Toxic wastewater found bubbling up from ground in Ohio, reports ‘NYT’
There are more than 240 injection wells for the disposal of oil and gas waste here in Ohio. That’s because decades ago, our state received permission from the federal government to regulate our own injection wells. There’s hardly any federal oversight, compared to other surrounding states, which means other states are dumping their radioactive wastewater here.
In Marietta, specifically, east of Athens, hundreds of millions of gallons of radioactive fracking wastewater has been buried beneath the city, “where it’s supposed to stay forever,” noted The New York Times in a recent article about the issue.
However, this toxic brine is now surfacing, reported The Times, posing the risk of contaminating the drinking water for around 32,000 people. The hazardous wastewater is full of heavy metals, radioactive materials, harmful chemical additives, and benzene, a cancer-causing agent.
And 840,000 gallons of this brine is permitted to be dumped daily within two miles of the city’s drinking water aquifer.
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Rob Brunrett, president of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, told The Times that these wells are tightly regulated and protected by thousands of feet of rock and shale.
But in 2024, the Oil and Gas Commission explicitly confirmed that this fracking brine was migrating underground.
Bob Wilson, a Marietta resident, showed The Times that brine fracking wastewater was coming from his wells. “There should not be any water here at all,” he explained to them. When he sued several injection well companies for “violating his property rights,” his case was dismissed because the injection well companies argued that Mr. Wilson couldn’t prove where the wastewater came from.
Susan Vessels, the Marietta City Council president, told The Times that she wanted an immediate halt on injections and for state leaders to prohibit injection wells near public drinking water.
Currently, drinking-water tests in Marietta and the surrounding cities are showing no sign of brine. Vessels emphasize that if any radioactive material were to get in the water system, though, “We’re done.”
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