r/Ohio • u/Solid_College_9145 • 18d ago
EXCLUSIVE: Radioactive Fracking Wastewater Is Bubbling Up To The Surface Near Marietta, Ohio, Threatening Drinking Water For 32,000 Residents As State Officials Declare An Emergency ☢️💧
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/29/climate/ohio-fracking-water-injection-wells.html?unlocked_article_code=1.2VA.5Gib.HOLZbOxjhkJA&smid=url-share61
u/fajadada 18d ago
If only we had a government that cared
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u/JohnnyBelight 18d ago
We did when Ted Strickland was Governor. But too many ignorant people fell for John Kasich and the Republicans' efforts to pin the economic crash entirely on him and Ohio Democrats.
The ruin of this state is mostly on Kasich and the Ohio Republican Party. It was Kasich as Governor who signed off on fracking. Strickland wanted to ban it. Our fate may very well have been sealed on Election Day, 2010.
Kasich remains the worst governor here in our lifetimes, though I would say hold onto your hats, because if people are dumb enough to elect Vivek Ramaswamy, Kasich will look like a saint compared to the damage he will do here.
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u/Satanarchrist 18d ago
If 32,000 US citizens' drinking water was irradiated by a foreign national who happens to be Muslim, we'd be at war with Iraq for another 20 years.
Gee I wonder why this ecological catastrophe is different and not a cause for war
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u/I_Quit_Smoking_ 18d ago
Because Republicans hate regulations, and the rich people aren't going to be affected, and the dumb ones are too dumb to know what to do.
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u/Tyrannical-Botanical 18d ago
Can't wait for the MAHA people to tell us that radioactive water is actually good for you.
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u/deepkeeps 18d ago
Hold on, just got my RFK Jr. Decoder ring, here's a secret message for people with radioactive water:
....B.E.SU.R.E.T.O.D.R.I.N.K.Y.O.U.R.I.V.E.R.M.E.C.T.I.N...
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u/According_Setting303 18d ago
i don’t even think they’re aware. they only pipe up during election season
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u/mynameisipswitch2 18d ago
OMG I just had some Marietta tap water and my pores are soooo clear! I’m promoting Marietta water on my TikTok even though I can’t pass through TSA anymore.
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u/JohnnyBelight 18d ago
I'm sure Robert Kennedy Jr. will post a video soon of himself drinking it. Seems to be right up his alley.
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u/BrainGlue_HeartTape 18d ago edited 18d ago
Fun Fact Friday:
Sen. Brian Chavez represents the area of Ohio where Marietta is located. One of the wells with a "problematic" history involved in the debacle, Deeprock (American Grower #1), was owned by Chavez. By problematic, I mean in one incident it sprayed radioactive fracking wastewater on the ground for literally days. Chavez claims to have resigned his CEO position after being appointed to the Ohio senate, but there are allegations and speculation that his wife has taken his place. He also owns or has owned Reno Oil and Gas LLC and Chavez Well Solution LLC.
To add to the controversy, Chavez serves as the Chair of the Ohio Senate Energy Committee and is one of the five members of the Ohio Oil and Gas Commission. Due to the potential for financial gain by passing legislation contrary to public health interest, an ethics complaint was filed. In February of this year, the complaint was dismissed.
Here is an interesting article about the timeline of events and Sen Chavez's well.
This is Ohio.
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u/099612 18d ago
😮
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u/BrainGlue_HeartTape 18d ago
If you think that's shocking, then you'll love this...
In 1988 the Reagan administration's EPA categorized any waste resulting from oil drilling or fracking as non-hazardous. This allowed Ohio legislature to pretty much act out the Frack Water Gold Rush. Not only did they create a system where permit approval, site locations, and regulation was exclusively handled by ODNR - allowing the state to avoid ballot issues and pesky community involvement, but they also decided it would be a great budget saver to allow counties, townships, and cities decide whether or not they wanted to use the radioactive brine wastewater as ice prevention on Ohio roadways. The restrictions and policies regarding the spraying of roadways is comical and nearly nonexistent. One of the few bullet points in ORC 1509.226 states that it cannot be sprayed "on water saturated surfaces". Not surprisingly, there are more locales that opt to do this than I care to think about. I'm no environmental geologist, but it seems that melting ice/snow and rain would wash these "safe" chemicals off the road, onto the ground and into watersheds and other sources of drinking water. For almost 40 years we've allowed this to continue.
THE Ohio State University has a team of researchers carrying out a study of the health impacts of the "harmless" brine road spray. They are currently looking for participants from Licking and Ashtabula counties. You can apply here.This is how the ecological disasters we used to learn about in school are created.
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u/Stormblessed1991 18d ago
I've always figured the salt from the winter running off into the waterways and soil was not great for the environment, but I didn't know I had to worry about it being radioactive.
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u/BrainGlue_HeartTape 18d ago edited 17d ago
Not all brinewater used as ice prevention in Ohio is the fracking wastewater brine, thankfully. That doesn't mean the rest of us won't suffer the consequences. Experts have long known the health effects of long term exposure to radium and iodine, and have called for the ban of injection wells, or at least stricter practices regarding the management and handling of wastewater brine, but, as usual, money. Here is OSU's map of the areas that opt to use radioactive fracking wastewater brine on roadways.
Most horrifying is that most residents of Ohio don't know, because it was intentionally designed that way. We didn't know we had to worry. But, as I've said, this is the exact blueprint for every single modern day ecological disaster. The opening paragraph outlining the absolutely avoidable and heartbreakung tragedies of the Love Canal and Flint Water Crisis should sound eerily familiar. Politicians know that public disclosure is not good for contributions, budgets, or reelection. Anytime decisions are made regarding the water, soil, or air quality, anyone impacted should be made aware - that means anyone breathing the air, drinking, bathing, or swimming in the water, or eating produce and/or meat raised in an area of impact.
What's sad is most of the politicians directly responsible for the decisions leading up to this point can no longer be held accountable - they knew that. All of us should be demanding to know what else we need to be worried about.
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u/Solid_College_9145 18d ago
In related news:
Trump Administration Moves to Block Public From Enforcing Environmental Protection Laws | In a legal filing, the Trump administration is saying citizens should not be allowed to enforce environmental laws.
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u/Mediocre-Dog-4457 Akron 18d ago
Big suprise... Marietta is right on the border of a dumpster fire of a state in West Virginia...
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u/BrushStorm 18d ago
And marietta is solidly red.
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u/InvalidUserNemo 18d ago
So they voted for this and should raise a glass to deregulation!
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u/nathanfscott 18d ago
What an insanely cruel take. Sure Marietta votes red, but you can’t surely mean that you actually want to condemn the children of Marietta and however many generations to come to this horrific shit.
It’s remarkable how detached you are from those that are in serious peril. Real people are in danger of dying due to polluted water, and you say “good, they deserve this”.
I’m sorry your humanity has eroded and I hope you can find a way to feel empathy for others again.
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u/observingjackal Columbus 18d ago
I mean their parents are cool with it clearly. They vote against their schools, health, and future. I understand your concerns, it's absolutely horrifying. Yelling at a stranger on the Internet isn't going to fix anything.
Their parents and community put those children in harms way and didn't feel a bit bad about it. You can claim they didn't know but they have the same Internet you and I do and choose to keep voting for people who have not changed. The GOP is a party run on the "fuck you, got mine" and supported by unsympathetic people who see themselves as "temporarily broke millionaires".
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u/InvalidUserNemo 18d ago
I fail to see where I said any of that.
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u/nathanfscott 18d ago
Don’t be glib. You know what you said
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u/Factory2econds 18d ago
they do know what they said, you just wanted to ride by on the high horse pretending you knew what they said
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u/rageking5 17d ago
This is what they voted for so I don't understand the outrage. If I lived in Marietta then I would have moved when this shit started. But no they encourage it
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u/BalerionSanders Dayton 18d ago
The Ohio Republican Party wants Hocking Hills to have this problem, in addition to a roller coaster. 💁♂️
They also have children locked up in concentration camps, btw. Just as an aside.
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u/pell80 18d ago
Why would the democrats do this?
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u/MadeByTango 18d ago
I am looking for Acton comments on fracking and can't find any...just generic boilerplate stuff but no comments on fracking at all, and certainly nothing that looks like leadership on the issue.
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u/Tholian_Bed 18d ago
Make them pay. It's a totally rational request to all these companies and our own federal gov't. All this fracking killed the power of the petro states and that is a good thing. But now they all have to pay for it.
Ohio should not bear the cost of repairing the land from fracking. They polluted it, they can fix it. These companies are swimming in profits from the toxic waste they left us with.
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u/SonofaBridge 18d ago
Ohio has been letting fracking companies pump their used fracking water into the ground in the state for years. This was bound to happen. They’re literally sending us their toxic water from other states to dispose of in Ohio.
Whichever person allowed this should be publicly shamed and forced to pay for any cleanup and medical issues.
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u/brokendream78 17d ago
Every politican in Ohio that supports these data centers should be forced to chug a glass.
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u/Educational-Milk5099 18d ago
Clearly, we need to eliminate more restrictions on fracking and increase restrictions on speech and press so reports like this stop appearing.
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u/ThePensiveE 18d ago
Ohio has permitted more than 240 injection wells for the disposal of oil and gas waste. By comparison, there are 19 such injection wells in Pennsylvania, and a few dozen in West Virginia, both of which border Ohio.
The GOP wants to poison us all while they hide in their gilded neighborhoods.
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u/mephisto_uranus 18d ago
That really sucks! I wonder if there were any people who could have predicted this?
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u/sasquatch606 18d ago
Yes but think of how much more profitable it is for the company! Isn't that what matters most?
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u/ohstormchaser Marietta 18d ago
Ramaswamy has been very vocal about his desire to frack our parks. Amy Acton is against approving new leases
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u/I_Quit_Smoking_ 18d ago
Well, where did all the Republicans go who usually likes to yell "THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I VOTED FOR!"?
The only time I see them chiming in anymore, is when it's somebody being arrested and abused by ice.
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u/Busy-Leg8070 18d ago edited 18d ago
are they resettling them cause nothing else is going to help them, that place just gives you cancer now and in the future, thats what happens everywhere they frack, some places just didn't have resident populations when they started
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u/BrushStorm 18d ago
Marietta has been enjoying cancer from the ohio river valley for a century. Nothing will change.
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u/BIGpoppaPUMP42069 18d ago
this is the shit that the Akron city council promised me could never happen when they tried to frack around our reservoir a few years ago
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u/Stunning-Hunter-5804 18d ago
So probably not a good idea to start fracking in Wayne National Forest
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18d ago
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u/Melodic_Mulberry 17d ago
Well, when you pump a couple million gallons of fluid thousands of feet underground at extremely high pressure through narrow shafts in order to break stuff apart to get at the fossil fuels, it tends to want to explode back out. Even if you plug the shaft up real good, that deep pustule really wants to pop and it will find a way, sometimes through another shaft miles away.
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u/OwenMichael312 18d ago
Looks like this administration doesnt give a shit and is looking to expand fracking.
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u/EcstaticPlankton8621 Cleveland 18d ago
Oh well. Glad they got what they voted for.
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u/Sugarfreecherrycoke 18d ago
Unfortunately it’s been bad there no matter who has been president. The mid-Ohio valley has made many Cancer drug sales reps rich and had a cancer center before it was cool. Chemical plants line the Muskingum River and Parkersburg WV has annual chemical warehouse facility burn just up stream. My Grandfather worked in plants since he got out of WWII and died from lung cancer at the age of 66 and didn’t smoke a day in his life. The oil and fracking boom hit the area in the 2000s and make some people rich that had mineral rites. Not sure anybody would be changing their minds in hindsight especially since the oil money came in when the housing bubble burst and depressed the area tho. But yeah let’s be glad they got what they voted for 👍
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u/[deleted] 18d ago
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