The Columbus Dispatch reports that two environmental groups have sued the State of Ohio, alleging that ODNR wrongfully issued 30 permits allowing the storage and treatment of waste associated with oil and gas drilling:
The lawsuit asks the Franklin County Court of Appeals to revoke the permits, thus closing the waste-handling sites, and order the Department of Natural Resources to create legally required rules regulating the operations.
The Dispatch previously reported that the state is granting permits to companies that take drilling mud, radioactive rocks and wastewater from fracking wells and store or “clean” the waste before sending it to landfills or injection wells.
ODNR had approved every permit — considered temporary until it writes still-awaited rules regulating the waste sites — without any public notification or input since an oversight law took effect in January.
The so-called “chief’s orders” permitting the sites to handle oil-and-gas waste containing “ toxic chemicals, heavy metals and radioactive isotopes” are illegal because they sidestep state law and required reviews, the suit states.
Read the full article here. You can also read the complaint here.