Last Updated on November 1, 2012
Writing at ProPublica, Abrahm Lustgarten examines the toxic waste well injection industry’s track record over the last twenty years. With 680,000 waste wells nationwide — where structural failures are routine — communities in the US that supply drinking water are now faced with the increasing threat of aquifers contaminated with acids, asbestos, PCBs, phenol and cyanide. No longer confident in an EPA that doesn’t even collect all data, let alone make sense of it, the citizenry exposed to such wastes as sewage, dioxin and radium must now deal with a present and future where millions of oil and gas wells intersect leaking waste wells and municipal water supply systems. Originally conceived as an alternative to surface dumping of industrial wastes, the out of control deep well injection experiment is no longer out of sight, out of mind.
Across the world right now, Indigenous peoples are facing a renewed assault on their lands, rights, and ways of life.
From extractive industries pushing deeper into ancestral territories, to governments rolling back hard-won protections,
the threat is global—and it is growing.
What makes this moment especially dangerous is how little attention it receives.
Stories like this are disappearing in real time. Mainstream media
barely covers it and the coverage is fragmented. The public is left without the context
needed to understand what is truly at stake.
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