An Ohio anti-fracking activist group has gone radio silent and appears to have dismantled after two studies it coordinated and funded failed to confirm its anti-fracking narrative. Carroll County, home to the largest number of Utica Shale wells and the first county in Ohio where fracking really started booming, has also been home to Carroll County Concerned Citizens (CCCC), a small anti-fracking activist group. Over the past few years, this group (associated with the Frack Free America National Coalition), has held monthly meetings and used its website to provide a flurry of misinformation about the oil and gas industry. But most notably, CCCC has been a hub for “volunteer recruitment” for fracking studies.

Last year, two of the studies the CCCC participated and funded yielded “disappointing” results, as a University of Cincinnati (UC) groundwater fracking study showed “no evidence for natural gas contamination” and another UC fracking study on air quality was retracted, as it exaggerated cancer risks by 725,000 percent. Both of the UC studies’ lead authors announced their findings at CCCC meetings. Since then, there have been no meetings held or scheduled in the future, and it appears there has not been any activity whatsoever since hearing this “disappointing” news.

CCCC formed in 2009, but did not start becoming active until their screening of the debunked Gasland film.  Shortly after they formed, horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing started to boom in Carroll County, thanks to unprecedented investment in the county by Chesapeake Energy, which at the time predicted that Ohio’s shale formation could be game-changer, and it has been.

Chesapeake drilled its first shale well in 2011 but really started picking up steam into 2012. By 2013, Ohio hit a landmark of 1,000 permits for Utica sh...