I picked up the paper on Feb. 3 to see the headline “Fracking protesters arrested for trespassing.”
There’s just one problem with this: the protesters were not protesting hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) for gas, but rather opposing “wastewater” injection wells.
As of now, there is no fracking occurring in Athens County itself. Instead, we are getting the gift of other states’ and counties’ “wastewater” or “brine,” byproducts of the fracking process. That means we are taking all the risks of storing other places’ poison in our water table, but getting none of the promised benefits of fracking itself.
Over half of the waste is coming from other states that have stricter environmental regulations than us. That’s right — other states decided that these hazardous waste wells are not safe for their citizens, so Southeast Ohio gets it instead.
Another difference between hosting hydraulic fracking and hosting injection wells: Companies promise that fracking will bring jobs. But when trucks from Pennsylvania, New York and West Virginia drop off their wastewater at the injection well in Coolville then drive away, terribly few jobs are created. This spot is a dumping ground, not a hub of gas production.
The site we were protesting is 2.2 miles from Coolville Elementary and the Ohio River, and 1.7 miles from the Hocking River. It hosts one injection well already, and recently the Ohio Department of Natural Resources summarily approved a permit to build a second, bigger well.
It would be illegal to build injection wells at that spot, except that the wastewater from fracking has been specially exempted from the EPA guidelines for hazardous waste. With a stroke of the pen, suddenly the wastewater is not “hazardous” waste.
Too bad changing the words in the law won’t change the chemical and metals in the wastewater. No one is allowed to know exactly what those chemicals are, because they’re considered the company’s proprietary information; doctors who treat people affected by injection well wastewater must sign gag orders, not sharing what they’ve learned about the wastewater’s contents and effects.
Companies like K&H Partners tell us that we don’t need to know — to just trust them that it’s safe. After the chemical spill last month in West Virginia, after the coal ash leak in North Carolina this week, after mining right here in Athens County turned our streams orange and acidic 100 years ago, do you really think we should just believe them? They say the wells are safe, but no structures last forever.
Thank you for taking the time to understand what we are really objecting to. Injection wells turn our water and health into a dumping ground.
Darcy Higgins graduated from Ohio University in 2011.
