TENORM: Ohio Stories on Fracking’s Radioactive Waste
PUBLIC HERALD OHIO TENORM INVESTIGATIONS
TENORM (Technically Enhance Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material)
Project: newsCOUP
Below is a complete list of Public Herald’s investigations covering or mentioning fracking’s radioactive waste, a.k.a. TENORM (technically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material), since the beginning of the publication in 2011. Public Herald’s three documentary films — 1. Triple Divide 2. Triple Divide [Redacted] 3. INVISIBLE HAND — each include reporting on fracking’s TENORM waste.
Part 3: “A Permanent Reactor” Fracking’s Radioactive Health Threat to Ohio Will Last 1,600 Years Without
Project: newsCOUP Published: August 2021
“This is a permanent reactor near your house, and it will always be a reactor because the waste got pooled together. And it will make as much radon and radium today as it will tomorrow and the next day and the next day and 30 years from now and 100 years from now and 500 years from now because the half life of this stuff is like, forever … So while it’s a naturally occurring material, when you concentrate it, you create a reactor.”
Project: newsCOUP Published: July 2021
Not much testing has been done on TENORM waste in Ohio, but much of the TENORM waste arriving at Ohio landfills is from the Marcellus Shale — the same shale waste that has been tested in a 2016 Pennsylvania TENORM study. In that study, radium levels from fracking waste in the Marcellus were detected as high as 13 pCi/g, more than 2.5 times greater than the Ohio code permits.
Part 1: Under “Chief’s Orders” Ohio Operates a Radioactive Industry Off The Record
Project: newsCOUP Published: July 2021
Under Chief’s Orders, privately-owned facilities have special permission to operate outside of existing law. And it all happens off the record. “They just feel that our lives are worth nothing, that we’re expendable,” said Anderson. “People’s lives matter. You can’t sacrifice them for corporate profit.”
Project: newsCOUP Published: March 2021
“Do the citizens of Scranton whose homes have been flooded from discharge from their drains have radionuclides in their homes? Is leachate mixed in with this? How dangerous is this to us?” asks Maloney. Dempsey says the cumulative effect of TENORM disposal at Keystone has never been studied. She asked landfill representatives at a town meeting if they had any idea what the cumulative effect might be of radioactive disposal at Keystone, “They had no idea,” she said.
Project: newsCOUP Published: December 2020
“That first initial burst of water was just some really dirty stuff, sometimes it was as black as the screen of your phone when you shut it off, just black. I spent a lot of time underneath that rig literally getting rained on when they were pulling the pipe by that water.”
Project: Documentary Published: September 2020
From Executive Producer Mark Ruffalo comes the world’s first documentary film on the Rights of Nature Movement, hailed as a “Masterpiece!” and “Paradigm Shifting” story about the current global battle between capitalism and democracy where the fight for our survival is at stake.
Investigation: SMOKING GUN Podcast: newsCOUP Published: August 2019
A Public Herald investigation has uncovered that DEP is allowing 14 Sewage Waste Treatment Plants to discharge radioactive fracking waste as landfill leachate into 13 Pennsylvania Waterways. The process DEP created to “treat” and discharge the leachate through sewage plants appears to date as far back as the fracking boom (2009 or longer).