The legal complaint launched by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost against a fracking waste recycling facility in Martins Ferry could help bring to light some of the dangers of oil and gas industry and cause changes in state regulations, according to journalist Justin Nobel.
Nobel, who has a master’s degree in journalism and environmental science from Columbia University, visited Athens on May 1 as part of a tour promoting his book, ”Petroleum-238: Big Oil’s Dangerous Secret and the Grassroots Fight to Stop it.” He spoke at both the Athens Public Library and the Athens Community Center.
The meeting was hosted by Buckeye Environmental Network, ACFAN (Athens County’s Future Action Network), Save Ohio Parks and Third Act Ohio.
During his talk at the Athens Community Center, he discussed interviews he conducted with former workers and the work of scientists and activists regarding Austin Master Services, a fracking waste recycler located close to the Ohio River in Martins Ferry.
The Austin Master facility, located at 801 N. First St. in Martins Ferry, is about 1,000 feet from the city’s drinking water well field and about 500 feet from the Ohio River, according to an article in The Intelligencer (Wheeling, West Virginia).
During the heavy rains in April, the facility flooded at least once, although waters didn’t reach the level of the waste stored at the facility.
AG’s lawsuit
In a lawsuit filed in late March in Belmont County Common Pleas Court, Yost sought a temporary restraining order to force the Pennsylvania-based company to stop storing brine and drilling waste in volumes exceeding its permit with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR).
The court granted the restraining order and ordered Austin Master to clean up the excess waste, but the company did not comply. The danger posed by the materials prompted ODNR to take steps to prevent releases from the facility.
In an amended complaint recently filed with the charges in contempt, Yost’s environmental team added the parent company of Austin Master (American Environmental Partners, Inc.) and its chief financial officer (Brad Domitrovitsch) as defendants in the case. In addition, the modified lawsuit seeks reimbursement from the company for ODNR’s cleanup costs.
Nobel said the legal system is the best way for the industry to have some kind of accountability.
“I think you all in Ohio have a really good platform,” he said. “I don’t know if the attorney general knows what it means to investigate this facility, but it means that there is a major problem with the way oil and gas is being produced in Ohio.
“And it is not the only facility like that,” Nobel told about 40 people. “I think good next steps would be to point that out and say, ‘Well why don’t you look at this one and look at that one and talk to the workers who work at these plants and let them tell you about their experiences?’ Because they’re very different than the ... experiences of the (company) president who goes and gives their very shiny song and dance to legislators.”
Fracking
Fracking is a process used to get oil and gas out of the ground. Sometimes, fresh water and a combination of chemicals are used to push oil and gas, along with brine, out of cracks and holes underground. The brine contains many minerals and radium, a radioactive, naturally occurring mineral.
Treatment facilities throughout the United States “treat” the brine and wastewater, by separating the solids, called sludge, out. This sludge is shoveled up and usually disposed of in some way.
Working conditions
Nobel noted that the Austin Masters facility, and others like it, rely on hiring workers, who recently left prison or are desperate for a job, to shovel sludge. They often get dirtier than other workers and have drug addiction issues.
“They just wanted a job; they got one there,” he said. “They’re not drug tested, and they’re also not properly informed or protected (against radiation).”
Nobel read a passage in his book about “David,” who worked at Austin Master from June 2020 to April 2021. Nobel noted that David’s story was like others he had heard during the any interviews he gathered for his book.
The workers were often under-protected in terms of their clothing. “The suits they give you tear easily when the crotch gets ripped,” David told Nobel. “A lot of times I just wore a wife-beater. I was really getting covered in that (sludge). They failed to inform us about even the basic risks. Workers would eat, drink and smoke cigarettes, one after the other, with dirty hands. I did the same thing.”
Like many people who have signs of radiation poisoning, David’s teeth have been falling out, Nobel said. Several of his former coworkers have died of multiple cancers and other illnesses.
David also talked about how workers used meth while on the job. “I’m seen them passing it around in the locker room and smoking meth in the room and back in the bathroom.”
Nobel noted that he has worked with people who work in the nuclear energy industry. The industry has protocols on handling radioactive materials, clothing requirements, leaving a contamination zone, etc.
“(David was) wearing a wife-beater that’s probably going to get washed at home with his family’s clothes,” Nobel said.
Another issue at these facilities is the dust.
“These are very, these often are very dusty workplaces. What you’re trying to do is pull out these solids. So often that can involve various types of evaporator equipment, heating things, cooling things, drying things,” Nobel said. “It can be very dust workplace. … Simple protections are what these workers don’t have, which means they’re inhaling a lot of dust, and they’re pulling radium into their body.”
Among the items Nobel brought to Athens was a pair of boots, worn by a former employee at an Austin Master facility. The sludge has been removed and studied, but the workboots are still radioactive.
“The sludge was not just on the boots; it was under his hard hat and head lamp, which are much closer to the face and the parts of your body that are pulling in air,” he said.
He noted the sludge on the boots had about 86 picocuries per gram of radium levels. “The EPA has a cleanup limit for topsoil at toxic waste sites — that’s super fund sites — and it’s five picocuries per gram. And this worker had 86 on the items that are on their face, on their body.”
Little regulation
Since the 1980 passage of Bentsen and Bevill exemption to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, oilfield waste has been legally declared nonhazardous. Nobel said the law was created during the oil embargo of the 1970s. It was intended to encourage American companies to search for oil and gas, so the country would not be as dependent on foreign sources.
“If you’re an industry producing copious amounts of solid waste, you have a very powerful incentive right there to make sure that your waste is defined as not hazardous,” Nobel said. “And that’s exactly what the industry did. … And the concern was that if the industry had to really rigorously regulate the waste,” it would have impeded new oil and gas development because it would have been too costly.
In regards to which government entity is overseeing these treatment facilities, such as the Austin Master site, Nobel said the companies exist under a jerry-rigged makeshift regulatory scheme.
“While the Ohio Department of Health has been designated as the Ohio control agency” that deals with public health, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources regulates the oil and gas industry.
Nobel noted that the division doesn’t have the authority to levy fines. “(The industry) exist under this kind of jerry-rigged makeshift regulatory scheme, which is referred to by the chief.” The chief can issue orders as to whether a business can operate.
Some people may say too much regulation will strangle an industry. “But the problem with that is you create the room for really shoddy facilities to be set up and handle this material,” Nobel said.
Local activism
Regarding the Austin Master facility, the attorney general is investigating the site thanks to the late activist Teresa Mills, with the Buckeye Environment Network, Nobel said.
Nobel noted how she developed good relationships with state officials and site workers. She got documents and inspection reports from the Austin Master facility and conducted her own investigation.
“Inspectors with ODNR would visit, note the roof is leaking. Then a year later, the roof is still leaking, which means waste is pulling up on the floor, waste is being tracked out of the facility,” he said.
Inspectors also observed trucks leaving the facility, spilling waste onto the public road, which is beside Martin Ferry High School’s football stadium and a park.
“Later a group of Ohio scientists and organizers, they did something very smart,” Nobel said. “They took samples along the road, sent them to a lab and they find, and they found elevated models of radium. They did an another smart thing. They sampled 500 yards from the facility, 200 yards, a 100 yards, right near the door, and they found radium levels increasing as they went closer to the door.”
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