Picture this: illegal storage of 10,000 tons of radioactive fracking waste in a potential Superfund site/dilapidated building near a vulnerable drinking water source, a $34 million lawsuit, and a tenacious grassroots citizen’s group – what does all of that have in common? Two things: Austin Master Services and Martins Ferry, Ohio.
Early 2021 – this is when citizens first learned about the concerning operations at Austin Master Services LLC (AMS). The radiological oil and gas waste processing facility was located about 500 feet from the Ohio River, a half mile from the high school football stadium, and just over 1,000 feet from the pumping wells for Martins Ferry’s drinking water wells.
What started our quest and our journey was the alarming conditions inside. The purpose for the facility was for fracking waste from the tri-state region and beyond to be “tested for radiological concentration of Radium 226 and Radium 228 prior to processing and packaging,” and then shipped to “an appropriate disposal facility” by truck or railcar. The facility had opened its doors in 2016, and over the 8 years it operated, there were many occasions when Austin Master was “operating outside of the approved application documents that constitute the authorization included in the Chief’s Order.” In essence, the company was violating its permit. During one visit in 2018, inspectors observed waste “splattered on the floor,” “splashed onto the warehouse wall,” and also “in the proximity of the electrical panels.” The Austin Master facility also has had a persistently leaky roof, which took the company years to address after being cited. Over the years, the state’s inspectors had warned that this “increases the opportunity for the waste to be tracked from the warehouse and is a hazard for the workers” and lamented the ongoing issue of “tracking of waste outside of the building.” On another occasion, an inspector witnessed “one blue frac tank being removed from the facility onto the public roadway and waste falling off the truck.” Austin Master staff were “outside cleaning up the parking lot and public roadway with a bobcat and brush.”
These reports, coupled with the fact that the facility was located literally on top of a drinking water source for thousands of people, are what prompted a small group, Concerned Ohio River Residents, consisting of concerned Martins Ferry and area residents, to start organizing. When we first began attending city council meetings, our initial goal was simply to share information and seek the representation of city leaders in a practical way. This attempt was met with staunch opposition by city officials. We organized meetings with professionals who were knowledgeable on the subject matter to educate the community. We carried on despite the pushback and challenges in getting out the facts. We worked on educating the public and getting stronger oversight continuously for almost 2 years.
We feared that the owners would one day take in a lot of waste, rake in the money, and leave the mess behind.The oil and gas industry is volatile – many companies file bankruptcy, only to reorganize under a different LLC, taking advantage of the corporate welfare system in America that allows profiteers to pollute people and environments with no consequences. In fact, this is exactly what happened to the old steel mill. Little did we know that this “take the money and run” scenario would actually become reality.
Fast forward to March, 2024 – Ohio Attorney General’s office filed a lawsuit against Austin Master. The press release stated “The waste currently onsite exceeds the facility’s storage capacity, and the risk of overflow poses a significant threat to the surrounding area and to public health.” The exact things we citizens had been saying for years while concerns went ignored and downplayed by officials and state agencies, was finally being recognized by the Attorney General, the state’s number one cop himself. The operators had taken in 10,000 tons of radioactive waste and released all their employees after an ODNR inspection. Then, one week later in early April, as if out of a sci-fi movie, the Ohio River reached 100-year flood plain levels. Another of our biggest fears came true: the entire area got flooded, threatening the vulnerable aquifer once again with toxic waste. Water reached the inside of the building and came very close to the waste piles. If it had rained just one more day, the waste could have washed out of the building and contaminated the drinking water aquifer.
After this crisis was unfolding before our eyes, the City of Martins Ferry and citizens teamed up to put an end to it, once and for all. We worked together to put pressure on the situation, and the property owners finally gave in and said they would no longer rent to such a facility. So despite the company’s and ODNR’s attempts to transfer the permit, that never happened, the state started its clean-up, which amounted to over $6 million, and the rest is history. The ODNR stated that interested companies did not submit necessary documents so a transfer could not be completed. What is chilling is that the ODNR was even open to the possibility of a permit transfer, rather than immediately shutting the facility down for good and commencing the clean-up. The ODNR contracted with a third party company to remove the waste and clean the facility. It cost taxpayers over $6 million to complete.
The lawsuit has just recently come to somewhat of a conclusion. On January 13th, 2026, Austin Master, the parent company, American Environmental Partners, and the owner, Brad Domitrovich, were ordered to pay $34 million to the state of Ohio. Six million to cover the tax-payer funded clean-up of the facility, and another $28 million for the accumulated fines and regulatory fees for the time the waste in the building went unaddressed. Martins Ferry has wound up being home of one of the state’s most expensive civil penalty environmental lawsuits in history. Check out the extremely revealing “final judgement entry on civil penalty” document here to read about how the money made taking in the waste was transferred to bank accounts to personally enrich the owner, rather than get rid of the 10,000 tons of waste. The scheme was pre-meditated, all to maximize profits in the shortest amount of time possible.
So, the ODNR and the state of Ohio took action against Austin Master. But, one can’t help but wonder, could this all have been avoided? Why did ODNR permit this facility in the first place? On top of a drinking water source, in a flood plain, 500 feet from the Ohio River, and in a facility heavily polluted with legacy contamination. What was ODNR thinking? This could very well have been the worst decision ODNR has ever made in permitting a facility.
Some questions linger as the building now sits empty and ODNR claims that the powerwashing of the facility is sufficient. We citizens submitted a petition in 2022 to Region V USEPA to investigate the site under the Superfund program to address the radiological contamination that was found in the public domain through a citizens science project, and confirmed by Ohio Department of Health state testing at the site, along with the RCRA division to address the hexavalent chromium and other toxic chemicals left from Wheeling-Pitt Steel. The investigation is a multi-year process, and now that the ODNR has completed its clean-up, the USEPA will take samples at the site, all due to citizen’s actions.
This is a story of what successes can happen when citizens organize around a situation they care about. Had we given up at the first signs of resistance, we may not be able to say this facility has been shut down. It was a threat to our water source. It should’ve never been permitted in the first place. The odds were against us, yet we prevailed.