AMERICA ’ S RADIOACTIVE SECRET
Oil-and-gas wells produce nearly a trillion gallons of toxic waste a year . An investigation shows how it could be making workers sick and contaminating communities across America By JUSTIN NOBEL January 21 , 2020
Brine trucks at an Injection well in
Cambridge , OH .
George Etheridge for Rolling Stone
Justin Nobel is writing a book about oil-and-gas radioactivity for Simon & Schuster . This story was supported by the journalism nonprofit Economicc Hardship Reporting Project
In 2014 , a muscular , middle‐aged Ohio man named Peter took a job trucking waste for the oil‐and‐gas industry . The hours were long — he was out the door by 3 a . m . every morning and not home until well after dark
— but the steady $ 16‐an‐hour pay was appealing , says Peter , who asked to use a pseudonym . “ This is a poverty area ,” he says of his home in the state ’ s rural southeast corner . “ Throw a little money at us and by God we ’ ll jump and take it .”
In a squat rig fitted with a 5,000‐gallon tank , Peter crisscrosses the expanse of farms and woods near the Ohio / West Virginia / Pennsylvania border , the heart of a region that produces close to one‐third of America ’ s natural gas . He hauls a salty substance called “ brine ,” a naturally occurring waste product that gushes out of America ’ s oil‐and‐gas wells to the tune of nearly 1 trillion gallons a year , enough to flood Manhattan , almost shin‐high , every single day . At most wells , far more brine is produced than oil or gas , as much as 10 times more . It collects in tanks , and like an oil‐and‐gas garbage man , Peter picks it up and hauls it off to treatment plants or injection wells , where it ’ s disposed of by being shot back into the earth .