14 DAY TRIAL // Most of the people living in Ohio were taken aback when certain companies made them the following offer: $140,000 (about €110,000) in exchange for allowing them to drill under local cemeteries for natural gas.
It is not difficult to imagine that quite a lot of Ohio's citizens were appalled by such a suggestion and refused to disturb their late ones on account of making a few bucks.
Huffington Post informs us that Marilee Pilkington, a 70-year-old woman presently living close to the Lowellville Cemetery, argued that she was not even considering taking up gas companies on that offer.
Her reasons are as follows: first of all, her father is buried in said cemetery and she feels that allowing for drilling there would mean showing disrespect towards him; secondly, she disapproves of drilling altogether, as she considers this practice to have a significant negative impact on the environment.
Apparently, her exact words were: “I thinks its a dumb idea because I wouldn't want anyone up there disturbing the dead, number one, and, number two, I don't like the aspect of drilling.”
On the other hand, gas companies argue that the drilling will be made at considerable depths and that all graves will remain undisturbed.
They claim that the fact that so many people disapprove of such a project is to be linked to their being mis-informed with respect to this technology.
Moreover, they argue that it is precisely because drilling is made in the deep underground that local residents do not really have a say in this matter.
From where they stand, Ohio's citizens need only worry about the earth to be found at surface levels, as this is the one they “rented” for setting up their cemeteries.
Seeing how drilling operations will not in the least affect said surface levels, there seems to be no legal basis on which to prevent companies from extracting gas from under the Lowellville Cemetery.