SEP 18, 2023

Justin Noble

Inside West Virginia’s Chernobyl

A highly radioactive oil and gas facility has become a party spot in Marion County.

Most Americans do not realize that fuel is far from the only thing that comes to the surface at an oil or gas well, be it a modern fracked well, or an older conventional one. Every day, 2.9 billion gallons of toxic and often radioactive liquids are brought to the surface at oil and gas fields across the country. The industry has a number of innocent names for this waste: oilfield brine, produced water, salt water. Sometimes, they simply call it “water.” While it is natural, brine contains extraordinary levels of salts, toxic heavy metals like arsenic, lead and strontium. It can also be rich in the radioactive element radium..........

The West Virginia Department of Health & Human Resources says their Bureau for Public Health “has posted the fence line at the facility with ‘Caution: Radioactive Material’ signs.” There are no gates and no ‘No Trespassing’ signs. The team the author visited the site with recorded levels of radium, a “bone-seeking” carcinogenic radioactive metal, at more than 1,000 times Environmental Protection Agency cleanup limits for highly toxic sites like uranium mills and Superfund sites. (Photo: Justin Nobel)