Athens Co. fracking leak, inaction show the dire public health dangers of Ohio regulatory capture

Let’s say you, like roughly 45% of Ohioans, rely on groundwater wells to provide a constant supply of clean, safe drinking water. Now suppose, unbeknownst to you, an exceptionally toxic cocktail of radioactive wastewater has been leaking underground and possibly contaminating the water you and your family drink. 

As your alarm and outrage builds with the news, you don’t see the gut punch coming. But here it is. Your state government knew about the problem and took its sweet time to intervene. Instead, deference was given to the influential oil and gas industry pumping millions of gallons of fracking drilling waste into over 200 injection wells around the state that may or may not be safe. You learn that wells near you have reportedly been plagued for years by migrating fracking waste seeping from deep in the earth.     

There’s more. After state regulators finally shut down the industrial disposal wells sending dangerous chemicals and fracking waste gurgling to the surface or streaming into shallow aquifers (that store most of your neighborhood’s drinking water) an industry-friendly panel — appointed by your governor — allowed the leaking wells to resume leaking. That’s right. Ohio’s quasi-judicial Ohio and Gas Commission let an “imminent danger” to the health and environment of your community get worse. For half a year.

That is the infuriating reality Ohioans are grappling with today in Athens and Washington counties, Cleveland.com’s Jake Zuckerman reported earlier this month. People living in two of the poorest counties in the state know they’re no match for the powerful oil and gas lobby with friends in high places. They know their Republican state leaders are bought and paid for by corporate donors. (See Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine) He opened our treasured state parks and public lands to ravenous out-of-state companies eager to drill, baby, drill regardless of health and environmental consequences.

So it’s not surprising that his pro oil and gas drilling commission — defiling our parks with dirty fracking operations trucked in from Texas, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Arkansas, etc. — sided with the industry over people. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources warned that such a decision would create the “potential for calamity in Athens County.” ODNR investigators stressed that allowing operations to resume at three fracking waste injection wells in the eastern part of the county could destroy critical sources of Ohio’s fresh water.

The commission shrugged. Expert witnesses testified that if the groundwater in the area were contaminated by a migrating flow of fracking toxicity, the community’s drinking water would be compromised “in perpetuity.” Local residents might not notice the hazardous substances in their water it until it’s too late. What then? What of the long-term medical ramifications not to mention the ongoing environmental ones? Who shoulders the costs to access clean drinking water when fracking wastewater produces irreparable damage? 

In a crisis with grave implications for human lives, public welfare, not corporate profit, should determine public action. But not in Ohio. Our shameless political power is in bed with big business from giant utilities to school privatization profiteers and, of course, fossil fuel companies cashing in on easy money. What’s in the public interest is not even a distant consideration when special interests with deep pockets come waving lucrative campaign checks. 

That pattern is cemented in the state’s GOP leadership team (underscored recently by disclosures of huge FirstEnergy dark money donations to DeWine, Lt. Governor Jon Husted and a group FirstEnergy lobbyists tied to Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman). Republican powerbrokers have repeatedly sold out utility ratepayers, public school families and people stuck with leaking injection wells in southeastern Ohio. Their public water supplies were callously threatened by the state’s oil and gas regulatory regime. 

ODNR had disturbing reports about failing wells in the region going back to 2019. Briny water laced with poisonous chemicals and carcinogenic contaminants had migrated from some fracking disposal sites up through another operator’s well over a mile away and polluted the ground. In Athens County, where many rely exclusively on private groundwater wells for drinking water, the inaction and indifference from the state was maddening. 

It took ODNR nearly four years to finally suspend operations at four regional wells it found “endanger and are likely to endanger public health, safety, or the environment.” If the wells continue to operate, the regulatory agency cautioned, “additional impacts may occur in the future and are likely to contaminate the land, surface waters, or subsurface waters.” But the governor’s oil and gas lackeys lifted the suspension at three problem sites where fracking fluid injected into the wells spread at least 1.5 miles underground and was bubbling to the surface through oil and gas injection wells in Athens and Washington counties. 

Documented leakage from those wells rose over the ensuing months as even more toxic wastewater was pumped into them. Two weeks ago the five-member oil and gas commission conceded the wells were causing or to likely to cause the contamination that endangered public health and safety and reinstated their suspensions. But members had those facts in October, 2023. They ignored them while the threat grew.

It’s not their drinking water. They don’t live near unsafe wells discharging fracking toxins into the ground. Neither does the guv. Tough luck if you rely on groundwater wells for the water you and your family drink. Ohio is open for business and dark money in 2024, not for quality of life. Not acceptable.