During the 1950s and 1960s, I remember the government-conducted Civil Defense drills in my school. We were told to climb under our school desks, duck down and cover our heads. We might have survived a bomb blast but the radioactive fallout could not be stopped. The nuclear disasters at Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima have taught us that the radiation emitted during an accident or bombing will travel across the planet via the jet stream and distribute some radiation to all of us.

Unfortunately, a similar scenario has been occurring in Southeastern Ohio. Since 2012, (when fracking for oil and gas started in earnest in the Tri-State Area) communities, citizens and oil and gas workers have been exposed to brine and fracking sludge that can contain alarming amounts of radioactive isotopes like Radium-226 and Radium-228. Every day, brine trucks (lacking any warning placards or Material Safety Data Sheets) drive along our roads and through our towns transporting oilfield wastes from fracking well pads to Class II injection wells. In addition to bromine and chlorine salts, these trucks can also carry toxic chemicals, pit waste, refuse water, sludge and used frack sand, along with water soluble Radium-226 and 228.

Justin Nobel’s book, “Petroleum 238,” is an excellent source of information detailing how the oil and gas industry has been allowed to spew radiation across the Unted States in the form of billions of gallons of oilfield wastes. Oil and gas exploration and production wastes (brine and drilling muds) were exempted from the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Subtitle C in 1978. They are also exempted from Ohio’s hazardous waste regulations. This wasn’t because the wastes are safe, in fact officials admitted that the wastes could indeed be harmful to human health and the environment.

RCRA’s primary reason for the exemption was: “If the immense volume of oil and gas wastes were regulated as hazardous it would economically harm the industry.” When the law was revisited in 1980 under President Ronald Reagan, the Environmental Protection Agency kept the exemption, saying: “Regulation would cause a severe economic impact on the industry and on oil and gas production in the U.S.” Basically, as far as politicians and regulatory agencies are concerned, industry profits supersede any concern for the health of our communities.

A big fear is that the radiation from Radium-226, which has a half-life of 1,600 years, will be poisoning the Tri-State Area long after the fracking boom is over. “The U.S. EPA and the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation list radium as a known human carcinogen. Human exposure results in an increased incidence of bone, liver and breast cancer. Radium-226 is especially dangerous because, unlike many radioactive isotopes, it dissolves readily in water. When the contaminated water is ingested, the body mistakes Ra-226 for dissolved calcium and deposits it in bones. Radium-226 is thus called a bone seeker. Radium 226 and 228 are the parents of radon gas, a major cause of lung cancer.”

The Safe Drinking Water Act sets the maximum contaminant level for Radium-226 in drinking water at 5 pico Curies per liter. “The Ohio Administrative Code has set environmental discharge limits for Radium 226 and 228 at 60 pCi/L each”, yet it is not unusual for brine trucks to carry fluids testing above 3,000 pCi/L with some as high as 7,300 pCi/L, according to the Buckeye Environmental Network brine factsheet on conventional and horizontal well brines.

In 2004, Ohio passed HB 278, “which took away local control on oil and gas regulation, and granted Ohio Department of Natural Resources sole authority,” meaning that local communities cannot stop an injection well from being constructed. There is an injection well less than 10 miles from my home. Ohio has more than 234 Class II injection wells and accepts waste from out of state. Since 1985, Ohio’s General Assembly has approved the use of conventional oilfield brine to be used on roadways as a deicer and dust suppressant.

The head of the Ohio Environmental Agency, Anne Vogel, and the head of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Mary Mertz, both sit on the Ohio Power Siting Board.

At the request of OPSB, the Ohio Department of Health performed a health study on solar energy farms and photovoltaics in 2022. The results from the study said: “Information to date does not indicate a public health burden from solar and photovoltaics.” Why hasn’t the Ohio Department of Health or the ODNR or the OEPA conducted a study on the health and environmental effects of the entire process of fracking from cradle (well pad) to grave (injection wells)? Why hasn’t any state agency in Ohio done a single long-term study on how fracking affects citizens and the community? The entire process of fracking including water withdraws, permitting of fracking wells, forced pooling of private land and permits for Class II injection wells, falls under the complete control of the ODNR with no oversight.

The ODNR knows from testing done in 2018, that conventional and non-conventional well wastes contain alarming levels of Radium-226. The ODH stated “ODH works in partnership with fellow state agencies, including the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which assesses ecological impacts.” They certainly did not study the ecological and health impacts from fracking. Now Ohio, through the ODNR, wants to control permitting of carbon dioxide Class VI injection wells. A very dangerous proposal.

Since 2023, Ohio has approved fracking under our state parks. Citizens across the state have sent countless letters and peer-reviewed studies to the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission containing information about the effects on health and environment from fracking and fracking infrastructure. These studies were ignored. Citizens have expressed their disapproval of handing our state lands over to out-of-state fossil fuel companies for resource extraction. They have been ignored. Volunteers from the grassroots group Save Ohio Parks have documented countless accidents that have occurred on well pads, including the Jan. 2 explosion near Salt Fork State Park. This data has been ignored.

Why does this industry get a free pass to poison us and the environment? In 2021, Carroll County saw 440 million gallons of water withdrawn for fracking.

In comparison, the public use sector withdrew 292 million gallons. Why do frackers get to take endless quantities of water from our ecosystems? Why do these companies get to export our resources and make huge profits while destroying our land? When it comes to the fossil fuel industry, Ohio’s politicians consider the Southeastern Ohio region to be a mineral colony and aim to sell every drop of oil and gas from under our communities.

(Pokladnik, a resident of Uhrichsville, is certified in hazardous materials regulations)