What They Voted For (Repeatedly)
Oh, those loathsome liberals, those terrible tree-huggers, those ghastly greenies. Think of free speech! If liberals had their way, we would never be having this discussion:
In bullet form:
The political story, here, has to do with a potential terminal decline in fossil fuel production: "This awful fate was avoided thanks to a cocktail of technologies that became known by the not-very-flattering shorthand of fracking". It was a market circumstance, when "early frackers like George Mitchell looked even deeper to the layers of 'source rock' that the oil and gas that America burned in the 20th Century had come from." Here's the underlying trade-off:
And they didn't start hauling it out until the twenty-first century.
They call it "landfarming"; while radium concentrations acn reach dangerous levels, "hundreds or thousands of times more concentrated" than normal radioactive presence, the first, easiest idea was to spread it out into lower concentration over larger area. But, "we don't know what happens when we lay it out in a horizontal landscape, as water moves it, and air moves it," explained journalist Justin Nobel, who specializes in fracking pollution.
The historical reminder, here, is that this didn't just happen by accident. If we think back to Reagan's election, the subsequent history of deregulation and hostility toward regulation that has been a regular feature of Republican politics that leads to the construction of homes and a school on a radioactive dump site. It's not a one-off, but a product of what Texans voted for.
That is to say, "an enormous crime — albeit one that was technically legal"; it's hardly a new concept. Spooner, ca. 1875↱ argues that, after wars—
—and, yet, in Texas, those are exactly what they voted for.
____________________
Notes:
Elbein, Saul. "Whistleblower Says Radioactive Fracking Waste Site Melted His Jaw. Now There's an Elementary School There." The Barbed Wire. 11 February 2026. TheBarbedWire.com. 11 February 2026. https://thebarbedwire.com/2026/02/11/a-whistleblower-says-radioactive-fracking-waste-melted-his-jaw/
Spooner, Lysander. Vices Are Not Crimes: A Vindication of Moral Liberty. 1875. LysanderSpooner.org. 11 February 2026. https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...068873/1436885864688/Vices+Are+Not+Crimes.pdf
Oh, those loathsome liberals, those terrible tree-huggers, those ghastly greenies. Think of free speech! If liberals had their way, we would never be having this discussion:
Sure, Lee Oldham told me, he had spread radioactive fracking waste on Texas farmland. But in his defense, he never in a million years thought anyone would put a school there.
We were standing in the frigid wind on a field in Johnson County. It was January, and 52-year-old Oldham wore a heavy flannel sweatshirt pulled tight over his belly.
In the early 2010s, when the region was ground zero for the biggest fossil fuel production boom in human history, Oldham worked in waste disposal for a company that helped get rid of the millions of pounds of solid waste that came out of tens of thousands of natural gas wells about two miles underground.
That work, Oldham believes, exposed him to a witches' brew of chemicals that, even now, likely lurked inside the fabric of his cells. His doctors believe the exposure melted the bones in his jaw and neck, he said.
He also believes it made him an accessory to what he now views as an enormous crime — albeit one that was technically legal.
(Elbein↱)
We were standing in the frigid wind on a field in Johnson County. It was January, and 52-year-old Oldham wore a heavy flannel sweatshirt pulled tight over his belly.
In the early 2010s, when the region was ground zero for the biggest fossil fuel production boom in human history, Oldham worked in waste disposal for a company that helped get rid of the millions of pounds of solid waste that came out of tens of thousands of natural gas wells about two miles underground.
That work, Oldham believes, exposed him to a witches' brew of chemicals that, even now, likely lurked inside the fabric of his cells. His doctors believe the exposure melted the bones in his jaw and neck, he said.
He also believes it made him an accessory to what he now views as an enormous crime — albeit one that was technically legal.
(Elbein↱)
In bullet form:
• "there were at least 21,000 oil and gas wells in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. Most of them sit in and around residential neighborhoods."
• "Each one of those underground wells produced between 1,000 and 2,000 tons of solid waste — sometimes as much as 3,000 or 4,000 tons as the decade wore on — laden with PFAS … radiation, and other toxic contaminants."
• "somewhere between 20 million and 60 million tons of hazardous waste were dumped in and around Dallas-Fort Worth — in the very hinterlands the city is now expanding into."
• "the most troubling part of Oldham's story are the parts that are legal and well-understood: For decades, Texas let drillers spread staggering amounts of radioactive and PFAS-ridden waste on the fringes of the nation's fourth largest metro area — while making it virtually impossible for the public to know where"
• "Each one of those underground wells produced between 1,000 and 2,000 tons of solid waste — sometimes as much as 3,000 or 4,000 tons as the decade wore on — laden with PFAS … radiation, and other toxic contaminants."
• "somewhere between 20 million and 60 million tons of hazardous waste were dumped in and around Dallas-Fort Worth — in the very hinterlands the city is now expanding into."
• "the most troubling part of Oldham's story are the parts that are legal and well-understood: For decades, Texas let drillers spread staggering amounts of radioactive and PFAS-ridden waste on the fringes of the nation's fourth largest metro area — while making it virtually impossible for the public to know where"
The political story, here, has to do with a potential terminal decline in fossil fuel production: "This awful fate was avoided thanks to a cocktail of technologies that became known by the not-very-flattering shorthand of fracking". It was a market circumstance, when "early frackers like George Mitchell looked even deeper to the layers of 'source rock' that the oil and gas that America burned in the 20th Century had come from." Here's the underlying trade-off:
By figuring out how to blast open these layers of carbon-rich black shale, the frackers threw the peak oil saga into reverse, paving the way for the flood of cheap gas that powered cloud computing, fueling a new age of the American energy empire, and funding the rise of the modern hard-line right.
This came with significant risks. Scientists and oilmen have known for decades that the source rock is radioactive.
This came with significant risks. Scientists and oilmen have known for decades that the source rock is radioactive.
And they didn't start hauling it out until the twenty-first century.
They call it "landfarming"; while radium concentrations acn reach dangerous levels, "hundreds or thousands of times more concentrated" than normal radioactive presence, the first, easiest idea was to spread it out into lower concentration over larger area. But, "we don't know what happens when we lay it out in a horizontal landscape, as water moves it, and air moves it," explained journalist Justin Nobel, who specializes in fracking pollution.
Scientists have long warned this is dangerous. When John Stolz, a Duquesne University microbiologist who studies fracking waste in Pennsylvania's Ohio Valley region region, first heard about Texas companies doing landfarming — the technical name for spreading solid drilling waste on farmland — around the Barnett Shale, his first reaction was, "Are you guys nuts?" ....
.... Radium, he told me, is sticky — lay it out in a field or put it in a waste pit, and water will tend to wash out soil and salts, leaving an ever-more-concentrated product behind: something like a natural reactor, releasing a radioactive plume for thousands of years.
But for regulators, fracking waste is, by definition, safe. Since the 1980s, the Environmental Protection Agency has treated oil and gas waste as "non-hazardous" by definition, allowing it to be spread on farmland without treatment.
And the Texas Railroad Commission — the state's confoundingly-named and notoriously underfunded oil and gas regulator — left operators to, as Oldham said, "self-police." They didn't require oil and gas operators to test their waste for radiation or PFAS or require them to line waste pits with plastic to keep contaminants from seeping into the water supply.
They also didn't offer public maps — or in most cases, even keep track themselves — of where the waste was going.
.... Radium, he told me, is sticky — lay it out in a field or put it in a waste pit, and water will tend to wash out soil and salts, leaving an ever-more-concentrated product behind: something like a natural reactor, releasing a radioactive plume for thousands of years.
But for regulators, fracking waste is, by definition, safe. Since the 1980s, the Environmental Protection Agency has treated oil and gas waste as "non-hazardous" by definition, allowing it to be spread on farmland without treatment.
And the Texas Railroad Commission — the state's confoundingly-named and notoriously underfunded oil and gas regulator — left operators to, as Oldham said, "self-police." They didn't require oil and gas operators to test their waste for radiation or PFAS or require them to line waste pits with plastic to keep contaminants from seeping into the water supply.
They also didn't offer public maps — or in most cases, even keep track themselves — of where the waste was going.
The historical reminder, here, is that this didn't just happen by accident. If we think back to Reagan's election, the subsequent history of deregulation and hostility toward regulation that has been a regular feature of Republican politics that leads to the construction of homes and a school on a radioactive dump site. It's not a one-off, but a product of what Texans voted for.
That is to say, "an enormous crime — albeit one that was technically legal"; it's hardly a new concept. Spooner, ca. 1875↱ argues that, after wars—
The next greatest crimes committed in the world are equally prompted by avarice and ambition; and are committed, not on sudden passion, but by men of calculation, who keep their heads cool and clear, and who have no thought whatever of going to prison for them. They are committed, not so much by men who violate the laws, as by men who, either by themselves or by their instruments, make the laws; by men who have combined to usurp arbitrary power, and to maintain it by force and fraud, and whose purpose in usurping and maintaining it is by unjust and unequal legislation, to secure to themselves such advantages and monopolies as will enable them to control and extort the labor and properties of other men, and thus impoverish them, in order to minister to their own wealth and aggrandizement.
—and, yet, in Texas, those are exactly what they voted for.
____________________
Notes:
Elbein, Saul. "Whistleblower Says Radioactive Fracking Waste Site Melted His Jaw. Now There's an Elementary School There." The Barbed Wire. 11 February 2026. TheBarbedWire.com. 11 February 2026. https://thebarbedwire.com/2026/02/11/a-whistleblower-says-radioactive-fracking-waste-melted-his-jaw/
Spooner, Lysander. Vices Are Not Crimes: A Vindication of Moral Liberty. 1875. LysanderSpooner.org. 11 February 2026. https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...068873/1436885864688/Vices+Are+Not+Crimes.pdf
