Starting around 2011, BEN’s biggest fight has been against the spread of the toxic and radioactive byproduct of the oil and gas industry—oilfield brine. For every barrel of crude oil or natural gas produced, seven to ten barrels of oilfield brine which contains extreme levels of radioactivity and toxicity due to carcinogens such as radium, heavy metals, forever chemical, and chlorides. There are multiple avenues of migration for oilfield brine.
Road Spreading is a practice where townships and counties will spread oilfield brine from conventional oil wells on roadways in an attempt to deice and suppress dust on their roadways. This practice was legalized in 1985 before the State of Ohio had adequately studied oilfield brine. Fast forward to a study completed by Ohio Department of Natural Resources in 2019, all but one well studied had levels of radium too high to discharge into the environment according to Ohio’s Administrative Code. We are working with local elected officials and the State Legislature to make common sense policy changes to reflect this new finding.
Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Oil and Gas Resource Management is required by statute to maintain records of where oil and gas waste is spread. They tabulate annual data and put it into a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet that can be acquired via a Public Records Request. Below are downloadable files for the 2005 – 2023 spreadsheet, 2024 spreadsheet, and ODNR will have tabulated 2025 data sometime.
*If a box is not filled out, it means it was not reported that years. According to a phone call with ODNR’s UIC program staff, you can only assume zero barrels were spread that year if “0” is in the box.
Gap Years in Data
By law, local governments that use oil and gas waste brine must report it to Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) Division of Oil and Gas. These downloadable files have come from our public records requests made to ODNR. If you don’t see a year for your local government it is because either the government did not report that year, ODNR lost the record, or ODNR neglected to give that record. Governments who passed a resolution saying “Yes, we want to use oil and gas waste brine on our roads” are required to report how many barrels are used each year even if that number was “0.”
YOU can stop brine spreading at the local government level!
Pictured here is a resolution passed by the Guernsey County Commissioners in 2025 banning the use of oil and gas waste brine on county roadways. This was the efforts of one resident who brought Buckeye Environmental Network’s Legislative Packet to a commissioners meeting.
Learn More About Brine
