I am the mother of a young man in his senior year of undergraduate studies who is currently applying to medical schools. We live in a suburb of Cleveland, where both my son and I were born and raised. In other words, we are Ohioans. Ohio University has a wonderful reputation as a great medical school and naturally, my son put it on his short list of schools to apply to.
However, in the past year, I have become very aware of the industrialization of our state, including residential neighborhoods, farms and even our parks. You see, the suburb we live in has 89 oil/gas wells drilled in only 13 square miles. In the process of becoming educated on the health and environmental risks associated with drilling, I also became aware of the highly toxic and carcinogenic byproducts of drilling and “fracking” that Ohio seems to want to inject below all our feet as well.
As I have read more and more on this topic and how we are willing to bury not only the waste from Ohio’s drilling, but also the waste from Pennsylvania and Texas into our beautiful farms, parks and under the feet of our youth, our future at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, I became fearful. I read that permits for many injection wells in the Athens area are being applied for and most likely will be granted.
As a mother, how can I allow my son, who — even though he is 21 years old — I feel I still have a responsibility to protect, to apply to Ohio University’s Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, when I know what I know? I try to project into the future and see him as a 30- or 32-year-old physician, living his dream and then finding out that he has some terrible blood cancer or form of leukemia. I would always wonder if this was because of the injection wells filled with toxic chemicals that were buried beneath him in Athens.
There have not really been any long-term scientific studies done on the effects of this toxic waste lying below us. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources doesn’t even do any regular testing of the fracking waste before it is injected. It would be one thing if I didn’t know what was going to happen in Athens, but unfortunately, I do. And do I want to risk my son being a guinea pig for an industry that has received both federal and state exemptions from most environmental regulations? No, I don’t.
So I ask the residents of Athens, the elected leaders in Athens and even the governor of our state, how is taking highly toxic waste and burying it beneath our feet an economic stimulus for our state? How is it beneficial to Ohio to have our best and brightest feel the need to leave our state to get an education in a non-toxic environment? Please, stop and think about the future and not just about the quick buck that might be made in the moment!
Tish O’Dell is a resident of Broadview Heights, Ohio.
