I am responding to recent publicity about this byproduct of oil/gas drilling, AquaSalina being used by the Ohio Department Of Transportation (ODOT) on our roads.

Unfortunately, I have a history with this product and this company. In 2012 I was sued by the maker of AquaSalina in a $1 Million SLAPP lawsuit for trying to warn my city and community members that this product was potentially dangerous to us and the environment. At the time, I didn’t have access to the product to test it myself. But, after learning about the oil/gas drilling process and the hazardous byproducts it generates, I used common sense to deduce that this solution could not be good. There are radioactive elements at the 4,000–5,000 foot depth of the wells drilled in my community. Basic physics tells us that when you force chemicals, sand and water down at high pressure, radioactive stuff is going to come back up along with what you pushed down. I wish many of the lawyers, judges and electeds involved in my case had also used deductive reasoning.

As it turns out, thanks to our own state government’s testing, I was right to use my instincts and try and warn people about this oil/gas drilling byproduct. From the Ohio Department of Natural Resource’s  (ODNR) own documents,“All of the samples were found to contain elevated levels of radioactivity in excess of state limits on the discharge of radioactive materials. The average radioactivity in AquaSalina also exceeded the drinking water limits for Radium 226 and Radium 228 by a factor of 300. Human consumption of any amount of AquaSalina is highly discouraged,” the report said.

Senator Dolan is quoted in a recent article, “this company discovered how to take raw brine and convert it to a product that can be used safely on our roads and driveways with less corrosion than salt.”

My question to Senator Dolan is this: Did you even read the ODNR report?

Based on an analysis of the ODNR report by Steven Lester, toxicologist for the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, “The company’s treatment process appears to increase the concentration of combined Radium-226/228 in the final product. All three post-treatment samples collected from Nature’s Own Source production plants had substantially more radiation than the pretreatment samples indicating that the addition of the radioactive oil and gas industry waste was the primary source of the radiation. The increase in combined Radium-226 and Radium-228 ranged from 11% to 92% in these three samples as shown in the DOGRM memorandum.”

This also reveals that there must not be any type of “quality control” checks on this product. If there were, the results of various samples would be more consistent.

Now the ODNR and company owner are claiming the tests were flawed. Next, I would bet, they will produce new test results showing the product is “safe”(if I was a betting person that is).

In 2012 I might have been shocked at “our government’s” response (or lack thereof) to their own tests. However, today, I’m not surprised. Our government prioritizes profits over safeguarding us, our children, our water, and our environment from poisons. That priority is made clear through the LAW. The Ohio Department of Transportation spread over a million gallons of this dangerous product on our roads last winter and over 600,000 gallons so far this winter. This total doesn’t include the cities, villages and townships that may be purchasing and spreading it as well. It doesn’t take into account landscaping companies that may be using it on commercial, school and retail parking lots. It doesn’t include communities purchasing it in the summer months as a dust suppressant and companies using it to fill port-a-potties. Who knows how many millions of gallons have been washed down storm drains and into streams and creeks that all run into our drinking water sources across Ohio, including Lake Erie.

So, if it is the LAW that allows the spreading of a dangerous product and we have a legislature that even wants to strengthen the LAW by making this an official, legal commodity protected by the Commerce Clause of our manipulated and twisted Constitution, then I say the people need to start thinking about passing laws to protect their own communities, their children and their water. We the people need to make it illegal to poison us and our environment. We need to make laws that prohibit known harms and laws that will hold polluters accountable. This is what the Lake Erie Bill of Rights is attempting in Toledo.

Remember the Boston Tea Party? These were the people taking action against a government and a corporation that were abusing them. Will the corporation try to say “its rights are being violated,” or will the bully file a SLAPP suit on every community member who tries to make his product illegal in their community? I have no way of knowing, but what I do know is this: based on the state’s own test results and Senator Dolan and others willing to continue to push this product as a commodity – despite knowing it is dangerous – the people must fight back for their kids’ and grandkids’ sake. I know and believe that we the people create government to protect us, not harm us. And I believe the words in our Declaration of Independence and Ohio Constitution that it is our right, to alter, reform, or abolish any form of government that is no longer protecting us. AquaSalina will harm us and our government is not only not protecting us, they are assisting the perpetrator of the harm. The answer is not for corporate donors to build bigger children’s cancer hospitals…the answer is to stop the poisons that are giving the children cancer in the first place!

Tish O’Dell, Broadview Hts., Ohio

440-838-5272