Environment: A Cause for Concern
As a young person, I didn't always appreciate the Ohio Valley. This has changed over the past few years through my work with Concerned Ohio River Residents (CORR), a local non-profit advocating for a healthy, sustainable future in the Valley. I've learned extensively about the landscape, history, natural wonders, and environmental threats here, and there is much to respect, cherish, and ultimately protect in the Appalachian Ohio River Valley.
One of our main focuses with CORR has been the PTTGC ethane “cracker” plant. For more information on this, listen to episode five of Ella Jennings’ piece “What Happened to Weirton” on WVPB, or visit our website. After years of delays and expired permits, experts question the viability of the plant. For this piece, however, I’ll focus on the most present concern: Austin Master Services LLC and the greater fracking network in Belmont County, Ohio.
Austin Master is a frack waste processing plant in Martins Ferry, OH. It processes oil and gas drill cuttings and filter socks, some of which are so highly radioactive that they must be sent to Utah because no local landfill can accept the waste. It is just 2,500 feet from the East Ohio Regional Hospital and Martins Ferry high school’s football field. Additionally, Austin Master operates on top of the aquifer that feeds Martins Ferry’s drinking water wells and is only a few hundred feet from the water plant.
Even more concerning is the fact that the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) has yet to write rules on such facilities, leading to no environmental oversight. ODNR’s own reports reveal that Austin Master is potentially contaminating the community with radioactive material because of poor and negligent operations. They only recently decided to draft rules on these facilities, eight years after they were ordered to do so by Ohio lawmakers.
In Belmont County, we have a frack pad next door to a daycare center (St. Clairsville); an injection well being drilled right along a busy state route, a major highway, two colleges, and many county buildings (Omni); another injection well planned for the backyard of Union Local High School (TrooClean); over 700 permitted frack pads (the most in Ohio); a petrochemical plastics plant proposed for the banks of a drinking water source and in a flood plain (PTTGC); and a radioactive waste facility next to a hospital and football field.
As far as the economics go, the Frackalachia research report recently published by the Ohio River Valley Institute found that during the fracking “boom,” Appalachian Ohio actually saw a decrease in population and jobs, and the profits by and large did not stay in the area. There are some very powerful reports coming out of the Ohio River Valley Institute stressing the need for the Valley to transition to a sustainable future. They’ve also offered economic alternatives to these petrochemical plans, and we are encouraging our leaders to take us in a better direction. What if we turned all the abandoned sites into permaculture gardens that would beautify the cities and towns, plus create jobs? The Ohio Valley has so much potential. If we want a better future, the first step is advocating for it, then taking action with others to create a better reality. Connect with us at concernedohioriverresidents.org.