'Thou Shalt Not Drill': Congregants Oppose Oil Exploration

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SOUTHFIELD, MI – Leaders of an Oakland County church say oil drilling on church property could bring an infusion of cash to their treasury in the form of royalty income and create jobs, but residents, elected officials and others are protesting the proposal.

The Word of Faith Int’l Christian Center in Southfield has signed a lease agreement with the Traverse City-based oil and gas exploration company Jordan Development, which has asked the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality for permission to dig an oil well on the 110-acre heavily wooded property at Evergreen and Nine Mile.

The DEQ could decide on the permit as early as this week.

The plan has the support of the church pastor, the Rev. Keith Butler, a former Detroit city councilman, but attempts by a reporter from The Detroit News to get a comment from Butler were unsuccessful.

Jordan Development Vice President Ben Brower told the Detroit Free Press that if further testing warrants drilling, fracking won’t be used. Fracking involves the high-pressure injection of fluids into shale beds to release oil and natural gas, which environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council say turn rural sites into industrial developments, release dangerous levels of air pollution near the drilling sites and create other environmental problems.

The company became interested in the property after seismic testing showed underground “anomalies” that could mean oil, Brower said.

The church said on its website that if the proposal is approved, the well would be located on an upland, densely wooded area “so as to shield itself from local traffic and residential properties.”

“Its location will not interfere with the church activities, the surrounding property owners, nor the city of Southfield,” the church said.

Church spokeswoman Andrea Simpson told the Detroit Free Press the royalties from any oil discovered would help the church with its outreach mission.

“We help this community; we feed, we clothe,” Simpson said. “We do our best to be a blessing to the people of this community, whether they are members of this church or not ... that costs money.”

A town hall meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 27, at the Southfield Public Library to discuss the drilling plan, WXYZ-TV reports.

In the shivering cold Sunday, about 50 protesters carried signs with slogans like “Thou Shalt Not Drill” outside the church. Among them was Joseph Person, a church congregant who said “Bishop Butler is wrong on this,” according to The Detroit News.

“Southfield is a nice community, and we want to keep it that way,” Person told the newspaper. “We know what it’s like around Marathon (refinery in southwest Detroit and Ecorse). ... We don’t want our community to be next.”

Larry Quarles, 67, a retired engineer who lives less than a mile from the proposed drilling site, told the Free Press he doubts the church’s claim there won’t be ramifications in the neighborhood.

“I understand the need for the church to raise funds; at my church, we have a similar situation,” he said. “But we would never, never do something like this. As a religious organization, we would never think of impacting neighbors or the community.”

Skip Davis, 72, told the Free Press he views the proposal is “the greatest threat our neighborhood has ever confronted.”

“The overarching concern is just damage to the planet. We’re on a watershed, with groundwater and tributaries to the Rouge River,” he said. “There’s a forest preserve just across the street. On a personal level, the impact to property values is a big concern.”

Both Mayor Kenson Siver and state Rep. Jeremy Moss, D-Southfield, oppose the plan.

Siver told the Free Press that drilling is “highly inappropriate in a residential area.”

He and Moss served together on the Southfield City Council in 2012 when the council demanded through a resolution that the DEQ look at the environmental effects of drilling in residential neighborhoods.

“There were some people in our community who kind of derided it, who said we were getting into issues that weren’t relevant to Southfield,” Moss told the Free Press. “Here we are, almost four years later, living with the reality that this could happen in our community.”