Broadview Heights residents will have a chance in November to say whether they want more oil and gas wells in their city.

Tish O'Dell, stands near a well, left, and storage tanks, right, common sights in Broadview Heights. Tish helped collect more than 1,700 signatures to place an anti-drilling charter amendment on the November ballot.

Broadview Heights residents will have a chance in November to say whether they want more oil and gas wells in their city.

But even if they oppose new drilling, it's not clear whether they can actually prevent it from happening.

Council members voted unanimously Tuesday night to place an amendment on the ballot that would prohibit new wells in the southern Cuyahoga County bedroom community. The city currently has about 90 wells scattered throughout 13 square miles, most of them sunk in the last five years.

"Based on going door to door, I think people here think it's enough," said Tish O'Dell, who helped organize the drive to collect signatures in support of an anti-drilling ballot initiative.

"This is a victory for the rights of the local community over state pre-emptive law, which strips citizens of local self-governing rights," she said.

O'Dell, co-founder of the grassroots Mothers Against Drilling in Our Neighborhoods, said using a charter amendment instead of a city ordinance to outlaw new oil and gas operations is aimed at trumping a 2004 state law that gave the Ohio Department of Natural Resources authority for all decisions about drilling.

"We are seeing more of these local resolutions," ODNR spokeswoman Heidi Hetzel-Evans said. "We do have sole authority for regulating all aspects of the oil and gas industry in Ohio and we will continue to uphold the law."

Broadview Heights Law Director Vince Ruffa advised council members to oppose putting the amendment before voters.

"As much as I would love to say we can control it, we can't," he said. Ruffa predicted the amendment will be unenforceable if adopted "And if we try to enforce it, I would assume that we will get sued by the people who want to drill."

Councilman George Stelmaschuk said the measure might send a message even if it doesn't withstand legal scrutiny.

"I hope at least it will provide some kind of deterrent," he said. "Maybe some of these oil companies will see that we don't want these wells, and maybe residents . . .won't sign leases."

Supporters of a ban collected over 1,700 signatures in July and August backing a ballot vote.
Dubbed a "Community Bill of Rights," the measure says that Broadview Heights residents have the right to clean air, clean water, clean soil and a sustainable energy future. It also prohibits new drilling or using new methods such as horizontal fracking to extract gas and oil from existing wells.

Other communities in Ohio, including Mansfield, also are trying to block drilling operations by arguing that the home-rule provision of the Ohio Constitution supercedes the authority of the ODNR.
O'Dell said her group worked closely with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, out of Pennsylvania, to craft the bill-of-rights charter change.

"Our motive is strictly based on, we care about the community and the people in the community," she said.