Ohio fracking and poor waste management threaten our health, drinking water — and democracy by Melinda Zemper, August 29, 2025,Ohio Capital Journal
The chicks from Ohio’s fossil fuels-based energy policy have grown up quickly and are coming home to roost.
In Washington County, Marietta area residents have been meeting with local city and county officials about concerns their drinking water could be contaminated by toxic, radioactive gas and oil wastewater brine migrating from nearby injection wells.
And in much-fracked Harrison County, 3,000 Cadiz residents have been unable to drink local water off and on since June.
One citizen complained of “slimy, oily crud” and a rainbow sheen in his and his parents’ tap and shower water.
Two months after the June boil advisory was first lifted, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency claimed water main breaks from recharging the system and turbulence in Tappan Lake — which provides water to Cadiz — were to blame.
Yet at press time, water concerns continue.
These issues should be of great concern to lawmakers and Ohioans. But the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which mandates and monitors oil and gas fracking — along with storage management of its toxic, radioactive wastewater brine — just keeps fracking along.
Public comments to frack three Ohio Department of Transportation rights-of-way are due by Sept. 8.
If the Ohio River, and Ohio groundwater and aquifers become contaminated by toxic, radioactive oil and gas wastewater brine or PFAs, how do we make it drinkable again?
Or can we?
Texas and Pennsylvania are examples of what could be in store for Ohio water
The state of Texas has 2,870 cases of contaminated groundwater from gas and oil production and wastewater brine management, affecting half its water supply.
In June, Coterra Energy, Inc. in Lenox Township, Pennsylvania was fined $299,000 and ordered to replace the water supply for 13 private residential homes. It’s located just a few miles from Dimock, Pa.
Dimock was the focus of the 2010 award-winning documentary ‘Gasland,’ that showed residents setting fire to polluted water flowing from their kitchen faucets.
Cabot Oil and Gas company was finally ordered in 2022 to pay $16 million to build a public water system to replace contaminated rural drinking supplies and pay residential water bills there for 75 years.
But on the very same day that decision was announced, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection lifted a ban on fracking Dimock that had been in place since 2010.
As Texas and Pennsylvania go, will Ohio go, too?
Ohio, with its many beautiful lakes, rivers, and streams, the Ohio River on our southern border and Lake Erie to the north, was supposed to be a climate oasis as the world heats to 1.5° Celsius and beyond.
If we lose our drinking water, we’ll be refugees instead.
Ethical energy policy means phasing out fossil fuels and ramping up renewables
The most recent state budget is so dripping with gas and oil that it makes the ODNR dependent on fracking leases for half of its future budget next year.
More importantly even if all oil and gas globally is phased out, humans need to stop making babies, and give earth and water a chance to recover from humanity’s incessant abuses, frac rapes and deadly pollution
This means ODNR must continue fracking public lands it’s supposed to protect in order to maintain staff and operations.
All this despite the fact that wind and solar energy are cheaper than natural gas and the rest of the world is moving rapidly to renewables.We’re too privileged with white man stupidity and lust to rape in Nazi North America, to switch to sane energy, and with AI and data centres being shoved on humanity by the evil fucking tech billionaires and the orange demented sadistic melon, the frac harms and contaminated drinking water supplies will only escalate.
If you want to drain a swamp, here is likely the largest one too few people are discussing: without the U.S. government’s annual subsidies, such as the $760 billion it gave the gas and oil industry in 2022, could fossil fuels even survive in a free market?Nope. Oil, gas, frac, coal and bitumen are spoiled super rich cry babies that can’t survive without sucking on the public’s tits
The little chicks that fracking bore are maturing into demanding, cackling hens. But the eggs they’ve laid over the past 15 years haven’t been good for Ohio.
We all need to talk more about fossil fuel fracking under public lands and energy in Ohio. We need to talk about their relationship to climate change and democracy, too.
That conversation could help voters choose lawmakers based on issues, like dedication to good health, clean air, water and land, biodiversity, and a livable planet — instead of political party loyalty and fossil fuel industry spin.
