running more on the interests of lobbies and power-mongering politicians than the concerns of the public. Our voices seemingly drown in the Mariana Trench of money and red tape that is Washington.

But not all democracy runs this deep, as it were. I'm here to tell you that, yes, in fact: local democracy works.

I'm from a small-town community in Southeast Minnesota called St. Charles. I didn't like living in a town of 3,500 people as an angsty teenager. No surprise there. Nothing cool ever happens in a town that small.

Downtown St. Charles, city-data.com

Then the citizens of St. Charles successfully shot down a frac-sand mining company and the mayor who adamantly supported them.

Admittedly not the sort of thing that's 'cool' by the standards of angsty teens, but very inspiring for a fresh college graduate thinking that the entire political world had gone down the crapper and there was nothing to be done about it.

Fracking is essentially a method of mining natural gas or oil deposits from bedrock. A mix of sand and chemicals is pumped at a very high pressure into a well, riddling the rock with minute fractures from which gas, oil, or other compounds can then seep out.

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The cost of fracking in terms of natural resources and the health of those living in the mining area is enormous. It drains wells, lowing the water table. It pumps toxins, carcinogens, and radioactive material into the groundwater. Plus, the gas that doesn't get brought to the surface leeches into the groundwater.

People then drink this water.

Video: Fraking Hell: The Untold Story

Are our energy needs more important than the water we drink?

My town didn't think so.

Minnesota Proppant, a company that mines the specific size and shape of sand needed for fracking, wanted to set up a large operation in the St. Charles Township, one mile outside of the high school. The mayor was eager to accept the proposal to create new jobs in the town, especially after the North Star Foods plant which was a major employer in town burnt down in 2009.

The kind of sand needed for fracking, minnesota.publicradio.org

I don't mean to suggest that the town blamed the mayor for wanting to bring us new jobs. We just plain didn't want to see our town turned from a sleepy, friendly place to raise a family into a hotspot for mining. We didn't want the enormous amount of truck traffic. We didn't want our state park to be ruined. We didn't want damaging silica particles released into the air for the town and school to breath. We didn't want our drinking water ruined.

We wanted our health and our community. Plain and simple.

So one committed citizen, Travis Lange, spearheaded a campaign to tell the local government that.

Awareness was raised, petitions were signed, documents were presented to town officials.

Predictably, they were ignored.

Town gossip had it that the mayor was ignoring the wishes of the community in order to cut a deal with the company and line his own pockets. Whether or not that happened to be the case, the voice of the town was getting drown by words like "money," "jobs," and "industry." Not bad in themselves, but bad when the cost is health and happiness.

But get this: as the town continued to voice its opposition to the facility, the local government gave in.

"[Mayor] Spitzer said the city's relationship with the township of St. Charles was too important for the council to consider the idea of annexation," as the Post Bulletin reports. The company's proposal was shot down by the town committee with a unanimous vote against frac-sand mining.

And suddenly democracy worked as it should. People came together as a community and spoke up, utilizing democratic tools like petitions. A town official listened to the community because he was afraid of making enemies and being voted out of office.

It was the first time I was ever proud of my hometown. Frac-sand mining, one of the things I find environmentally repugnant, brought my community together and gave democracy back to the people.

Who knows of democracy on a national scale is too large to ever be effective in the way it's meant to be, but who cares? Care enough about what's going on in your immediate vicinity, and you can change things. It's not longer the fantasy of idealistic do-gooders. It's the real world. First, care about the quality of your life and the lives of those around you. Then, speak up. Perhaps not always easy, but always simple.

Remember, you can only eat an elephant one bite at a time.