Climate Corner: AI, data centers a dangerous spreading plague
Local columns
May 16, 2026
Aaron Dunbar
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
Silicon Valley wants to control every single aspect of your life. They want to tell you what you can and can’t think. They want to control your movements. They want to monitor your every word. They want to strip the masses of their critical thinking skills, and to be able to crush any sign of dissent with the push of a button. They want us to be totally and helplessly dependent on them.
And now they’re coming for our communities.
The large-scale data center buildout we’re seeing spread across the country like a particularly virulent strain of plague is the latest mechanism through which big tech seeks to expand its empire of control over us lowly consumer peons. These data centers are, of course, being built to facilitate the ubiquitous and largely unwanted insinuation of artificial intelligence into every conceivable facet of our lives.
There’s a deeply perverted irony to the fact that tech giants are seducing their way into communities by promising data center job booms through one side of their mouths, while proudly boasting about how artificial intelligence is expected to eliminate entire workforce sectors with the other.
Said CEO and AI consultant Elijah Clark, in an interview with Gizmodo last year: “CEOs are extremely excited about the opportunities that AI brings. As a CEO myself, I can tell you, I’m extremely excited about it. I’ve laid off employees myself because of AI. AI doesn’t go on strike. It doesn’t ask for a pay raise. These things that you don’t have to deal with as a CEO.”
As for the purported jobs we’re to expect will come rolling into town with the construction of these facilities? In one pitiful instance reported by Cleveland.com back in March, a $136 million data center in Northeast Ohio receiving a $4.5 million sales tax exemption was slated to create a whopping ten new full-time positions. And this is supposed to somehow even remotely compensate for the immense damage being done to our communities by these resource hungry behemoths?
The buildout of data centers is rapidly becoming an ecological catastrophe. Environmental tolls from these facilities can include cancer-causing forever chemicals, the draining of critical water resources, infrasound and light pollution, wildlife habitat loss, deadly air pollution including smog and acid rain, along with a vast array of other issues. That includes, most notably, a massive explosion in greenhouse gas emissions, with WIRED recently estimating that dirty power sources for planned data center facilities could emit some 129 million tons per year — handily eclipsing the greenhouse gas outputs of numerous entire nations.
Famed Epstein associate Bill Gates at one point went to great lengths to style himself as some sort of benevolent climate savior, even authoring the best-selling book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster” in 2021. Then, all at once, he appeared to have an abrupt change of heart in October of last year.
“Although climate change will have serious consequences – particularly for people in the poorest countries – it will not lead to humanity’s demise,” he wrote. “This is a chance to refocus on the metric that should count even more than emissions and temperature change: improving lives.”
Suddenly, it seemed, reducing greenhouse gas emissions in order to avoid a climate disaster wasn’t all that important to Gates. It’s surely no coincidence that Microsoft was now stumbling headlong into the AI race, with the company currently poised to abandon its 2030 clean energy targets as a result of increased energy demands. I would also be remiss not to point out that around this time, Microsoft’s AI was being implemented by Israel to carry out its barbaric campaign of genocide and ecocide in Gaza — a chilling portent of how we can likely expect these dystopian technologies to be used once conflict and social unrest brought on by environmental collapse begin to manifest in ernest.
Palantir CEO Alex Karp, whom I genuinely believe to be a sociopath, was pressed last year about the unconstitutionality of the Trump Administration’s horrific attacks on Venezuelan fishing boats, blatant war crimes carried out with the aim of invading the country and pillaging its 300 billion barrels of oil.
“Part of the reason why I like this questioning,” Karp replied, “is the more constitutional you want to make it, the more precise you want to make it, the more you’re going to need my product. So you keep pushing on making it constitutional. I’m totally supportive of that.”
Palantir, for the uninitiated, is a nearious tech company with its tentacles in everything from healthcare to mass surveillance, farmland management to autonomous weapons, the CIA, the U.S. military, and more. In March, Palantir’s Anthony Bak and Mehdi Alhassani published a column in the billionaire-owned Washington Post entitled “Don’t forget who wins in the fight against data centers,” arguing that “Bipartisan efforts to stop the build-out will make AI accessible only to the wealthy.”
“The surest way to guarantee that artificial intelligence becomes a tool of the wealthy elite,” they claim, “is to block the infrastructure that would make it cheap for everyone else. Across the country, though, a growing coalition of activists, local officials and leaders on both the left and right are fighting explicitly to halt data center construction, restrict energy development, stop microchip production and slow the build-out of the backbone upon which cheap AI will depend.”
In other words, these two stooges for the wealthy elite, writing in a propaganda rag owned by the wealthy elite, truly think you’re stupid enough to believe that they have your best interests at heart. The best way to shield ourselves from being exploited by the wealthy elite, they argue, is to welcome them into our communities with open arms.
I don’t know about you, but the future these people are creating for us is not a future I want to live in.
I don’t want data center hubs leaking PFAS into the water supply so that my government can spy on me. I don’t want to be exposed to constant air, noise, and light pollution so that half the country’s jobs can be replaced by artificial intelligence. I don’t want to see ecosystems and natural resources destroyed to help companies like Palantir and Anthropic commit large-scale massacres of Iranian schoolchildren. I don’t want to cede the precious last fumes of Earth’s remaining carbon budget so that an elite cadre of megalomaniacs can reign supreme over the tattered remnants of our world.
And that’s why I’m doing something about it.
I’m proud to say that I’m a part of the aforementioned “growing coalition of activists fighting explicitly to halt data center construction.”
Everyday people across Ohio are engaged in an ambitious effort to amend our state’s Constitution, in order to ban the construction of large scale data centers that consume over 25 megawatts of energy per month. Under the banner of Conserve Ohio, volunteers are working hard to collect signatures that would put this initiative on the ballot to be voted on in our November election.
Together, we hold the power to prevent Silicon Valley from steamrolling small communities to enact their dystopian vision of the future.
For more information on where to sign the petition, or to get involved in our efforts, please visit conserveohio.com. The petition is also available to sign during business hours at Cobbler John’s in Marietta.
Aaron Dunbar is a member of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.
Posted: June 6, 2026 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Life’s a beach
Jun 6, 2026
Linda Eve Seth
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
Life takes you down many paths, but the best ones lead to the beach.
Planning a family get away at the beach this summer? Better hurry up and go while you can. Rising seas and other climate issues are rapidly shrinking the world’s beaches and destabilizing the ecosystems that depend on them.
Planning a vacation to Miami, Coney Island or Atlantic City? The greatest number of people and homes in areas at risk from a severe coastal flood by 2050 can be found in Florida, New York, and New Jersey. Scientists have predicted that almost half of the beaches world-wide will disappear by the end of the century.
Along North Carolina’s Outer Banks, a favorite summer haunt of many WV families, numerous beach homes have crashed into the ocean, littering the shoreline with hazardous debris while raising the total number of lost homes along the barrier island to 31 since 2020. Just since September 2025, 20 homes have fallen into the sea.
On the west coast, access to California’s beaches is disappearing at the rate of 100 access sites with every foot of sea level rise. By the end of the century, about 15% of Ventura County’s and 40% of Santa Barbara County’s beach access sites will drown.
Coastlines around the planet are being steadily crumpled, crushed, and consumed as climate-driven sea level rise combines with expanding development in coastal zones. This ongoing process damages the diverse life that depends on sandy environments, disrupts local economies that rely on fishing and tourism, and leaves coastal cities more exposed to encroaching waters.
While coastal erosion is a natural process, climate change events such as sea level rise and stronger storms are accelerating the process. The Earth’s climate is changing; ice sheets and glaciers are melting. and coastal hazards and sea level are rising in response. With a total population of over 300 million people situated on coasts worldwide, low-lying coastal areas represent one of the most vulnerable areas to the impacts of climate change.
A beach is a sensitive environment that supports a variety of plants and animals. Beaches, wetlands and estuarine habitats are at risk of becoming inundated or eroded and may not be able to sustain themselves as the rate of sea level rise accelerates.
As the planet warms, ice sheets will continue to melt and water levels will rise, flooding beaches. Normally, beaches might naturally migrate inland in response, but oftentimes beaches are trapped between rising seas and structures like buildings and roads, leaving them nowhere to go.
Urban areas like LA, and tourist magnet regions like Myrtle Beach, SC have historically built highways and homes along the coast, allowing little room for beaches to naturally go inward.
Increased storm intensity of stronger hurricanes and storms, fueled by warmer oceans, result in higher waves that, combined with higher sea levels, lead to extreme erosion, beach retreat, and damage to, or destruction of, coastal infrastructure.
Additional extreme events that will damage coastal development and infrastructure include cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes, large storm waves arriving simultaneously with very high tides or elevated water levels and tsunamis.
Our coastal ecosystems, including wetlands, estuaries, and sandy beaches, face destruction, directly affecting wildlife that depend on these habitats. Rising sea levels cause saltwater to infiltrate freshwater supplies which is a major issue in coastal communities like Florida.
Beach erosion threatens the tourism industry–a significant economic driver–and increases insurance risks for coastal homes and businesses.
The future of many popular beaches is threatened, with some potentially becoming entirely inaccessible within decades. Action is required to protect these natural treasures and the communities that rely on them.
Governments are implementing measures like elevating roads, nourishing beaches with new sand. Some communities are constructing sea walls to protect our infrastructure and prevent immediate destruction. Future coastal development must include smart planning, zoning regulations, and managed, intentional retreat from highly vulnerable areas. Long-term solutions require reducing global greenhouse gas emissions to slow the rate of warming and sea-level rise.
Climate Action Programs empowered by volunteer-led chapters are building a nationwide network of coastal stewards who are bolstering local resilience, to implement nature-based solutions and restore coastal ecosystems like mangroves, salt marshes, and coastal dunes. increasing biodiversity and mitigating the effects of climate change along our shores.
Climate change is already impacting the shape and future of our beaches, coasts, and communities. Scientists estimate that more than 50% of beaches globally are at risk of being permanently lost due to sea level rise by 2100. Urgent action is needed to protect the places we treasure – sunshine on wide open sandy ocean beaches with waves crashing, wind blowing, seagulls flying overhead, and a backdrop of beach grass and sand dunes …
Until next time, be kind to your Mother Earth.
***
Linda Eve Seth, SLP, M.Ed., is a mother, grandmother, concerned citizen, member of MOVCA.
Posted: May 30, 2026 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Out-of-state interests win, real issues lose
May 30, 2026
Griffin Bradley
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
With the primaries now behind us, I can’t say I’m entirely surprised by the outcomes.
If West Virginia has taught us anything about politics in the last decade or more, it’s that culture war and social issues are exceedingly potent, even in the shadow of actual problems in dire need of a fix. Then when you factor in out-of-state money and PACs, the real issues don’t stand a chance of reaching the people.
According to the most recent financial reports, the Sugar Maple PAC alone spent close to a million dollars on primary elections, much of which in our area. Of the listed donations on their Q1 filings, individuals or entities from 12 different states contributed anywhere from $2,500 to $100,000 to the PAC in a single quarter. This included hedge fund managers, major political donors, and even some of the richest people in their respective states. Combine this level of support with the PACs connections to Governor Morrisey, and it becomes clear that West Virginians were heavily influenced by out-of-staters.
Much of the same arguments made about the political “swamp” — big spending, shadowy figures and political demagogues — have made a new home in West Virginia.
Let’s talk about the issues we heard the most about. From my perspective, ads centered around three main issues: abortion, transgender issues, and how “pro-Trump” a candidate was. Aside from the occasional reference to a vote or comment in committee, most of these talking points had little to no substance. They were merely vanity ads that turned attention to a very overused standard — “pro-life, pro-Trump conservative.”
Compare this to the things we didn’t hear about that actually impact our daily lives. We live in a state with the fourth highest poverty rate in the country, with nearly 1 in 5 of our neighbors living below the poverty line. We are also one of the most unhealthy states, ranking 49th nationally for chronic illness rates at the same time we are seeing increasing numbers of healthcare deserts across the state.
And finally, the environment. We all know the history of the Mid Ohio Valley and environmental issues. We live in one of the densest concentrations of chemical plants in America, resulting in decades of air and water pollution that have harmed our people, animals, and natural beauty in more ways than one for generations.
Despite these real challenges, what did we get for months on end? We were inundated with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of ads, telling us that someone was “woke” or a “radical liberal” — or both. Think about that. What kind of good could hundreds of thousands of dollars have done to combat actual problems we face? Expanded community healthcare programs, new air and water quality assessments and mitigation planning, support for food banks and financial assistance programs for our neighbors impacted by the affordability crisis, just to name a few. Instead, we got a half dozen pieces of paper in our mailbox that we ultimately threw away, delivered right next to our increasingly high utility bills. Money well spent…
So where does this put us? Are we better off today than we were on May 11? Do we feel like we made the right choice, or did we do the bidding of those who had the money to make up our minds for us? I know one thing: Wood County and West Virginia at-large will surely miss the principled, focused leadership we once sent to Charleston. I hope one day we come to our senses, not necessarily for us, but for the future of our kids, community and planet.
***
Griffin Bradley is a lifelong Wood County resident, graduate of West Virginia University, and a contributing author for Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action
Posted: May 23, 2026 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Grateful for community support
May 23, 2026
Eric Engle
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action (MOVCA) was proud to take part for the first time this year in the Parkersburg Area Community Foundation’s Give Local MOV annual day of giving. Our organization received $8,655 from 22 donors to whom we express our deepest and most sincere gratitude and appreciation.
Our climate and environmental nonprofit organization got its start in October 2015 when a group of local citizens in Wood and Washington counties, led by a few deeply concerned and enterprising individuals, decided to come together to form what was initially a chapter of the national environmental organization Citizens’ Climate Lobby. Not long after, we decided to broaden our mission and collectively adopted the name Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.
A sister of one of our founding members, a very talented graphic artist, designed a fantastic logo for us and, as they say, the rest was history. Over more than a decade, we’ve accomplished more together than space for this column could possibly allow for me to elaborate on, but I’d like to share some things about what we do and some upcoming activities.
MOVCA tables numerous area events throughout the year including Marietta Earth Day, the Ohio River Sweep cleanup (where we serve lunch to volunteers with some tabling materials at the Ohio River Islands National Wildlife Refuge), the Parkersburg and Wood County Public Library Library Fest, the MOV Multicultural Festival, the Rivers, Trails and Ales Festival in Marietta, and at least occasionally the Volcano Days at Mountwood Park and events like “No Kings” protests.
Our tabling resources include a fantastic canopy with our name and logo and signature colors produced by Easton Printing, climate voter yard signs you may have seen around town, informative pamphlets and handouts on numerous important subjects related to our mission and goals, t-shirts, bumper stickers, buttons, fridge magnets and information from other organizations and individuals with whom we partner.
MOVCA hosts or cohosts free public events with expert speakers, free public film showings; and hosts, cohosts or helps promote free online or other in-person engagement opportunities from organizations like ReImagine Appalachia, the Ohio River Valley Institute, the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, Fair Shake Environmental Legal Services, Buckeye Environmental Network, Save Ohio Parks, Washington County for Safe Drinking Water, the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Marietta’s Green Sanctuary Committee, West Virginia Citizen Action Group, the Sierra Club Chapters of West Virginia and Ohio and many, many more.
Our organization sponsors Student Climate Ambassador programs at area high schools and is proud to support a program right now led by a Parkersburg High School science teacher called the Native Roots Club, wherein PHS students are working with local elementary school kids to develop, restore and protect monarch butterfly and other pollinator habitats at their schools and in the community. We also had a chance last fall to showcase the arts by hosting an Environmental Justice Truth Tellers exhibition of 10 portraits of climate and environmental activists painted by artist Robert Shetterly as part of his Americans Who Tell the Truth series. The South Parkersburg Branch of the Parkersburg and Wood County Public Library hung the portraits from Oct. 18 through Nov. 17 and provided us incredible space to host events surrounding the portrait displays, including getting to speak with Robert Shetterly himself online.
We’re particularly proud to have been able to publish these weekly Climate Corner Column pieces in the Parkersburg News and Sentinel and its sister paper The Marietta Times since March 2021. We so appreciate the cooperative work of the newspapers’ Executive Editor Christina Myer and staff. We’re also deploying air quality monitors across the MOV and in surrounding counties that link to the PurpleAir monitoring network, and are in talks with the Environmental Health Project to potentially make use of their air quality data analysis tool called AirView Public to provide detailed information to the public about what the numbers mean. If you’re interested in obtaining an air quality monitor, please contact me at ericengle85@yahoo.com or visit map.purpleair.com, where you can also view the publicly available data from air monitors that are currently in operation.
One event we’re participating in and supporting is The Great Ohio Climate March, taking place May 16 – 28, which is a march through Southeast Ohio culminating in a Rally Lobby Day at the Ohio Statehouse on May 28. Meetings with Ohio legislators that day begin at 2 p.m. You can learn more at greatohioclimatemarch.org. We’re also encouraging participation in two other ongoing projects, one each in West Virginia and Ohio.
On the West Virginia side, we’re encouraging folks to complete the WV Utility Impact Project Survey. The WV Utility Impact Project is “a grassroots advocacy campaign collecting data from West Virginians to hold utility companies — such as AEP — and regulators accountable for skyrocketing energy and water bills.” You can complete the survey at https://form.jotform.com/260745171610047 or by visiting WV Utility Impact Project on Facebook.
On the Ohio side, we’re encouraging folks to sign a petition to amend the Constitution of the State of Ohio to ban data centers in the state that consume more than 25 megawatts of electricity. You can find out where to go to sign the petition and learn more about these efforts at conserveohio.com. The goal is 413,000 Ohioan signatures by or before July 1.
You’ll continue to see great billboards throughout the MOV, designed by MOVCA Board Member and graphic designer, Aaron Dunbar, and the deployment of our great yard signs this election year. We thank all those who have supported us over the years, all our current members and all those who care about taking action to stabilize and protect our shared global climate, lived environments and health and well-being.
***
Eric Engle is board president of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.
Posted: May 16, 2026 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: AI, data centers a dangerous spreading plague
Climate Corner: AI, data centers a dangerous spreading plague
Local columns
May 16, 2026
Aaron Dunbar
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
Silicon Valley wants to control every single aspect of your life. They want to tell you what you can and can’t think. They want to control your movements. They want to monitor your every word. They want to strip the masses of their critical thinking skills, and to be able to crush any sign of dissent with the push of a button. They want us to be totally and helplessly dependent on them.
And now they’re coming for our communities.
The large-scale data center buildout we’re seeing spread across the country like a particularly virulent strain of plague is the latest mechanism through which big tech seeks to expand its empire of control over us lowly consumer peons. These data centers are, of course, being built to facilitate the ubiquitous and largely unwanted insinuation of artificial intelligence into every conceivable facet of our lives.
There’s a deeply perverted irony to the fact that tech giants are seducing their way into communities by promising data center job booms through one side of their mouths, while proudly boasting about how artificial intelligence is expected to eliminate entire workforce sectors with the other.
Said CEO and AI consultant Elijah Clark, in an interview with Gizmodo last year: “CEOs are extremely excited about the opportunities that AI brings. As a CEO myself, I can tell you, I’m extremely excited about it. I’ve laid off employees myself because of AI. AI doesn’t go on strike. It doesn’t ask for a pay raise. These things that you don’t have to deal with as a CEO.”
As for the purported jobs we’re to expect will come rolling into town with the construction of these facilities? In one pitiful instance reported by Cleveland.com back in March, a $136 million data center in Northeast Ohio receiving a $4.5 million sales tax exemption was slated to create a whopping ten new full-time positions. And this is supposed to somehow even remotely compensate for the immense damage being done to our communities by these resource hungry behemoths?
The buildout of data centers is rapidly becoming an ecological catastrophe. Environmental tolls from these facilities can include cancer-causing forever chemicals, the draining of critical water resources, infrasound and light pollution, wildlife habitat loss, deadly air pollution including smog and acid rain, along with a vast array of other issues. That includes, most notably, a massive explosion in greenhouse gas emissions, with WIRED recently estimating that dirty power sources for planned data center facilities could emit some 129 million tons per year — handily eclipsing the greenhouse gas outputs of numerous entire nations.
Famed Epstein associate Bill Gates at one point went to great lengths to style himself as some sort of benevolent climate savior, even authoring the best-selling book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster” in 2021. Then, all at once, he appeared to have an abrupt change of heart in October of last year.
“Although climate change will have serious consequences – particularly for people in the poorest countries – it will not lead to humanity’s demise,” he wrote. “This is a chance to refocus on the metric that should count even more than emissions and temperature change: improving lives.”
Suddenly, it seemed, reducing greenhouse gas emissions in order to avoid a climate disaster wasn’t all that important to Gates. It’s surely no coincidence that Microsoft was now stumbling headlong into the AI race, with the company currently poised to abandon its 2030 clean energy targets as a result of increased energy demands. I would also be remiss not to point out that around this time, Microsoft’s AI was being implemented by Israel to carry out its barbaric campaign of genocide and ecocide in Gaza — a chilling portent of how we can likely expect these dystopian technologies to be used once conflict and social unrest brought on by environmental collapse begin to manifest in ernest.
Palantir CEO Alex Karp, whom I genuinely believe to be a sociopath, was pressed last year about the unconstitutionality of the Trump Administration’s horrific attacks on Venezuelan fishing boats, blatant war crimes carried out with the aim of invading the country and pillaging its 300 billion barrels of oil.
“Part of the reason why I like this questioning,” Karp replied, “is the more constitutional you want to make it, the more precise you want to make it, the more you’re going to need my product. So you keep pushing on making it constitutional. I’m totally supportive of that.”
Palantir, for the uninitiated, is a nearious tech company with its tentacles in everything from healthcare to mass surveillance, farmland management to autonomous weapons, the CIA, the U.S. military, and more. In March, Palantir’s Anthony Bak and Mehdi Alhassani published a column in the billionaire-owned Washington Post entitled “Don’t forget who wins in the fight against data centers,” arguing that “Bipartisan efforts to stop the build-out will make AI accessible only to the wealthy.”
“The surest way to guarantee that artificial intelligence becomes a tool of the wealthy elite,” they claim, “is to block the infrastructure that would make it cheap for everyone else. Across the country, though, a growing coalition of activists, local officials and leaders on both the left and right are fighting explicitly to halt data center construction, restrict energy development, stop microchip production and slow the build-out of the backbone upon which cheap AI will depend.”
In other words, these two stooges for the wealthy elite, writing in a propaganda rag owned by the wealthy elite, truly think you’re stupid enough to believe that they have your best interests at heart. The best way to shield ourselves from being exploited by the wealthy elite, they argue, is to welcome them into our communities with open arms.
I don’t know about you, but the future these people are creating for us is not a future I want to live in.
I don’t want data center hubs leaking PFAS into the water supply so that my government can spy on me. I don’t want to be exposed to constant air, noise, and light pollution so that half the country’s jobs can be replaced by artificial intelligence. I don’t want to see ecosystems and natural resources destroyed to help companies like Palantir and Anthropic commit large-scale massacres of Iranian schoolchildren. I don’t want to cede the precious last fumes of Earth’s remaining carbon budget so that an elite cadre of megalomaniacs can reign supreme over the tattered remnants of our world.
And that’s why I’m doing something about it.
I’m proud to say that I’m a part of the aforementioned “growing coalition of activists fighting explicitly to halt data center construction.”
Everyday people across Ohio are engaged in an ambitious effort to amend our state’s Constitution, in order to ban the construction of large scale data centers that consume over 25 megawatts of energy per month. Under the banner of Conserve Ohio, volunteers are working hard to collect signatures that would put this initiative on the ballot to be voted on in our November election.
Together, we hold the power to prevent Silicon Valley from steamrolling small communities to enact their dystopian vision of the future.
For more information on where to sign the petition, or to get involved in our efforts, please visit conserveohio.com. The petition is also available to sign during business hours at Cobbler John’s in Marietta.
Aaron Dunbar is a member of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.
Posted: May 9, 2026 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: The ‘scare’
May 9, 2026
Callie Lyons
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
For many years, the story of C8 or PFOA contamination in the Mid-Ohio Valley was framed as nothing more than a “scare.” Journalists who covered it were accused of using inflammatory and irresponsible language to frighten people.
Calling it a “scare” became a way to dismiss the message without ever confronting the contamination. Because if this was a scare, the problem wasn’t the poison — it was the reaction.
This framing had consequences.
Critical health advisories were withheld from the public because officials did not want to cause a “scare.”
We are talking about guidance that involved the most vulnerable — infants, pregnant women, the elderly, and people with compromised immune systems — all advised by a federal agency not to drink the water. The directives were never provided to those it was intended to protect.
And, they were never revoked.
What is actually more frightening? The poison or the way it was covered up?
Calling the crisis a “scare” undermined its significance. Attempts to define the crisis were limited to words that were safe and palatable, diluting the truth.
The message was watered down — which only served to prolong the deception.
We are, after all, talking about a silent killer, an invisible crime scene, the mass poisoning of millions, and generations of victims with no end in sight. How can such an enormous, ongoing problem be communicated effectively? For me, the answer was a new approach. So, recently I launched a true crime science podcast “Killer Chemistry” to tell the story in a different way to new audiences.
Presenting this vast environmental crisis in this way does nothing to diminish the science.
Instead, it is absorbed incidentally.
And that matters.
Because the people living with the consequences of this crisis who were incidentally exposed should not have to navigate technical language to understand what happened to them.
By using the language and mechanism of a true crime podcast, I am turning to a genre I have come to understand and respect as a journalist — a genre that most effectively communicates the kinds of truths people would rather not face.
The poison was the problem, but instead of addressing it, the response was to filter the information, diluting the truth in the process.
The reality is — this story is offensive. Not because of how it’s told but because of what actually happened.
More than 20 years into this public crisis and more than 40 years after industry and regulatory authorities became aware of the poison in the water, it occurs to me that the diluted versions of this story were not scary enough — because the threat continues. It hasn’t been handled or remediated. Industry is allowed to continue to discharge the poison into the river by virtue of their permits. Water systems that were not included in the 2002 class action lawsuit — communities like Parkersburg — are still without filtration. The poison is still being consumed.
Here’s what you need to know:
* If you live in the Mid-Ohio Valley, you are being exposed through multiple pathways — and drinking water is a major concern.
* As a result of the class action lawsuit filed in Wood County over contaminated water, treatment facilities were built to filter the water for Belpre, Little Hocking, Tuppers Plains, Pomeroy, Lubeck, and Mason County, W.Va. Vienna later added a filtration system in accordance with federal health advisories.
* People who do not live in areas with filtered tap water can use carbon filtration systems to reduce exposure.
* If you have any questions about water quality, look up your utility on the Environmental Working Group’s tap water database — which provides information about contaminants and filtration. You can find the database at ewg.org.
Has the pervasive presence of this danger made us too comfortable to notice the threat?
It’s time to stop worrying about causing a scare and start telling the truth with the clarity people need to understand what’s at stake.
***
Callie Lyons is an author and investigative journalist who began covering the story of PFAS or forever chemicals more than 20 years ago. She launched the Killer Chemistry podcast this year — a true crime science podcast exploring the legacy of forever chemicals developed for the Manhattan project, which subsequently made their way into the biology of nearly every living thing on Earth.
Last Updated: May 2, 2026 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Time to step up on injection wells
Local columns
May 2, 2026
George Banziger
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
Last fall I received a phone call from someone in Parkersburg who reported that she witnessed brine waste (production waste from high-pressure hydraulic fracturing, i.e., fracking) being transported from railway freight cars in Parkersburg to trucks, which were taking the waste to the Deep Rock Disposal LLC facility in Warren Township, just outside Marietta. On receiving this news, I contacted the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Oil & Gas Resources Management (DOGRM), to ask about this issue. I was told that this process of shipping brine waste from West Virginia to Ohio is legal. This is one of the several ways that ODNR is failing Washington County — that is, the legal transport of brine waste from West Virginia to Washington County.
As much as half of the brine waste that comes to Washington County is from out of state (West Virginia and Pennsylvania). West Virginia has little injection-well activity because it requires companies to reveal the contents of brine waste. Federal law, by the so-called Haliburton Rule, allows companies to keep secret what is actually in brine waste. Of course, independent studies have noted that brine waste is radioactive and contains forever chemicals, heavy metals like arsenic, carcinogenic materials, and lead.
This practice of interstate shipment of brine waste by DOGRM is one of the several ways that this agency has failed us in Washington County. DOGRM continues to apply old (more lax) standards to the review of Class II injection well requests for permits; several permits have been approved since 2022 using the pre-2022 standards. This agency has typically refused to hold public hearings about permit requests. Furthermore, the DOGRM has not followed up on violations of its own rules. The county commissioners’ constituents in opposition to injection wells are represented by five water authorities, two townships, one village, the city of Marietta and the hundreds of people who attended injection-well events at Warren High School last April, at Marietta High School last fall (about a permit request for a Class I injection well at Ohio EPA), and the event at Washington State College where three nationally recognized experts on injection wells made presentations about the dangers and risks of injection wells.
Washington County now ranks number one in the state in the volume of brine waste injected into its grounds. From 2010-2025 over 3 billion gallons of brine waste were injected, one-third within two miles of the water protection area. What is important about injection wells is that the brine waste injected (albeit over 6,000 feet underground) does not stay where it is placed. Paid advocates and apologists for the oil and gas industry claim that brine waste stays permanently in the place where it is injected.
But this is not the case — it migrates. Traditional vertical production wells (not fracking wells) and orphan wells provide pathways for this migration. In 2020 a huge blow out of brine waste occurred in Noble County, for which Ohio taxpayers had to pay clean-up costs. Vertical production wells in Washington and Athens counties have been destroyed or damaged by brine waste (a legal suit on this issue is pending in Ohio courts). An investigative report on a major leak of raw petroleum at Veto Lake has still not yet been provided by DOGRM; it is likely that pressurized brine waste followed a pathway and pushed the petroleum to cause that breach, described as an “unprecedented migration.” Brine waste has migrated into water supplies in Oklahoma. It is just a matter of time before that happens here.
At its April 9 public meeting the Washington County commissioners were each asked by a member of Washington County for Safe Drinking Water whether they would step up and ask for a moratorium on injection wells in the county. Each commissioner made the same comment: that they do not believe that they are experts in this field of geology and engineering and that they trust the agency experts to make the appropriate judgments about the safety of injection wells. In light of the failures of DOGRM cited above to serve the interest of the citizens of Washington County, there is little reason to warrant this trust. We as members of Washington County for Safe Drinking Water and the hundreds of other residents of the county who oppose the proliferation of brine waste disposal in the county do not expect the county commissioners to review permit requests or to monitor injection wells. We are just asking them to join the Marietta City Council and many other agencies in the county to declare a moratorium on injection wells until assurances of safety of water aquifers and other resources can be made. Under the courageous leadership of Republican City Council President, Susan Vessels, a writ of mandamus signed by city council members and other city officials was delivered to Gov. Mike DeWine’s office November 2025. The governor has yet to respond. It is time for other elected officials in the county to step up or suffer the consequences at the ballot box!
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George Banziger, Ph.D., was a faculty member at Marietta College and an academic dean at three other colleges. He is a member of the Green Sanctuary Committee of the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Marietta, a member of the Washington County for Safe Drinking Water, and a contributor to Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action team.
Last Updated: May 2, 2026 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Why West Virginia’s rivers deserve a voice
Local columns
Apr 25, 2026
Charlise Robinson
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
I’ve stood on the banks of the Ohio River at sunrise, watching the water move steadily past. In moments like that it is easy to believe our rivers will always be there for us, unchanged. But working with communities across West Virginia has shown me a different reality. Our water shapes our health, our economy and our future.
In West Virginia, water is more than a resource. It’s part of our identity. It’s where families gather, where kids learn to fish and where generations have built their lives. It’s also the source of drinking water for communities that depend on it every single day. When that water is threatened, it’s not an abstract environmental issue, it’s personal.
That’s why the work of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition matters. Every day, we advocate for stronger protections and work alongside communities to ensure their voices are heard. Our role is not just to respond when something goes wrong, but to push for the kind of long-term solutions that prevent crises in the first place.
I’ve spoken with families who don’t take clean water for granted because they’ve seen what happens when it’s compromised. I’ve heard the frustration, the worry and the determination from people who simply want to trust their water again. Those conversations stay with you. They’re a reminder that this work is not about policies on paper, it’s about people.
Progress is possible but doesn’t happen on its own. It takes consistent advocacy, public awareness and the willingness to prioritize clean water even when it’s not the easiest choice. West Virginia has already seen the consequences of waiting too long to act. We know better now and that means we have a responsibility to do better.
There is a path forward. We can invest in stronger protections, modernize our water systems and ensure that every community has access to safe, reliable water. We can choose to value our rivers not just for what they provide today, but for what they can sustain tomorrow.
Supporting efforts to protect our rivers or speaking up when it matters are steps anyone can take. You don’t have to be a scientist or a policymaker to make a difference. You just have to care about the water that connects us all’
To learn more about our work visit our website at Wvrivers.org
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Charlise Robinson is Ohio River coordinator.
Posted: April 18, 2026 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Electrifying case studies, concepts for energy resilience
Apr 18, 2026
Jonathan Brier
Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Corner
I was talking with a farmer in March and a few things about that conversation stuck out, which I wanted to share more broadly.
Forest Lodge Orchard in New Zealand serves as a compelling case study by being the world’s first 100% electric, zero fossil fuel cherry farm, powered by its own 160kW solar array and 300kWh battery system. The 6-hectare farm achieved this by replacing 20 fossil fuel machines with electric versions, including the country’s first electric tractor, which drastically reduced operational costs to about $2 per hour. Ultimately, the orchard demonstrates that electrification is both environmentally sustainable and profitable, securing NZ0 Certification and seeing consumers pay a 15% premium for its produce. YouTtube has a 5 minute interview about the farm: tinyurl.com/jdah546
If you would like to talk more about these or other climate corner topics, stop by the MOVCA tent at the Marietta Armory in Marietta between 10 a.m. and 1p.m. on Saturday, April 25.
Last Updated: April 18, 2026 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: Public lands need protection
Apr 11, 2026
Randi Pokladnik
For the first eight years of my life, our family lived in a small rented house in Steubenville, Ohio. We had a tiny yard lacking any trees, so my mom would take my siblings and me to a local park. She would pack us a picnic lunch complete with a thermos of lemonade and we would ride the bus to Steubenville’s Beatty Park.
The time we spent at the park was magical. I think it makes me appreciate how valuable public lands like state parks and wildlife areas are today. In SE Ohio, parks also help our local economy. The outdoor recreation economy netted Ohio $20 billion in 2024 and employed more than 150,000 people. So why do Ohio’s politicians continue to support fracking our parks and wildlife areas, risking economic losses and degradation of the land?
For over three years, Ohio citizens have tried in vain to stop the leasing of Ohio’s State parks and wildlife areas to out-of-state oil and gas companies. If Ohioans had been able to submit public comments for HB 507, the bill that opened up the public lands to fracking, they would have said NO to fracking our public lands. But HB 507 was passed during a lame duck session in December 2022, with no public input. Ohioans continue to be excluded from fracking decisions, as the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission meets in Columbus, a 2-hour drive from the communities where most of the parks targeted for fracking are located.
The Oil and Gas Land Management Commission (OGLMC) is a five-member group responsible for deciding whether or not nominated portions of public lands or parks will be leased. The commission’s five members deciding the fate of Ohio’s parks and wildlife areas were all appointed by Governor DeWine. There has been considerable turnover of commission members during the past year, but the commission make-up remains primarily that of lawyers. The newest member, Chair Theresa White, is also the chief operating officer of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
No one on the OGLMC has any significant background in health or science. Additionally, there are no doctoral degree scientists working at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Science is not guiding the decisions to frack our parks; money is. On March 31, 2026, the OGLMC decided to lease more than 8,000 acres at Egypt Valley Wildlife Area and more than 500 acres at Salt Fork State Park, during a meeting that lasted less than 20 minutes.
What was discussed during that 20-minute period? The OGLMC are supposedly guided by the statute ORC 155.33, which says the commission can “approve or disapprove” lease nominations on the basis of nine considerations, including economic benefit, environmental impact, geological impact, impact on visitors, and public comments and objections. Considering the number of leases “rubber stamped” since this process began, it begs the question of what is really considered behind closed doors. During a January meeting this year, Theresa White said, “nothing legally requires the commission to explain its decisions.”
I live in Harrison County where there are approximately 3,700 active oil and gas wells, making us the #1 oil and gas producing county in the state. Jockey Hollow Wildlife Area, a biodiverse ecosystem located in our county, has been leased for fracking. As a scientist with a background in forest ecology as well as chemistry, I take exception to a recent comment from Theresa White: “None of the fracking is going to have well pads or production units on state property. So, this is for the oil and gas that is underneath state parks, underneath the wildlife areas. There’s oversight by the DNR division of oil and gas or resources management.”
Just because a well pad is not directly on a piece of land does not mean it doesn’t affect the surrounding area. Studies show that “living within about 3 miles of well pad flaring is associated with increased risk of preterm birth.” There isn’t a glass enclosure around well pads, so any air emissions float freely from the well pad. These emissions include methane and other volatile organic species like ethane, propane, n-hexane, n-octane, benzene and ethyne. A FLIR GF320 optical gas imaging camera can detect 19 different hydrocarbons that are released during a fracking operation.
Frack pads also contaminate local water sources. Chemical leaks and leaks of produced water from well pads contain contaminants like oil, grease, hydrocarbons, as well as heavy metals like arsenic, antimony, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, and zinc. Leaks from chemical additives stored on-site in tanks and radioactive radium isotopes in produced waste also threaten local water quality. These contaminants will make their way to streams and surface water in our parks regardless of where the well pad is located.
Fracking requires millions of gallons of surface water. Ohio law allows stream withdrawals of up to 2 million gallons a day for a 30-day period. ODNR records show that fracking by far uses a large percentage of surface water in fracked counties, the same counties that experienced record droughts in 2024 and 2025. A drive past well pads often reveal water lines pumping water from local streams.
Lastly, park visitors and wildlife will find it difficult to communicate once fracking has started. The noise from a well pad less than a mile from our home sounds like the Cleveland Airport runway; constant 24-hour noise. Ms. White and the OGLMC need to visit a well pad so they can experience first hand the damage that a frack pad has on a forested ecosystem.
“Over the past eight years, approximately 2,000 recorded incidents associated with oil and gas wells occurred in Ohio.” Given the number of accidents and spills at well pads, it is obvious that the Ohio Department of Natural Resources cannot be counted on to protect our parks.
Ohio’s public lands should not be sacrificed at the altar of the oil and gas industry, but sadly they are. As Earth Day approaches, isn’t it time for all Ohioans to push back against the politicians that are willing to sacrifice our precious public lands for a buck?
Randi Pokladnik, Ph.D., of Uhrichsville, is a retired research chemist who volunteers with Mid Ohio Valley Climate Action. She has a doctorate degree in environmental studies and is certified in hazardous materials regulations.
Posted: April 4, 2026 by main_y0ke11
Climate Corner: No kings, no exceptions
Apr 4, 2026
Jean Ambrose
Easter is the most important day in the year for Christians. It commemorates the state torture and execution of a political protester and agitator, Jesus of Nazareth, more than 2,000 years ago — and the disappearance of his body two days later.
No one could have anticipated that minor event would become the foundation of a religious and political movement spanning millennia, one that today claims about 62% of Americans as followers.
In historical terms Christianity’s spread was remarkable. Early Christianity created a radical community rooted in the belief that all people were made in the image of God and therefore deserving of dignity and respect. Their compassion was widely noticed. They cared for the sick, shared resources with the poor, and offered women, widows, and single people a place of honor and leadership that was rare in the ancient world. They challenged practices such as infanticide and caste systems.
Their faith spread not through force or political power, but through networks of relationships. They demonstrated their beliefs through the way they lived — through humility, generosity, and courage in the face of persecution. They offered hope: a vision of a loving God and a future shaped by redemption rather than endless cycles of suffering.
By the time the Roman emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in the year 313, the groundwork had already been laid by generations of ordinary people living out a countercultural ethic of compassion and justice.
Political scientists have identified a striking threshold known as the 3.5% rule. Research popularized by political scientist Erica Chenoweth suggests that nonviolent, sustained protests involving this percentage of a population almost always succeed in achieving political change. It is considered a tipping point — one that governments find nearly impossible to ignore.
Fast forward to the state of Christianity today. A years-long Pew Research Center study shows a clear trend. In 2007, 78% of adults in West Virginia identified as Christian. By 2023, that figure had fallen to 64%. Nationwide, only 62% of Americans identified as Christian. Belief in God also declined. In 2023, 86% of West Virginians said they believed in God, down from 93% in 2007. The number who were absolutely certain of God’s existence dropped sharply, from 76% to 56%.
In 2023, 70% of West Virginians said religion was important in their lives, compared with 89% in 2007. In the same period, the share who seldom or never attended services rose from 41% to 51%. There has also been a major increase in the number of people who describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated. In West Virginia, that figure grew from 19% in 2007 to 31% in 2023. Nationally, it reached 29%.
Another telling shift concerns morality. When asked whether belief in God is necessary to be moral and have good values, a majority said no. Increasingly, people believe they can make up their own minds about what is right and wrong without requiring an intermediary to tell them what to do.
According to the Gospel accounts, Jesus reduced the law to two commandments: love God and love your neighbor. That is the whole of it — no exceptions. The necessity for last weekend’s protests around the country would have been clearly understood by the early Christians.
And the question of who our neighbor is is about to become far more urgent.
Climate change is already displacing people from their homes through drought, wildfire, flooding, and rising seas. In the coming decades, millions — perhaps tens of millions — will become climate refugees, forced to leave the places they love not because of war or crime, but because their land can no longer sustain life.
Some will come to our borders. Some will move within our own country. All will be vulnerable.
How we respond to them will be one of the defining moral tests of this century.
So why are so many people who call themselves Christians making exceptions to Jesus’ command to love our neighbor? Why are they supporting mass arrests, incarceration in detention camps, and deportations, or policies that separate families and turn away the vulnerable — now, when the number of displaced people is only beginning to grow?
If we claim the name Christian, honesty requires that we measure ourselves against the teachings we profess to follow.
The qualities that allowed Christianity to grow so quickly are the very qualities that now seem diminished. It is not a coincidence that religion is declining in importance in the United States and in West Virginia. What once attracted people was not doctrine or political power, but the radical life that Jesus lived — and the example he inspired others to follow. His way of being a king was to enter Jerusalem on a donkey. He sided with the poor and sick. He told his disciples, before he was executed, that the true leader is the “servant of all.”
Who can doubt that he would have been a protester last Saturday?
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Jean Ambrose is a member of the MOV Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Stewardship of the earth is one of six Quaker testimonies for living.
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