{"id":652353,"date":"2022-05-13T10:15:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-13T10:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grist.org\/?p=570003"},"modified":"2022-05-13T10:15:00","modified_gmt":"2022-05-13T10:15:00","slug":"ohio-residents-fight-to-get-radioactive-oil-and-gas-waste-off-their-roads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/05\/13\/ohio-residents-fight-to-get-radioactive-oil-and-gas-waste-off-their-roads\/","title":{"rendered":"Ohio residents fight to get radioactive oil and gas waste off their roads"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Joe Mosyjowski has watched a decade-long boom in oil and gas drilling<\/a> unfold in the region surrounding his 50-acre farm in northeast Ohio. Mosyjowski, a 71-year-old retired engineer who once spent his days designing stormwater infrastructure, was surprised to learn that a byproduct of all that drilling was being spread on roads and streets near his property, which contains a football field-sized pond that he swims in every summer. Mosyjowski grew increasingly alarmed as he read that the product, a salty brine used to keep roads ice-free, can be radioactive<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don’t want this stuff spread anywhere near the roadways,\u201d Mosyjowski told Grist in a phone call from his home in Portage County, a rural area about an hour south of Cleveland. \u201cI don’t want it near my water, because the water runs into my pond. I just want to keep things clean.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n At least 13 states \u2014 including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan \u2014 allow oil and gas wastewater<\/a> to be put to \u201cbeneficial use,\u201d a category that includes road de-icing, dust suppression, and maintenance. This is an advantageous arrangement for oil and gas companies, because it\u2019s cheaper to give brine to local governments for free rather than paying to dispose of waste in a landfill. Cash-strapped towns and counties, meanwhile, are reluctant to look a gift horse in the mouth \u2014 to the detriment of their residents\u2019 health, according to Cheryl Johncox, an organizer with the Sierra Club and member of the Ohio Brine Task Force, a coalition of activists, scientists, and concerned residents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is a way for the industry to push off their problems onto regular people and not be held accountable,\u201d Johncox told Grist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As awareness of the widespread practice of brine spreading grows, organizers like Johncox and concerned residents like Mosyjowski have joined forces to try to limit or ban the practice. Community activists have pushed for local laws to prevent oil and gas waste from being spread on roads as part of a larger movement against drilling in the state. When initiatives that would have allowed more local control of oil and gas extraction were not even allowed onto the ballot<\/a> in several counties, a coalition of local groups sued the state<\/a>. A bill that would prohibit the application of radioactive brine to public roadways was introduced in the legislature<\/a> in March, though it faces an uphill battle with a Republican majority that\u2019s friendly toward fossil fuels<\/a>, Johncox said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n