The Dangerous Ohio Brine Bill That Will Not Die
In 2018, Ohio state legislators started sponsoring bills that would “commoditize” the use of oil and gas brines, so that a product consisting of oil and gas brines could be sold without a permit. Test markets had it on the shelves of hardware outlets, sold in plastic bottles labeled as a corrosion inhibited liquid deicer and dust supressant.
Many concerned Ohio residents testified at hearings before the Environment and Natural Resources Committee, opposing HB 393 and exposing ODNR test data that revealed egregious levels of radionuclides in the substance. The bill never made it to a vote.
In 2020, the brine bill was back as HB 545. You can read the Buckeye Environmental Network HB 545 fact sheet HERE.
Thanks to many Ohio residents testifying before the committee again, the bill did not make it to a vote.
In 2021, we had SB 171 and its sister bill HB 282 in the Ohio house. These bills were on fast track, SB 171 being introduced on 4/7/2021 and HB 282 on 5/3/2021. SB 171 was introduced by Senator Frank Hoagland, the Steubenville legislator who introduced the first ALEC-originated cookie-cutter anti-oil/gas infrastructure-protest bill into the legislature in 2017, called the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act.
The difference from previous brine bills is that it stipulates an allowable limit to radium, which is sky high and exceeds all EPA limit guidelines by a factor of hundreds! It would allow for substances to be discharged on Ohio surfaces with levels as high as:
Environmental discharge: 60 pico-curies/liter
(HB 282 and SB 171 would allow 333 times this amount)
Drinking water limit: 5 pico-curies/liter for combined ra-226 & ra-228
(HB 282 and SB 171 would allow 4,000 times this amount)
Environmental discharge: 60 pico-curies/liter
(HB 282 and SB 171 would allow 41 times this amount)
Drinking water limit: 5 pico-curies/liter for combined ra-226 & ra-228
(HB 282 and SB 171 would allow 500 times this amount)
Click HERE to view and download the latest BRINE FACTSHEET from Buckeye Environmental Network.
Ohio residents needed as many of us as we could muster to submit written and verbal testimony to show the legislators, over three legislative sessions, that dumping unlimited amounts of heavy metal and radium-laced oil and gas brine waste onto our surface environment is a horrendous idea for the future health of people in this state. We closed this bill down for this legislative session, and hopefully for the last time!!
We are watching to see if a similar bill will get introduced in the future. If it does, Ohio residents will need more advocates who are willing to take time to submit written testimony, and appear before committee hearings to ensure that these bills never become law.
Please CONTACT US if you would like to learn how to get involved, and to stand up to the Ohio legislature and educate them on how ill-advised this bill would be for the risk of terrible health effects to Ohioans for many generations to come!