Photo / Steven Rubin for Public Herald Susie Beiersdorfer is a Youngstown resident active with Frackfree Mahoning Valley.

Despite efforts from environmental organizations to educate the public about the radioactive risks created by the boom in shale gas fracking, some Ohioans remain unaware of the TENORM that may be piling up in their own backyards.

TENORM, or technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material, is created when naturally occurring radioactive material found in the earth is used for commercial purposes, processed, separated, or has its radioactivity concentrated, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which regulates TENORM in the state.

Sil Caggiano, retired senior battalion chief for the Youngstown Fire Department, said in regard to TENORM, he believes first responders and civilians are not being given the knowledge owed to them by the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, also known as SARA Title III. The act requires that states “organize, analyze and disseminate information on hazardous chemicals to local governments and the public.”

In order to navigate industry-related incidents, such as spills and explosions, first responders need knowledge of what to test for or to what they are being exposed.

Caggiano blames the lack of public awareness on the state’s protection of the oil and gas industry.

“You don’t screw with the fracking,” said Caggiano.

Mike Chadsey, director of public relations for the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, said the information those first responders need is available, and that suggesting otherwise is “misinformation.”

“The medical community knows state law plainly states that they and all first responders have access to all the information they need to care for their patients,” Chadsey said.

Caggiano said when it comes to influencing public opinion, he thinks the oil and gas industry is nearly impossible to compete with.

“If you bring in some guy that tries to tell you that the radium in the brine tanks is no worse than the radioactive potassium of bananas, people believe it because some guy who got paid and has got a Ph.D. said it,” Caggiano said.

ODH states in an information sheet about TENORM that the relative exposures from TENORM are low compared to the risks from other sources of radiation, but will vary based on individual activities.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calls the risks to members of the public working within 100 meters of a disposal site for contaminated TENORM waste “very low,” but lists those risks as direct gamma radiation, inhalation of contaminated dust or downwind radon, or ingestion of contaminated well water or food. The level of radiation in TENORM can also vary widely, according to the EPA.

RADIUM

When a radioactive element decays, it blasts off a tiny explosive piece of matter or energy — ionizing radiation. Radioactive elements, such as radium-226, emit alpha particles that can become airborne as dust, drift through the air, and be inhaled or ingested.

Radium-226 is found in nature, according to Encyclopedia Brittanica. Radium occurs in all uranium ores, but it is more widely distributed because it forms water-soluble compounds.

Exposure to high levels of radium can make you more likely to get bone, liver, or breast cancer, according to a 2017 ODH information sheet about radionuclides in water. The sheet states that most radionuclides in Ohio’s drinking water come from natural sources. While the goal is to reduce radionuclides in drinking water to zero, the EPA sets the maximum level limits for radium at five picocuries per one liter of water.

Likewise, solid waste landfills can only accept TENORM wastes at concentrations less than five picocuries per gram above natural background radiation levels, according to ODH. A curie a unit of measure for radioactivity.

CONCERNS

Andrew Gross, who worked as a health physicist with the U.S. Navy and has studied the effects of TENORM for years, said, “Putting this radioactive material into municipal waste sites is a giant concern. That could be life-altering for a lot of people, people in the vicinity, people downwater of streams, all those things.”

Julie Weatherington-Rice, an earth scientist and adjunct professor for Ohio State University with a Ph.D. in soil science, expressed a similar sentiment.

“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.”

Chadsey, though, said with more than 200,000 Ohioans proudly in the natural gas industry, it has no intention of putting those families’ lives or shared communities at risk.

“Natural gas development can, is and will continue to be done safely under very tight rules and regulations. As it should be,” he said.

ACTIVISM

Susie Beiersdorfer of Youngstown is an activist with Frackfree Mahoning Valley and the Ohio Community Rights Network. For years, she and her late husband, Ray Beiersdorfer, heard complaints at regulatory agency meetings and believes they were ignored.

Beiersdorfer’s group has placed attempts at fracking bans on the Youngstown ballot eight times since 2013, hoping to protect water and create a community bill of rights. All of its efforts have been unsuccessful and vigorously opposed, in part, by the industry.

“We actually did have, at first, the illusions of our government protecting us,” she said. “But we learned that they’re all captured.”

Gross said if Ohio activists want to create actual change, the only road forward is through monetary pressure on the state and the industry.

“To me, the only way to do it is to hit them financially through lawsuits, and then to get the guys who have a real financial interest…to start making noise,” Gross said. It takes “pressure on the legislature’s wallets and pressure on the wallets of the guys who are producing (fracking waste).”

Chadsey said the work of activists trying to take on the industry will not be well received by Ohio’s working people, especially in the Mahoning Valley.

“People who call the Valley home are hardworking, tough as nails and do not support this extreme activist,” he said.

Staff writer Allie Vugrincic contributed to this story.