Ohio, a Fracking Dumping Ground, Now Wonders About the Safety of Its Drinking Water

I guess that the state of Ohio is having one of those “Well, duh!” moments, when the folks there realize that expansive environmental degradation is not just the domain of their neighbors across the river in West Virginia.

            As with my last post that ended with West Virginia Senate Majority Leader John Unger warning that the toxic spill that deprived 300,000 residents of his state of basic drinking water could, if ignored, serve as a harbinger to the rest of the country. Through the lax enforcement of regulation and even the absence of regulation other parts of the country could have poisoned water pouring out of their taps as well.

            Just as West Virginia leads the country in mountaintop removal, Ohio leads the country in being a dumping ground for fracking waste. Fracking requires tons and tons of water, which becomes contaminated because of the chemicals used in the fracking process. Because Ohio is blessed, or cursed depending on your point of view, with unique rock layers that are ideal for disposing of fracking waste, the Buckeye State is home to over 200 injection wells where hydraulic fracturing waste is pumped deep underground, sometimes as deep as 5,000 feet.

            With so many West Virginians out of water for so long, a number of Ohioans are now asking how safe is it to pump tons and tons of waste under the rocks that provide their groundwater. A major spill in a river is a disaster, but the flow of the water cleanses the river within weeks or months. On the other hand, once groundwater is contaminated, it could be decades or even centuries before the contaminants make their way from an aquifer.

            Just as it seems obvious, now, that letting a large tank filled with a toxin to sit next to a major water source was a bad idea, you kind of wonder why weren’t some Ohioans a little leery of letting folks pump toxic waste into the rocks under their state in the first place.

Three Months On West Virginia Still Suffers From Troubled Waters

Three months on some West Virginians still aren't drinking the water.

Sorry to have dropped the ball on this blog for a while. There has been plenty to write about, but I’ve been tied up with a few things lately. I promise to get back to a more regular schedule with my posts here.

            The story that I’ve been following a great deal lately is the toxic spill in West Virginia’s Elk River that occurred in January of this year. Though the spill happened almost exactly three months ago, apparently there are still folks who are staying away from their tap water, and some folks are complaining that the telltale licorice smell still lingers in the water coming from their taps. The levels of the 4-methylcyclohexane methanol have dropped in the drinking water. The highest level of the chemical in water tested in a ten-home pilot project was found to be 6.1 parts per billion, much lower than the Center For Disease Control’s somewhat arbitrary threshold of 1000 parts per billion.

            It seems as though some members of the national press are keeping an eye on the water problems in the Kanawha Valley. I heard this story on Here and Now. Interviewed for the story is Rahul Gupta. The Kanawha-Charleston health director said that there may now be evidence pointing to long-standing low levels of MCHM being present in the drinking water of the Kanawha Valley. As he said, there is no research on what this chemical might do to people who are exposed to small amounts of it over long periods of time.

And the spill made the pages of the New Yorker. Evan Osnos, who years ago worked as a photojournalist in Clarksburg, West Virginia, my hometown, delves into the history of the coal companies and the grip that they have on the politics of the Mountain State. In his piece Osnos suggests that the rise of the GOP in West Virginia, a very traditional Democratic stronghold, is not a good trend. Although the anti-environmental rhetoric of the GOP and that party’s willingness to slash and burn environmental and health regulations would seem to support what he has to say, I think things are bad in my home state no matter which party occupies the state house or the governor’s mansion. The lack of regulatory control over the coal companies and the chemical industries goes back through the administrations of governors Joe Manchin and Jay Rockefeller, both Democrats.

            Democrats and Republicans both bear some of the blame for the state of affairs in West Virginia; the same can be said of the electorate that sends these politicians into office. Ultimately, however, the coal companies and the chemical industry in West Virginia are responsible for the polluted waters and sickened people. From the time Appalachian children attend grammar school, where the coal industry has developed and, with the blessing of the educational establishment, inserted into Appalachian schools’ curricula to indoctrinate students and turn them into coal industry loving adults, through the industry’s campaign against the president and environmental regulation in the guise of fighting Obama’s “war on coal,” King Coal and the chemical companies influence enough of the electorate to get coal-friendly politicians into office. Their influence is not total. Recent polling indicates that mountaintop removal remains unpopular in West Virginia. Even still, you don’t have to convince every voter, just enough to make the difference to get your preferred candidate into office. And once in office, no matter what a state senator or governor may believe personally, they are barraged with the money and lobbying of the industries that control West Virginia.

            Without footage of floodwaters or images of flattened houses, most of the national press moved on from the story of West Virginians and their water problems. But Osnos quotes West Virginia Senate Majority Leader John Unger pointing out why this toxic spill deserves the attention of the rest of the country, “Martin Luther King said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Why should anybody care about what goes on in West Virginia? Because it’s the canary in the mineshaft. If you ignore it in West Virginia, it’s coming, it’s going to continue to build, and the issue is: Should our country have the debate about our rights to the very basic infrastructure that sustains us? Or should we continue to ignore it?”