America's Radioactive Secret

I’m too angry and overwhelmed about this article to not share it. This was published early today (Jan 21st, 2020) after 20 months of investigative journalism by Justin Nobel, and everyone should read this.

Some key points:

• Oil and gas drilling produces a byproduct called brine, which turns out is very radioactive.
• This radioactive waste is transported in unmarked (no radioactivity placard) trucks by drivers who have no idea how radioactive their load is, and have no safety equipment to protect themselves or others. The standard brine truck is 1,000 times above DOT limits.
• The waste is not regulated by the EPA, or anyone. “In fact, thanks to a single exemption the industry received from the EPA in 1980, the streams of waste generated at oil-and-gas wells — all of which could be radioactive and hazardous to humans — are not required to be handled as hazardous waste.”
• “In 2016, a brine truck overturned on a bad curve in Barnesville, Ohio, dumping 5,000 gallons of waste. The brine water flowed across a livestock field, entering a stream and then a city reservoir, forcing the town to temporarily shut it down.”
  
• Radioactive brine is given to towns across America to be used as road salt in the winter, or “dust tamper” in the summer. “On a single day in August 2017, 15,300 gallons of brine were reportedly spread.” If you’ve ever wondered where radioactive waste gets stored… well one answer is that they simply spread it across roads. Does your town do it? Who knows. You might want to find out.
• “Regulators defend the practice by pointing out that only brine from conventional wells is spread on roads, as opposed to fracked wells. But conventional-well brine can be every bit as radioactive, and Burgos’ paper found it contained not just radium, but cadmium, benzene, and arsenic, all known human carcinogens, along with lead, which can cause kidney and brain damage.”
  
• “Animals on Kerri’s farm [near an injection well] dropped dead — two cats, six chickens, and a rooster. A sheep birthed babies with the heads fused together. Trees were dying.”
  
• “A lot of guys are coming up with cancer, or sores and skin lesions that take months to heal,” [Peter] says. Peter experiences regular headaches and nausea, numbness in his fingertips and face, and “joint pain like fire.” 
• “Randy Moyer, a former brine hauler in Pennsylvania [..] says he quit the job when burning rashes and odd swelling broke out across his body after only four months.”
  

But hey, I’m sure it’s fine.