Athens County is not home to any hydraulic fracking activities of the sort that would create jobs or economic development i.e. actual drilling. But it is home to seven fracking waste injection wells, and in 2014 was the second most heavily injected county in the state—first for out-of-state waste.

An eighth injection well that was recently given the green light from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources is poised to jump Athens County from receiving a little less than 3 million barrels of waste per year to as much as nearly 7 million, well outpacing any other county.

Residents of Athens […]

The passing of Paul Tipps closes the book on a generation of Ohio Democratic leaders  who unapologetically took their messages to the streets, the board rooms and assembly lines as he managed  a party in nearly  full control of the state’s highest offices. And that included all but one of the Supreme Court justices!

As the Democratic chairman from 1975 to 1983, Tipps wore a teasing smile and pleasant  demeanor  to disguise the gritty  side of surviving the disarray  so common to Democrats who were otherwise alive and well.

The party’s first-team roster included Atty Gen. Billy Joe Brown, who […]