Radioactive waste unearthed by hydraulic fracturing is becoming a serious problem in Ohio, a new report claims.
Released Thursday by the FreshWater Accountability Project Ohio, the report was authored by Marvin Resnikoff, a physicist at the University of Michigan and senior associate at Radioactive Waste Management Associates.
Resnikoff points to what he says is a failure to properly dispose of radioactive waste from fracking, saying that these wastes make their way into municipal landfills in Ohio -- costing the natural gas industry one-hundredth of what the nuclear industry pays to dispose of similar, low-level radioactive waste.
"It is evident that environmental concerns are trumped by the economics beneficial to the unconventional shale drilling industry,” Resnikoff said.
He also says the industry simply doesn’t want to take responsibility for the radioactive waste it produces.
“In the process of drilling and fracturing wells in shale formations, to produce natural gas, this underground radioactivity is brought to the surface, but where does it go?” he asked. “Oil and gas companies, along with the state agencies they’ve bamboozled, would have you believe any radioactivity present in waste streams is either within regulatory limits, not within the jurisdiction of state governments to regulate, or non-existent.
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