Ohio is expanding its fracking industry despite concerns of its environmental impact

Welcome to the Sound of Ideas from Ideastream Public Media. I'm Stephanie Haney. Thank you for being with us. Whatever you may or may not know about fracking, this number should be on your radar. 1.4 billion. That's how many gallons of fracking wastewater or toxic brine is being pumped into injection wells for long-term storage in Ohio every year. This salty wastewater byproduct of fracking is full of heavy metals, radioactive materials, cancer-causing benzene, and hazardous chemical additives from the fracking process. And just outside of Marietta, the injection wells that are supposed to hold this sludge and keep it away from nearby drinking water aquifers are failing. Sound of Ideas audience member Kathy brought this to our attention after the Ohio newsrooms Aaron Gottsacker reported on this early this year. This was also the subject of a recent New York Times article where environmental reporter Quinn Glabicki highlighted how concerned citizens in Marietta continued to sound the alarm over fracking brine making its way into oil and gas producing wells. Some several miles away from the injection wells meant to safely contain the fracking wastewater, which has become a significant import in Ohio. At least one third of the toxic fracking wastewater currently stored underground in Ohio comes from other states. In addition to these already existing containment and importing concerns, Ohio has been increasing its own fracking footprint over the last three years. This is happening by leasing out its public land for this kind of industry, oftentimes to out-of-state developers. Coming up in September, almost 3,000 acres of Wayne National Forest in southeastern Ohio will be auctioned off for these purposes, despite concerns about fracking's environmental impact and effect on nearby populations. Joining me in studio today to talk about fracking, its toxic wastewater byproduct, and the impact its storage could have in Ohio. We have Kevin Mueller, an assistant professor in the Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences Department at Cleveland State University. Kevin, thanks for being with us. Hi, Stephanie. We appreciate it. We also have with a state representative Tristan Rader. He is representing District 13, which includes the city of Lakewood and part of Cleveland. Welcome back to the show, Tristan. Good to be here. And joining us virtually, we have Susan Vessels. She's the president of Marietta City Council who was featured in the New York Times article. Susan, thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. We should note we did reach out to the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management and the Ohio Oil and Gas Land Management Commission, both of which are organizations involved in the leasing of development rights for possible fracking. Both organizations declined to participate. When we asked for them to provide a statement, neither responded.

If you would like to join the conversation, you can call us at 866-578-0903. You can also email us at SOI at Ideastream.org or message us on Instagram at The Sound of Ideas. Now, as we start this conversation, Kevin, can you tell us a bit about your expertise and the water research projects that you've led or been involved in? Sure, so sometimes I would call myself a biogeochemist, which means that I study interactions among different parts of the Earth system, particularly focusing on water, molecules, chemical elements like carbon. I also have studied in practice environmental science and ecology. And presently, I have funding from the National Science Foundation with a colleague at CSU, John Van Stan, to study how we can use trees as green infrastructure to better manage the quality and quantity of stormwater flows in cities. Okay. We're talking about fracking today, which is the term that we hear a lot here. It's been in the conversation for quite some time. Not everyone may know what it is. It's short for hydraulic fracturing. Kevin, can you explain it to us like we are in elementary school? What is fracking? Sure. So I guess it's a couple of kind of new techniques in oil and gas extraction that were developed in the, I think, late 90s and really blew up in the 2000s. And there's two parts of maybe not every fracking project, but most. And one is drilling horizontally, which was kind of new, deep vertically and then horizontally. And then the second part where it gets its name is then you inject... sand and water and other fluids at high pressure into the well that you've drilled to break up or fracture the rock and that helps make the sort of less permeable rock release the gas into the well and then flow back up to the surface so the the new parts of this kind of oil and gas extraction are are that drill deep and then sideways but then especially the the the fracturing of the rock to make the gas more favorably escape, you know, up into the well. Okay. And Tristan, within the state house, you are an outspoken opponent of fracking. Why are you opposed? This is something that's been happening here, like it was just said for the last several decades, and we're beginning now to see the impacts, particularly with the dumping of this waste in our backyard, in Appalachia. It's something that, not just Ohio, but like you mentioned, almost half of the waste that were from this industry is coming straight to Ohio to be put underground, and it's not staying in the formations that...

that are supposed to be holding it. And it's ending up in production wells. It's ruining mom and pop wells. It's ruining all kinds of aquifers and things down in southern Ohio. And it's just been too long that Ohio has had to bear sort of the burden of this industry, the waste products from this industry. Kevin, can you explain to us the injection wells piece of this, which is where the wastewater from fracking is supposed to be stored? How does the injection well work? That's not always next to a fracking site, obviously, because we are importing it here into our state from other states. Correct. Here I'm sort of borrowing from what I've read recently from, you know, geologists like Dr. Jeffrey at Marietta College, who was part of the New York Times article, who is a petroleum geologist. And so... Essentially, the idea is that, you know, as you drill an injection well deep underground, you're passing through multiple layers of rock, some of which are more or less permeable, some of which are sort of more or less contained by impermeable barriers around them. And the general premise is that you drill deep and below some kind of impermeable barrier, sort of a layer of rock that wouldn't allow... the wastewater to migrate and you inject it below that sort of impermeable barrier and into a layer beneath it that sort of has some room to receive the incoming fluids you know and if those layers are favorable and there aren't unknowns or issues in this case most of the geologists like dr. Jeffrey point to the existence of old no longer in production oil and gas wells that also are drilled into some of these layers right then that can cause problems for the wastewater later migrating even though it's designed not to. And you mentioned Dr. Jeffrey, that's Dr. David Jeffrey geology professor at Marietta College. That's something that our guest, Susan, someone who our guest Susan is very familiar with, having worked with him in the area. Susan, how did you find out about the injection wells that are containing fracking wastewater, which are just outside of Marietta? Well, the first injection wells just outside Marietta were installed in approximately 2016. There had been a little bit of chatter in the community that something was happening around the career center. This is just outside the city. But the notices that went into the paper for the purpose of the installation of those three wells, the first three wells in this area, were essentially...

not recognized by anybody. The president of the Career Center had no idea that those injection wells were going in until the trucks started arriving to construct them. The notices are basically in the very back of the newspaper. They run for a Monday through a Friday. They're basically in size eight font. And unless you know what you're looking for, you're going to miss it. So this was under the radar. I've served on city council since 2020. And I never once during a fourth order of business, during, you know, a regular meeting had someone show up to the city council to mention injection wells or complain about brine trucks or anything like this. It really started, the attention to this matter in our community started. When applications for an additional two and then an additional third, well, were filed permit applications were filed in beginning in 2025. Worn water. One of the water districts that shares an aquifer, very close to Marietta'sographer, had a public meeting at the high school that hundreds of people attended. I did not attend that. That was, I think, in April or May of 25. I accidentally really learned about the injection well situation in Marietta when I attended a meeting in early July that Bev read of Buckeye environmental. was attending, along with a community member, D. Arnold, who was concerned about the situation. D. Later in the fall of 25 ended up setting up Washington County for safe drinking waters and very, very helpful and helping the community fight against the potential harm that's coming, that we expect will be coming from, unless there's a change with what's going on. So D showed up to this meeting in early July. I was actually there accidentally. I was planning and I was wanting to attend the subsequent meeting on planning and zoning issue. And she said, you know, you in the community should know that there are currently four injection wells that are permitted together to inject 5,000 barrels each, so up to 20,000. 42 gallon barrels of oil field waste per day. And that was news to me. And it was news to everybody on the city council. And I just started thinking about it in the ensuing a couple, you know, 10 days or so, I started thinking about that. And at the second regular meeting in July, I just decided during the meeting that I would set.

a what's called a committee of the whole. That is a meeting where you have to have a quorum, at least four of my seven counselors, have to appear in order for that meeting to go forward, a committee of the whole in order to educate the city council on injection wells. When you did find out about the injection wells, thank you very much for breaking that down for us, how you came to be aware of it, Susan. What is concerning to you about these particular injection wells? What did you learn once you came to find that they were there? Well, at this committee of the whole meeting, we had two petroleum engineers from Marietta College and licensed PhD geologists from Marietta College politicians. And we learned that the geology in Southeast Ohio is not capable of accepting the amount, the volume of waste that's being injected. And that if it continues, we will be. put at risk of our aquifer potentially being infiltrated. And, you know, this, we learned about the Redbird study, which was commissioned in 2019 to 2020. That's the Redbird well is an injection well about 10 or 11 miles from Marietta north of Belpre that study. recommended that two million, and this is six years ago, recommended that two million barrels be taken out of the Ohio shale to equalize pressure. So of course, Dr. Jeffrey would be better to explain this, but we learned that the pore space where they're injecting these radioactive salty fluids. is really insufficient for the volumes. And so that explains why we've had this salt water, frack fluid come up into Vito Lake, and then also come up into and pressurize our local Berea production wells. I mean, there's hundreds and hundreds of Berea wells in this county. and they all go down to about 2,000 feet. So the waste that's being injected, you know, between 3,600 and 4,200 feet is somehow making it up through the containing layers to the Berea and then pressurizing these old Berea wells. Susan, Bob, go ahead. I'd like to ask you about the location of these injection wells near the drinking water aquifer. Can you tell us about that and why that's concerning to you? Yes. Well, they are between 1.3 and 1.8 miles from our drinking water aquifer. And not just Marietta. There's four aquifers in quick succession, Davola, Warren Water, Marietta, and then also Williamstown just across the Ohio River. The Williamstown aquifer is actually the closest aquifer to the American growers injection well point of injection at about 5,000 feet.

So yeah, they're all very, very close. And interestingly, the state of Ohio has a rule that you shall not place an injection well in a city of a population greater than 5,000. Yet you can place it just outside the city. There's no consideration for the proximity. Thank you for sharing that detail with us, Susan. I want to ask you about that, Tristan. This is something that I found interesting while reading up on this for the conversation today. What's the point of that distinction? Why is the city with the population of less than 5,000 more appropriate for an injection well than a city with the population of greater than 5,000? It isn't. I mean, my position's been that these injection wells have been solely... meant to serve the corporate interests of the people that are putting them in, right? And they're putting them in sort of wherever they can get land leases, wherever they can kind of fit them or stick them. And the communities have been really a truciary thought. You heard from the city council president of how, like, they weren't even looped in on these conversations, right? So, and Marietta is a pretty big city for that part of the state. So the smaller the city, I would imagine, you know, even less attention is going to be paid to those wells that could potentially impact, you know, tens of thousands, if not. hundreds of thousands of people in that in that vicinity. If you're just joining us here on the Sound of Ideas and you're wondering, what are we talking about when we say wells? We're talking about injection wells. These are the wells that are meant for storing fracking wastewater, which is toxic. It is radioactive and it is pumped underground in Ohio at the rate of 1.4 billion gallons annually. About a third of that, more than a third of that comes from out-of-state imports of this fracking wastewater, which we're about to get into right now. If you want to be a part of this conversation, the number to call is 866578. 903. You can also email us at SOI at Ideastream.org or send us a message on Instagram at the Sound of Ideas. Now, Tristan, Ohio has more than 240 injection wells in the state. Pennsylvania has 19. despite being number two in the fracking industry in the country. Can you tell us how this disparity happened? Yes, back in the 90s, early 2000s, when the fracking industry is really taking off, Ohio took over premises, meaning we became the sort of stewards of our injection well. space here. So we're the ones that regulated. OD&R Department of National Resources regulates that here in Ohio. Whereas in other states, the EPA, federal EPA and other federal agencies manage those wells because we took primacy early on and because the state has been very, very, very friendly with the oil and gas industry for the last 25 years.

they've been given a pass. And Ohio is a place where they've decided it's easiest to come and cheapest to come and dump the waste. We have an email now in from Stephen. Stephen says, I think you said that one or more state agencies made agreements to take fracking waste from outside the state. Yes, that is true. More than a third, as we just mentioned, of the fracking waste stored in Ohio, is from out of state. Stephen asks, when those agreements were made, were they subject to public notice or comment? Tristan, are you able to tell us? Yeah, I don't know. I've been in the legislature just a few years. I don't go back to the 90s as an elementary school back then. So I don't know exactly, you know. what was going on with those contracts. But certainly, you know, it was a position of the state back then to make Ohio as friendly as possible to these types of practices. Kevin, I'd like to ask you if you can clue us in. Have there been environmental studies that we should be aware of related to the impact of fracking and the long-term impact of the wastewater, what that could have for us here in Ohio? Sure, although I would say the tricky thing about environmental science and ecology is that it's very context-specific, right? So you can find, you know, very alarming case studies about the process of fracking itself or the risks of fracking wastewater injection. And you can also find studies that show that under these conditions or in this particular case study, you know, things were done pretty well and safely and effectively. And so... It's very difficult to use sort of generalizations about the potential or documented hazards of fracking itself or of wastewater injection to say what will or won't happen at any one particular injection site or region, right? So what we can learn from those studies is that there are risks, there are potential for bad things to happen, but that... with strong regulation and good behavior from the corporations and businesses and people that are running these things, then environmental impacts locally can be minimized, like not zero, but minimized. You know, I think those studies show that it's a risky business that if not properly regulated and well practiced, bad things can happen. And coming back to your question that you asked Tristan about, you know, the disparities in the regulations between Ohio and neighboring states, if you look at the history of environmental pollution as related to things like environmental policy,

And the geography of that, what you see is that polluting industries go to the places where the regulations are weakest, right? It's not really a surprise. A historian of polluting industries in the world, in the United States and Ohio would recognize that if you set Ohio up with weaker environmental regulations as pertaining to disposal of fracking wastewater, we should expect. companies to respond to that by trying to do more business here where it's cheaper, you know, and by inviting such volumes of wastewater into our state, then we increase the probability that the bad things do happen, even if it's a sort of small probability overall, right? If you are injecting, you know, 100 million gallons of wastewater instead of 10 million, you multiply that by a small risk, and it's still a much, much bigger risk because of that higher volume. Something that Susan mentioned earlier when we were talking was pressure related to oil and gas wells that are not injection wells, something that was recently published by Dr. David Jeffrey referred to the fracking wastewater finding its way into these oil and gas production wells and how the pressure was rising in the oil and gas production wells and how that was an indicator that something wrong was happening. Kevin, are you able to explain to us why that is an indication that something that's not supposed to be happening is happening? Sure. That was a great article. I would recommend interested listeners to go and read it. I think it was in the Ohio Capital Journal. There's also been some great journalism from Signal and the Allegheny Front on this issue going back a lot of years. Well, maybe not a lot, but I found stuff as old as 2018, 2021. So as Dr. Jeffrey explains in that article and others have in those other media outlets that I mentioned, essentially as the fluids migrate from their destination deeper... below ground and they enter other layers of rock right that creates pressure within the rock that can be detected and so that that higher pressure is literally like the signal that the fluids are moving right and because the fluids are also you know reaching the surface in some places and bubbling out of in production oil and gas wells where it shouldn't be coming out right that was sort of the impetus for the New York Times article, which was active oil and gas extraction wells that are having brine wastewater bubble out of them. That's sort of the biggest clue that this increased pressure is from the brine wastewater. Okay. We have a couple emails now that I want to share from audience members Sue wrote to us. Sue is the one who suggested that we cover this topic. Sue, thank you for the recommendation.

She said about the New York Times article that was published at the end of July. This article is very disgusting and frightening. I would like to know what we, the citizens of Ohio, can do about this. Also, what the candidates think need to be done. As we all know, water does not stay in one place. We are risking the groundwater and drinking water of our whole state. Why? So someone can get richer. And excuse me, it was not Sue who recently alerted to this. This was a separate email from Sue previously. I also want to share an email now from Tom. Tom writes in, the consequences of our addiction to fossil fuels make it so painfully obvious that we should all be switching to solar and wind energy sources and electrifying all of our vehicles and appliances. If you can't afford an electric car, consider electrifying your house by switching your dryer or water heater from gas to electric as a first step. Tom writes, but we'll also need leaders who agree that Ohio's lands and forests should not be corporate extraction zones that Ohioans will not be sold out. Tristan, as a state representative here in Ohio for District 13, which covers the area of Lakewood and parts of Cleveland, do you have responses to what Sue and Tom have said there? Yeah, I think the first thing to sue, like, and... Thank you, Sue. And reach out to your state rep, reach out to your senator. It might feel like you're screaming into the void, but continue to scream. Because the more that folks here across the state from their constituents, the easier a job I have at trying to get bills done, like the things I'm trying to do, ban fracking in public lands, ban fracking under Lake Erie, and really rain in this industry so that it stops sort of its very harmful practices to rural Appalachians. I would also like to ask you to elaborate a bit, Tristan. Ohio doesn't have, I don't believe, a limit or a ban on injection wells at this time. It seems like as we've discussed here, the regulations are pretty open here in Ohio. What would the effect of that be here in Ohio based on that? Would it be an... a significant economic impact in Ohio if we were to limit the amount of that since we are importing one-third of the state's toxic wastewater that's currently here right now. So specifically what I was referring to was the banning under public lands, which I think Tom had mentioned in his message to. And right now, that's not a huge source of the state's oil and gas revenues or anything. So if we were to put a cap on or stop that practice now before it starts really taking up, before our lands are really destroyed by this practice, then it shouldn't have a... big. impact. We would have to figure out as a state, how we pay for the things that some of those royalties pay for. But I think we can agree that our public lands are worth protecting and should go forward, even if there is some small monetary economic cost. Now, on this particular issue, Susan, it's my understanding that you are a registered Republican interest in you're a Democrat representing District 13 in the Ohio State House. You two have come together on this issue of injection wells. Susan, you would like to see injection wells banned in Ohio. These are the storage.

for the wastewater from fracking that it's not only done here in Ohio, but also done out of state where we import that wastewater. Have you been able to connect with any other elected officials on this particular issue? Well, let me explain that the city council after we did our comment and injection well, our comment and objection letter on the Stephan number one injection well, we also completed a moratorium resolution asking the state legislature and the governor to do three things in particular. The first one is cease all current and future injection and disposal of rind. class two wells within six miles of Marietta's aquifer. The reason for that is a red bird study from 2020 showed that Brian is migrating horizontally and to the surface over about approximately five. 4 miles in this county along. We know in Texas it's going horizontally into the surface over a distance of 10 to 11 miles. So in order to protect the city's aquifer, we need legislation. We need stronger rules that halts this because it's putting our city's water and water for basically 52,000 people in this region. at unnecessary and unacceptable risk. We also want to halt the permitting of any future class one injection wells. on the class two, of course, the brine, the oil field waste injection wells, class one wells are wells, I believe there are only eight currently in the state of Ohio. We have a pending permit just outside of our aquifer for a class one well with the Ohio EPA. That's a type of well that would accept landfill lachet and solvents and paints. So we do not want that type of waste injected close to our offer. So that was another ask that we need help from the legislature. So that's why it's so exciting to have Representative Rader on this issue. And then we also want a comprehensive study of class two injection well impacts on underground sources of drinking water in this county and at nearby cross-state locations to ensure the protection. of underground water and to ensure that OD&R is fulfilling its responsibilities under the Safe Drinking Water Act in Ohio. So that's what we're asking for as a city council through our moratorium resolution that was passed last October. So we're not asking, you know, to to halt injection entirely in Ohio. I don't know if that's possible. I mean, injection in Ohio of waste.

really became problematic after 2011. It was almost immediate after 2011 that there were problems with a K&H injection wells in Athens County. So this has been going on a long time because of the massive volume in waste, the massive increase in waste volume that has occurred because of the horizontal tracking. Susan, I do want to ask you about the bipartisan nature of your collaboration with. Tristan, who's a Democrat here in Cleveland. Have you been able to connect with other elected officials, or is this something you're still efforting? Well, locally, our comment and objection letter that was presented to ODNR and the governor in the state legislature in August of last year was signed by five Republican elected officials and four Democrat elected officials. It's a bipartisan issue here. As far as the response from the state level elected officials, very heartened with... Representative Raiders response, but we really haven't had any response from the governor or other representatives or senators. One thing that concerns me is that the former CEO of Deep Rock, Senator Chavez, is Chairman of the State Energy Committee. And last fall, he was fast-tracking Senate Bill 219, which had some provisions in it that would benefit some of Senator Chavez's businesses that he's connected to, such as Thank you for sharing that with us, Susan. Just to give people a little bit of context here, you mentioned ODNR. That's the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Deep Rock Disposal Solutions is the company that owns the injection wells near Marietta. As she mentioned, current Ohio, Senator Chavez used to be an executive within the organization of Deep Rock Disposal Solutions. I do want to point out that Aaron Gotzacker reached out to Deep Rock Disposal Solutions at the beginning of the year seeking comment in her coverage related to the injection wells. respond to that. We do want to remind our audience, if you're just joining us here on The Sound of Ideas, we are talking about fracking in the state of Ohio, and we are talking about fracking wastewater, which is toxic, is radioactive, does contain cancer-causing materials, and it is imported into the state of Ohio. About one-third of the fracking wastewater stored underneath the ground in Ohio is imported from other states. If you have a comment or a question, you can call 866-578-0903. You can also email S-O-I at IDESTream.org or send us a message.

message on Instagram at the Sound of Ideas. We have a call now from Roxanne in Athens, which is not far from Marietta, a city that we've been talking a lot about today. Roxanne, welcome to the Sound of Ideas. Please go ahead. Yeah, good morning. Thank you, Kevin and Tristan Brader and Susan for being on this morning. My comment is that the Department of Natural Resources, who, as Tristan mentioned, has primacy over the oil and gas. program in Ohio, a sole and exclusive authority, as a matter of fact, with no local authorities having any jurisdiction in control. OD&R has known about the migration of oil and gas waste brine now since. the mid-2000s. In 2011, right after the fracking boom started in Ohio, injection well applications started arriving at the offices of the division of oil and gas management resources, ODNR, and protests in Athens County, Asthubula, Trumbull County, where these injection while applications were being applied for, were protesting, not only with county commissioners protesting, but... citizens and township trustees, knowing that the geology of the area was not going to be able to handle the amount of pressure and the volumes of weights that were going to be coming from horizontal fracking operations in Ohio. And when ODNR discovered in 2010, 2013, and in Athens County, 2016, the migration of brine into production wells into the surface. It took years for the division to actually conclude that the migration was happening and would suspend the wells. And I want to mention, since Deep Rock was mentioned, that two of the wells that were suspended by OD&R for migration were in Noble County, and those two wells were owned by Deep Rock, and now Senator Chavez, was the CEO of that operation. Those two wells were suspended, but... gosh, never required to abandon and plug, as really should be happening at this time. And as Susan mentioned, a comprehensive geology study is absolutely mandatory. And we've asked and we've asked. and our asks have not been met with a positive response from ODNR and the citizens now are really at the point where we're demanding it. If this study is not completed in a timely fashion, it doesn't matter how much it costs. The budget should be available to the division to be able to complete such a study. And the geologists throughout Ohio are concluding this same as Kevin has said. And Tristan Raider is, along with his colleague, Sean Brennan, are...

about two of the only legislators in our entire General Assembly who are really paying attention to this. And as Marietta City Council and I applaud the whole county of Washington County, including City Council and the Water Districts, for asking the governor for moratoriums on this. It is appalling that after all these decades, actually over a century of extraction, abuse in the Appalachian area that our voices seem to just be falling flat in front of the division and in front of the General Assembly. So I really thank you, Stephanie, for having these guests on today. And perhaps the more this is written about and explained that hopefully before Governor Mike DeWine leaves office that he sees fit. to give the division of oil and gas, the money that is needed to do this study and that the moratoriums that have been asked for for years from all these counties, and now Washington County being the latest, that our cries for help are being heard and actually fulfill those requests that we've made for well over a decade. Roxanne, thank you for sharing context and the background in the history of their quests that have been happening on your end in the Athens area. We appreciate that very much. Kevin, I want to ask you about how this impacts all of Ohio. We have been talking a lot about Marietta. We were just talking about the Athens area. Why does this matter to all of Ohioans, what's happening in southeastern Ohio? Sure. Well, I think when issues like this come up, often they're viewed through the lens of sort of stacking up economic benefits against economic costs, some of which are environmental costs. And I think one of the dilemmas about issues like this is that... In this case, it appears that the economic benefits are going to a relatively small number of people that are employed by oil and gas industry in Ohio. It's probably something on the order of a few thousand people total. statewide maybe 0.2% of jobs in Ohio are in mining, logging, and oil and gas, right? So that's even a category much bigger than oil and gas itself. In a place like Marietta, Washington County, that number is maybe 1% of jobs, right? I'm not saying those jobs don't matter, but, you know, the corporations... We're benefiting from these activities, right? They're making money, disposing the wastewater, they're making money, generating gas. A relatively small number of actual Ohioans get some trickle-down benefits from that in terms of jobs and wages. And then you start stacking up costs, and those costs are often distributed amongst a much wider population of people, right? So, you know, the tens of thousands of people in...

and around Marietta whose drinking water is threatened by this activity the people in the state of Ohio who might go to Wayne National Forest for recreation whose present and future recreation opportunities are potentially threatened by fracking gone wrong in a place like Wayne National Forest. And then if you start thinking about, you know, local communities are most exposed to the direct risks and polluting activities of fracking. But then fracking is also a contributor to climate change and through multiple pathways, right? And so every Ohioan is exposed to the risks of climate change, right? People here in Cleveland who've lived through a couple of heat waves recently, right? If we don't want to experience more heat waves and flooding events and droughts and things like that, then we need to start thinking about... As Ohioans, do we want to continue to support things like fracking within our state borders? You mentioned Wayne National Forest. We've got a couple minutes left here, Tristan. I want to make sure we get to this. Ohio has only been leasing public land use for fracking for the past several years here. It is relatively new. There will be an auction on the use of 3,000 acres of Wayne National Forest for potential fracking. They wouldn't need a permit, but generally those have been improved when they are sought. Can you tell us about that and can you tell us about the public comment period that people should be aware of? Yeah. People can still submit public comment as of right now. It's something I, my office just submitted public comment to this and we sent a press release out too to invite more public comment. Just to let our governments know that these lands are incredibly important to us. And this is a bipartisan issue, by the way, too. This is land that is used by hunters, fishers, all kinds of people, right? And I think it's just with. very much in our interest and very much in the vein of Teddy Roosevelt who went around the whole entire country back in the early 1900 to set up these parks you know he'd be ruling in his grave if you knew that we were actually exploiting these parks for resources for corporate gain, right? Not for the enjoyment and benefit of the people who actually live here in Ohio. So please comment. Maybe that's something your newsagery. You could share a link to the page, something like that, but that would be great. We will. And I do want to let people know today is Thursday, August 13th. Public comment is open through Monday, August 17th. So we will share a link at ideasdream.org slash SOI. Just look for the article related to today's topic, which is fracking and wastewater. I would like to thank our panelists for participating with us today. With me here in studio, Tristan Radar, representative in the Ohio House of Representatives for District 13, which is Lakewood and parts of Cleveland. Tristan, thanks for being with us. Thank you. Also, Kevin Mueller, Associate Professor in the Biological Geological and Environmental Sciences Department at Cleveland State University. Kevin, thank you. Of course. And joining us virtually, Susan Vesels, the president of Marietta City Council. Susan, thank you for being with us today.

We're going to take a quick break now. When we come back, we have your brand new episode of our music podcast, Shuffle. This is The Sound of Ideas. I'm Stephanie Haney. Stay with us. This is the Sound of Ideas from Ideas Dream Public Media. I'm Stephanie Haney. Thank you for staying with us. And for doing so, you're about to be rewarded with the latest edition of our Shuffle Music podcast, hosted by Idea Stream's Amanda Rabinowitz. In this episode, Amanda talks with two band members from Rent for Cheryl, which is having a big year from touring Europe to headlining Akron's Porch Rocker Festival this weekend. I will be there for that, by the way, along with Amanda and shuffle producer Brittany Nader will be introducing acts on the main stage with other members of our IdeaStream family. So say hi when you see us there in Akron on Saturday. Now for a preview of what you'll see from Rent for Cheryl at Porch Rocker. Here's their conversation with Amanda. Rent for Cheryl started 2026 with three goals. Play Cleveland's bright winter in February, perform overseas, and headline Akron's porch rocker music festival. They've already checked off the first two. This weekend, they'll take on the third in Akron's Highland Square. I think, like, honestly, just the work we've put in has been recognized. Yeah, that's been a goal for a few years. So we wanted that really bad. For guitarist Joe Ibrahim and singer Isabel Post, that recognition comes after years of hard work. The two went to Copley High School together but didn't connect musically until 2019. When Ibrahim saw video of Post singing and reached out, they quickly discovered they shared the same drive to create. At no point did we say, hey, it's time to get to work. I think like one of us is already on it. So we literally were together every day all the time, constantly working.

I think The band got its name from a beat created by two of its original members. We got Isbel in the mix. She brought like a very chill sound to her. So we called ourselves elevator music. But we found out real quick that it is impossible to find our music under that name. We had a guitar player and a bass player. They lived together in Kent. And one day they were like, we got to show you guys this beat. It's called Rent for Cheryl. Their landlord's name was Cheryl. They needed rent for Cheryl. And as they were coming up with the beat, somebody said, hey, we need the rent for Cheryl. And they just, like, name the beat it. Well, when they told me that, I was like, it's too good for just the beat. So at first, we made it our very first. band album name. And immediately after releasing it, under elevator music, we switched the name. So it became the band name Rent for Cheryl, and our first album is self-titled, Rent for Cheryl. Ibrahim and Post eventually added guitarist Kyle Cook, drummer Ronnie Koppfer, and bassist Miguel Teran Torres, building the lineup that spent the last three years playing everywhere from coffee shops to festivals and releasing four albums with another on the way this fall.

way too fast for me. I think we found a group of people that were like, we're like a family. I like to say I could bring any of them to my parents' home. Like, we're that close. And yeah, I think we all realized, like, it was real special. And if we, like, if we find a way to make this work, this could be, you know, something we do for a long, long time. How do you two go about writing together? It's definitely been, like, a process and it's changed. I probably write most for all my lyrics now at this point. But I kind of, like, for a little bit. I don't know if it's just because, like, we would be practicing a lot, but I'm very inspired when I'm kind of freestyling. A lot of songs all right, just kind of on the spot. And there is a part of the band that's very improvised. You know, we might get up on stage and have an hour and a half we want to do, and we might be asked to do three. And so that just means we're going to play with some jams, some blues, jams, some, you know, whatever. And sometimes you walk away and you're like, that felt really good. We should go back, listen to that and make that a real song. Talk about how the sound has evolved. a little bit because I think the album you put out last year is a little bit of a different sound then absolutely then so talk about how that's evolved I think there's like a core sound that we naturally have that is very like indie which is what you'll hear in like the first couple albums you'll you'll always hear it there but I think we are all so influenced by so much music and so many different types past midnight which is more of like a bedroom pop album that was just because like simply I just like wanted to make a bedroom pop album I love you baby Don't let it go to your head

because we listened to so much different types of music and grew up with different types of inspirations. Yeah. If you get in a car with the band and people are playing music, someone might play EDM and someone might play Miles Davis. Someone might play 2000s, grunge rock, you know, garage. It's all, but we all love all that stuff. I think a good song is a good song, regardless of the style or genre. The amazing thing is you literally just got back from playing in Europe. Yes. You played Paris. London. London. Glasgow. Glasgow. Amazing. So how did this come about? Basically, we had a band, I think they're called Division Theory. They were out in Lyon. France, and they had messaged us something, you know, the sorts of, you guys are really cool. We'd love to do something. The band's so funny because they instantly, you know, look for me to lead us there. They're like, okay, what do we do now? How do we make this a reality? I kind of just like, and this is how I feel like it goes a lot. Like I kind of just take that. What is it? Like a little seed that was planted and just like ran with it. I studied abroad and I was in Italy for like four months. I felt confident in like booking the flights or the Airbnbs or the trains. So I basically just started researching different venues, different bands. I think quickly we knew that, okay, going out to Paris is a lot. you know, for one show, we just had to tackle on a few more to it, if possible. We brought shirts and sold out of them on our very first show in Glasgow. We weren't even able to give shirts out in London or Paris. It's not one of those things where we high-five each other and we're glad we checked that off the box. It's like, okay, we're going to go back as soon as possible, and here's how we're going to do it and make it bigger and better. I do want to mention you were in Paris and you two got engaged. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I love how your relationship started with music. Yes. It wasn't like you two were. couple and started making music together it happened that way yeah congratulations thank you very much and i know you don't want to make a big deal about it but yeah no it was it was special having um having the band with us and finishing up those shows and then you know getting to enjoy the city and so you know it was a beautiful time So, Joe, did you propose? Yeah. Did you plan it? I knew I was going to propose to Isabel regardless, but I knew when we were going to Paris, that would be a great time. There was a bit of pressure just to make sure, you know, the shows went smooth, the travel went smooth and everything. But yeah. After that, that was easy. So you're having a huge month because you just got back from touring Europe and then you're going to headline Porch Rocker. Yeah. I know especially people from Akron, Port Rocker is the big. I mean, it's a big deal. It is a big deal. It is a big deal. And for people who aren't maybe aren't as familiar with Portracker, the headliner is the headliner. Yeah, yeah. You're the band that plays at the end of the day. Absolutely. I think there's many bands playing at the same times. 730, there's a main stage. Everyone in the crowd goes out to that main stage and there's one band to close.

out the night. I mean, we've just worked so hard, so I mean, we're very excited. We played every gig we possibly could. And it didn't matter, you know, if it was early, late, you know, after work on a weekday, we did what we could. And I think that is exactly why we got picked this year. Okay, listen, you got to bring enough merch for Port Rocker. We just, you know what's funny, we made, I'm picking up shirts today. I'm picking up like probably 75 T-shirts today. Probably have a box at home. Probably going to do one more order before. My poor family is going to all be on table selling. I've got them ready to go. chill are we just doing our thing you got a problem with us baby what's the deal cause we doing our

After you headline Porch Rocker, what's the rest of the year look like? As soon as we're done with Portchrocker, we're doing August 22nd. We're doing a block party in Youngstown. And then we're doing August 29 City of South Euclid Music Series, Cleveland Rocks. And then the big one for us is September 5th, Cain Park. You keep the ball moving. But I tell everyone, like, if nobody was here to watch us play, if there was no money, if there's no people listening, we'd still be rehearsing. as if, you know, we've got to be ready. As much as we can, we're trying to push it forward and make it our careers. That's Joe Ibrahim and Isabel Post of Rent for Cheryl. You can hear more of our conversation and follow the podcast at ideastream.org slash shuffle. I'm Amanda Rabinowitz, IdeaStream Public Media. Shuffle is your backstage pass to Northeast Ohio's independent music scene. You can hear it Thursdays here on WKSU, IdeaStream Public Media. If you missed any part of today's show, you can hear a rebroadcast tonight at 9 on 897 WKSU. You can also find every episode of The Sound of Ideas wherever you get your podcasts and on the Idea Stream Public Media YouTube page. Tomorrow, on The Sound of Ideas, it's the Friday Reporter's Roundtable hosted by Mike McIntyre. He'll be joined by IdeaStream public media reporters Gabriel Kramer and Connor Morris, as well as IdeaStream State House News Bureau Chief Karen Kassler. Monday will bring you the latest installment of our Law of the Land series, this time looking at the current state of student loans. I'm Stephanie Haney. Thank you for keeping the conversation going. Have a great weekend, everybody. Hopefully see you at Porch Rocker on Saturday and back here in the studio on Monday.