The time I was validated by the Oxford Environmental Commission after creating a piece of fracking legislation without any formal guidence.

On Wednesday, March 6th I went to my second Oxford Environmental Commission meeting and presented my legislation to them. I was afforded a ten minutes on the official agenda; they ended up speaking with me for just over 50. I don't really know why they gave me so much time, as they had other stuff to discuss and were probably there for at least another hour, but it made me feel appreciated.

They had the only legally-trained person on the board look it over, and she said it looked good. Councilwomen Kate Rousmaniere, who sits on the commission, requested I put together something of a "cover letter" that would explain where I took the different ideas or language presented in the legislation from, so as to provide some form of rational for the potential law to whomever would be evaluating it along the legal process. I am in the process of creating this, and will present it to the commission at their next meeting on Wednesday, April 3rd. At this time they will vote on a resolution that would either give it their recommendation or lack there of, and it will be moved on to be presented to city council. Due to the circumstantial timeline of my project and how I will no longer be in Oxford come mid-May, they are trying to have the legislation expedited to the council, and I will ideally be presenting my work to them on Tuesday, April 16th. To my knowledge, they will not vote on it at this time, if at all. Essentially after the presentation, the whole thing is out of my hands, so it does not matter where I am geographically located at the time, and that is the place in which I want to be when I am completed with my creative project.

The time I created a piece of fracking legislation without any formal guidence.

I've done it. I wrote a law. I'm assuming Butler County Progressive PAC is going to ask me to run against John Boehner in the upcoming 2014 midterm elections. I await my formal request.

Here's that thing I made:

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MODIFYING Sec. 923.16(a) - Private Industrial Waste Treatment Facilities, of Codified Ordinances of the City of Oxford, Ohio, Title III, Chapter 923 - Sewers and Sewage Disposal

WHEREAS, there is concern about the potential for waste being injected into the ground within the confines of the city and being harmful to its citizens and the environment; and

WHEREAS, municipalities have the power and responsibility to enact laws preserving public health, safety, and welfare of the municipality and its citizens; and

WHEREAS, officials are unable to assess the risks to the public health, safety, and welfare of injected waste; and

WHEREAS, the guarantee of safety to public drinking water cannot be adequately affirmed in areas of deep injection wells; and

WHEREAS, the City is located near the Great Miami Buried Valley Aquifer, which is recognized nationally as an important source of regional drinking water; and

WHEREAS, there is a preponderance to localized seismic activity in areas of deep injection; and

WHEREAS, there is need to expressly prohibit waste disposal by injection into any land within the City; now, therefore


    It is recommended to the Council of the City of Oxford, State of Ohio:

    Section 1.    That Section 923.16(a) - Private Industrial Waste Treatment Facilities, of Codified Ordinances of the City of Oxford, Ohio, Title III, Chapter 923 - Sewers and Sewage Disposal, be modified as follows:


923.16 PRIVATE INDUSTRIAL WASTE TREATMENT FACILITIES.
(a)    In lieu of introducing untreated or partially treated industrial wastes and polluted waters in the sanitary sewers of the City, the owner of premises producing such wastes may construct and operate at his expense private waste treatment facilities, with the effluent discharged to a natural outlet, provided such facilities are constructed and operated in compliance with Ohio R.C. 6111. Discharge shall not mean injection into any land by well or otherwise, which shall be prohibited on any land in the city.


    Section 2. That existing Section 923.16(a) of Chapter 923 of Title III of Codified Ordinances of the City of Oxford, Ohio be repealed.

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Anyways, tonight I present it to the Oxford Environmental Commission for critique and general feedback. I'm not scared they're gonna tear it apart or anything... not at all...













omgoshsomeonehelpmeIhavenoideawhatI'mdoing.

The time I went to Santa Barbara for a conference on fracking legislation.

Dayton>Denver>Santa Barbara. This is how things were supposed to go when I departed for the so-called "Birthplace of Aviation" on that chilly Thursday afternoon. Of course, this is not how things went. My flight to Denver was delayed by over an hour due to the plane being late from Chicago O'Hare. This isn't the first time such O'Hare has tried to ruin my studies.

United said the best they could do for me was for me to spend the night in the Denver airport, then fly to San Francisco at 6am and get into Santa Barbara at noon. And I was all like, "Well then I'll miss half my conference, but, like, I should still go." Well then I had this great idea as we touched down in Denver to see if I could get a flight to Los Angeles for that night, and, as luck would have it, there was one left, so I took it, and then I had to switch my car rental from a pick-up and drop-off in Santa Barbara to a one way from LA to Santa Barbara, and then I had to drive two hours, and then I got to my motel at 6 AM EST, and then I woke up on time for my conference, and then I put on my suit. What I'm trying to say is: I am the Apex Traveler.

So, anyways, on to the actual academic part of this post. Here is what happened:

09:00 AM PST: The conference began, on the topic of fracking litigation. While this wasn't too helpful in terms of my project, I did find it interesting.

10:00 AM PST: The main talk that I was attending for, Federal, State and Local Regulation of Hydraulic Fracturing Operations, occurred. I gathered a great deal from this older lawyer who spoke quite a bit about Ohio.

11:00 AM PST: The talk of the hour was Insuring Fracking Projects. The only interesting part of this was learning that insurance companies had not yet dove into the topic of injection wells and earthquakes. I thought they'd be all over that.

11:50 AM PST: We broke for lunch for an hour. I befriended two "legal professionals", and they were so kind as to buy me lunch once they found out I was from an island in Lake Erie. This was significant because lunch was roughly $17 or more for anything on the menu.

01:00 PM PST: We reconvened to the topic of Liability Topics Relating to Hydraulic Fracturing. They should have basically called it: Environmental Threats Because This Technology is Pretty Questionable. I didn't learn much because, pat-on-the-back, I've studied this already, but I was sitting next to a pretty conservative guy who just chose to scoff at anything bad said about fracking.

01:45 PM PST: The first panel discussion of the day. What Fracking Damages. Mostly had to do with quality-of-life issues that could arise due to fracking.

02:45 PM PST: The most eloquent person of the day spoke at the Water Withdrawal Issues talk, he was from a law firm in Portland and I want to be him when I grow up.

03:30 PM PST: A really sleazy lawyer spoke on the topic of Preparing Your Witness for a Fracking Case. Like, assuming you watch Breaking Bad (and if you don't you should), he was basically Saul Goodman, but real life.

04:00 PM PST: The final talk of the day was a panel entitled What the Frack is Happening?. Ha. Ha ha ha. They are clever. Ha. It was just a collection of five "experts" who had spoken earlier in the day, answering the attendees' questions.

05:00 PM PST: Cocktail reception. We got a free drink each. I had a 2007 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and I could totally appreciate it because I took Viticulture and Enology last semester. I rubbed elbows with the other attendees, got lots of free wine, and ate guacamole (for free) that was casually priced at $14.00/5oz. I even met an '09 graduate of Miami, who was now doing policy work in D.C. But the bad kind of policy. He was the kind of person I don't want to be in 5 years.

And thus, the conference was over. I proceeded to return my rental car and head to my Couchsurfing host's house for the next three days. As fate would have it, him and his two roommates were in graduate school at UCSB for Environmental Geology. Totally unplanned. They taught me to surf, make ink blots, and showed me around downtown Santa Barbara for a bit, which, by the way, was beautiful.


I'll update "soon".

Honestly surprised you're still reading,

Tyler J. Elliott
Future Important Person

The time I went to the Oxford Environmental Commission.

The preliminary move in most any kind of legislative-creating process is one defined by, you know, telling people within a decision-making capacity what you'd like to do. So I did this.

As per typical governance, the first people you talk to are seemingly the ones who can't vote on anything, but can kind of pat you on the back and make you feel like you're doing something worthwhile. Or shoot you down in a fiery wreck of misery and despair and sadness. So before you face people like this:

He's a real jerk, trust me.

you deal with resident "experts" on the matter, otherwise known as putting the bill to committee.

Luckily the Environmental Commission of Oxford, made up of seven persons (one being a member of City Council, one appointed by the Planning Commission as an ex-officio member, plus five citizen members appointed by Council) were not the latter of the two aforementioned scenarios. I went to their monthly meeting on Wednesday, February 6th, and told them, boldly, bravely, in the face of adversity and oppression: "I would like to pass legislation regulating the injection of waste water in the city confines of Oxford, Ohio." Or at least I said something similar, a lot less eloquently, and with much more stumbling over my words. I'm just trying to paint a picture here.

They were overall very receptive, and when they set the agenda for next month's meeting, to take place right before Spring Break, I requested 10 minutes time in order to show them my proposed legislation; I have apparently now given myself a time table of one month to do a healthy amount of research and law-creating, with intermittent breaks set aside for inconsolable sobbing, anxiety-eating, and self-deprecating blog posts about how abysmal my work is and oh god why did I choose Western and what am I doing with my li- sorry. Where was I?

Oh right, I'm in Santa Barbara California now for my conference, so things could be worse. I guess I'll post about that in the near future, while mostly just talking about couchsurfing and how awesome surfing and mountains are.

Till time next,

Dictated, not read,

Tyler J. Elliott

I traveled.

I'm so over this blog. I would make this post even shorter than the last, but it turns out two weeks of traveling Europe actually provides one with stuff to talk about. Nevertheless, I aim to make this mostly pictures so as to not needing to use my words.

Okay let me think. I just need some time. How do I convey my life and times to you, dear reader, in a concise manner? Okay, okay, I've got this. I'll place a condensed version of this blog with 14 words in bold and underlined (for 14 days of total travel) per location. I'll type the rest of it out for you elitist literary types:

I left Copenhagen by train at 7am on March 31st with only my person and a large green backpack.

My person and a large green backpack.

 BERLIN, GERMANY

I arrived in Berlin where I couchsurfed for two (2) nights with a Canadian bio-med student who was spending two (2) years in Germany's capital city. If you don't know, couchsurfing.com is a site that shows you strangers in locations all over (with probably-trustworthy references) that have an open couches that you can stay on for free. He had a good knowledge of the area and spoke some German which helped. We went out for currywurst, a Berlin classic, and also falafel, a pretty-much-every-big-city-on-Earth classic. On my second day with him, we went to an outdoor market and I aided him in purchasing a bike.

He's not the mildly-frightening German man on the right.

He wasn't feeling great later, but let me use said bike to go explore. I crossed the bridge separating East and West Berlin and then went to some parks. Of note was Treptower Park, which was home to the Soviet World War II memorial. Here is a picture of a giant statue of a Russian holding a small child, a sword, and standing on a crumbling swastika:

I'm not sure what else was expected.

I left Berlin behind on April 2nd, excited to be going to a new place that I'd never been to before.

 DRESDEN, GERMANY

I'll admit, my motives for traveling here focused largely around scoping out some slaughterhouses, specifically the fifth one, of Vonnegut fame (which I found after a painstaking search). But let me tell you, the "old city", or at least the part not destroyed by the WWII allied firebombings, was majestic, stately, and other words one can find in a thesaurus under "big". I again was couchsurfing, this time with three (3) flatmates. They made me tasty food and let me play guitar for them. On the second night we had a falafel (I'm telling you) fest down on the River Elbe, over looking the night skyline.

The "old city". Ignore the tourists who got in my shot. Pretty much just look at the buildings.

I left Dresden on the 4th and headed further south.

PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC

I was in Prague for two days and it rained the whole time. I did get to watch the Indians' home opener though, so that was a bonus. It was the longest opening day game in MLB history, and they lost. I'm over it.

Prague is probably really pretty, but I was drenched so I kinda didn't care. Of cultural note, much of the infrastructure appeared to be about a decade behind anywhere else I'd been in Europe, probably due to them being part of the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War and, well, the things that comes with having to switch entire economic systems. I went to the Communist Museum, which was old, biased, and I felt like if I touched anything there I'd contract the flu, or at least get something sticky on my hands as if a three year old had touched everything immediately after eating a lollipop, except this child was clenching the sucker itself with its bare hands.

Me, pointing at Prague Castle, in the rain.

It's a river.

 NUREMBERG, GERMANY

I know what you're thinking. I clearly said I was going to Munich, and the header here says Nuremberg. You caught me. Tickets were super expensive to Munich, so it was a no go. But Nuremberg, I would say, is the most underrated place I've been. This blog's getting long, so just look at this photo on the right and we'll move onto the next place:



 VENICE, ITALY

Possibly the prettiest place I've ever been to. Venice has no cars, only boats. They run through the many canals of the city, and this makes for a twisting maze of narrow walkways with quaint shops and many bridges. I'm getting lazy. This is all you get to know about my favorite place in Southern Europe.

The food here was great. I had two (2) pizzas in a two (2) day period. Also, pasta.

The streets of Venice.

FLORENCE, ITALY

I ate one (1) pizza in one (1) day here. Also, pasta. I stayed with my Miami roommate, Colin. He was very hospitable. It rained the whole time. All my stuff got soaked. I don't want to talk about any of it. Here was the best part of Florence:

Colin is my bro.

PARIS, FRANCE

Remember that time I told you Venice was my favorite place? I lied. It was Paris. The food, mostly bread, was amazing. Also, having studied the language in 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th grade, as well as my last three (3) semesters at Miami University, I felt pretty cool being able to order stuff in restaurants and make fun of the locals using it. I'M SICK OF WRITING, HERE IS THE EIFFEL TOWER:

I told you, the Eiffel Tower.

I returned to Copenhagen after spending all day on a train on Saturday the 14th. So concluded my travel break. I hope this writing effectively helped you live it vicariously through me, thus saving you hundreds of dollars and many hours of planning. Congratulations on your travels through Europe. I hope you enjoyed them as much as I.