There's No Cure For Stupid

The headline read: United States surpasses Russia and Saudi Arabia in oil production.

I don’t mind telling you---that’s good news to me. 

The forty or more years that Arab Sheiks had a boot on the throat of our economy are enough for me to say drill, drill, drill.

You know we sit on one of the largest supplies of oil in the nation, the Illinois basin which covers most of Southern Illinois, western Indiana and western  Kentucky. But we won’t be joining in the economic boom going on in places like West Texas and the Dakotas.

We won’t because environmentalists have convinced Illinois lawmakers that deep drilling and hydraulic fracturing….or fracking…is detrimental to the environment. I have to tell you, I have not seen evidence of such damage.

In fact, local oilman Eldon Doty says fracking has been going on in one way or another here since 1954. Ask Doty why we aren’t pulling hundreds of thousands of barrels from beneath Wayne County and he points the finger squarely at Springfield. Eldon said it best----“There’s no cure for stupid.” He was referring of course to Illinois State Government.

Wayne County formerly was the top oil producing county in the state. But not anymore. Think of the jobs. Think of the money that poured into our area back in 2013 when oil companies leased thousands of acres in our area with the hope that they would be able to drill. It all was a mirage. Leases expired and were not renewed.

 And it is a crying shame.

Eldon hit the nail on the head.

There’s no cure for stupid.