Oil worker says fracking waste eroded his jaw

Texas-based journalist Saul Elbein believes solid waste is the most important—and most overlooked—environmental story of our lifetimes. Yes, he argues, climate change, air pollution, and liquid waste from fracking are crucially important issues. But across Texas and Oklahoma, he says fracking companies have been spreading their potentially radioactive, PFAS-filled solid waste on farmland and near communities, largely without scrutiny, for decades. Saul told me he sees this as a modern-day Silent Spring: a slow-moving, mostly invisible contamination story hiding in plain sight, one that will only become undeniable once until the damage is already done. In his latest reporting for The Barbed Wire, that story comes into focus through a whistleblower named Lee Oldham. For years, Lee spread drilling waste across fields in the Dallas-Fort Worth area—waste he didn’t know was radioactive. Over time, he began to suspect something was wrong. Eventually, Lee says, his teeth began to loosen, and his jaw began to break down. It’s a shocking claim that Saul cannot definitively prove was a result of Lee’s exposure to fracking waste. But what he can prove is that, on the very site where Lee once spread that fracking waste, developers built an elementary school where children attend class today. He says the soil has never been comprehensively tested. In our conversation, Saul walks me through how this happens—how millions of tons of drilling waste can be legally classified as “non-hazardous,” spread across land in rapidly developing areas, buried without record, and effectively lost to history. We also talk about what we know, what we don’t, and what it would take to hold anyone accountable if those sites turn out to be unsafe. Finally, we talk about why this might be one of the few climate-adjacent issues that could unite people across political lines. You can listen to our interview at the top of this newsletter or on any podcast app, watch it on Youtube, or read an edited version below. This transcript has been edited for readability. You can find a full PDF transcript, with timestamps, here. Emily Atkin: Tell me a little bit about Lee. Saul Elbein: Lee was an oil and gas worker in the Barnett Shale, a massive drilling region beneath the Dallas–Fort Worth area—the fourth-largest metro in the country. Around 2010–2011, he worked in waste disposal during the fracking boom. At the time, anyone in trucking, hydraulics, or waste management suddenly found themselves working for the oil and gas industry. Lee was one of those people. He worked at what’s called a “land farm,” where solid waste from drilling operations was spread across farmland. The waste would come in by vacuum truck, workers would unload it—often getting completely covered in it—and then spread it over fields. EA: I didn’t even realize drilling waste gets spread on farmland at all—let alone that it could be radioactive. What is this waste? SE: When you drill a horizontally fracked well, you generate enormous amounts of solid waste—sometimes thousands of tons. These are called “cuttings,” basically the bits of rock brought up by the drill. The issue is that shale formations can contain toxic elements—like arsenic and uranium—that occur naturally underground. To understand why, you have to go back about 300 million years. North Texas was once a shallow sea fed by rivers carrying minerals from ancient mountain ranges. Those minerals, including toxic elements, mixed with massive amounts of organic material from plankton and algae. Over time, that material was compressed into oil and gas. But the toxic elements, like uranium, were compressed right along with it. So now, millions of years later, we drill into that rock and bring all of it back up together. EA: So we’re drilling deep into ancient rock that contains naturally occurring toxic elements, and we’re pulling that material up to the surface. And on top of that, the drilling process uses chemical lubricants, including PFAS. Is that right? SE: Exactly. Think of it like drilling into a wall, but on a massive scale. You’re bringing up contaminated rock, and you’re mixing it with industrial chemicals used in the drilling process. It’s a bit like that Lord of the Rings line: “The dwarves delved too greedily and too deep.” We’re unleashing things that were buried for a reason. EA: So Lee’s job was to take this material—radioactive cuttings mixed with PFAS—and spread it on farmland. How is that legal? SE: It comes down to how the law defines oil and gas waste. Because of a federal exemption—often referred to as the “Bentsen amendment”—oil and gas waste is legally classified as non-hazardous. That means the EPA has limited authority over it. In Texas, the Texas Railroad Commission regulates this waste, and their primary concern is salinity: making sure it’s not so salty that it kills crops. So under that framework, spreading waste on farmland is considered acceptable. The idea is that organic compounds will break down and the rest will mix into the soil, possibly even acting as fertilizer. Tracy Wholf: Radioactive corn? I’m sorry, I have to jump in—I don’t want that on my farmland. SE: And here’s where the framing gets tricky. Industry often says: yes, it’s radioactive. But so is a banana. Even I used to think, surely it’s not really radioactive. Because if it were, no one would allow this, right? But we’ve known for years that oil and gas operations expose workers to radiation. There have been major payouts over it. It’s not new. The problem is: when something becomes normalized, it stops seeming alarming—even when it should be. EA: So how did Lee start to suspect something was dangerous? SE: One day, he heard that metal tracks from his equipment had been rejected by a scrap yard after testing positive for radiation. That made other moments click into place—like seeing a worker lying on a pipe and being warned to get off it if he wanted to have kids. Lee started to realize this wasn’t isolated. He did some research and found that oil and gas operations commonly involve radiation exposure. He asked his employer for protective equipment and medical testing. Instead, he was told he was “too smart for his own good” and reassigned. EA: And then something happens to Lee physically. It seems there was a medical incident. Can you tell us about that? SE: Years later, while working on a remediation site, he got a face full of dust from dried drilling waste. Over time, his teeth began to loosen. His jaw deteriorated. His vertebrae started breaking down and fusing. By his 50s, he struggled to eat solid food, like an apple. Now, we can’t definitively say what caused this. There hasn’t been comprehensive testing. But we do know that radium—a decay product of uranium—is a bone-seeking carcinogen. It can accumulate in bones and emit radiation from inside the body. So while we can’t prove causation, the mechanism is plausible and deeply concerning. EA: When did Lee realize this might affect more than just him? SE: Years later, he returned to Johnson County and discovered that an elementary school had been built on the very site where he had spread drilling waste. That school is operational today. EA: Have they tested the soil? SE: Not in a meaningful way. There was a Phase I environmental assessment before construction, but that’s essentially a visual inspection. It explicitly does not detect hidden contamination. A Phase II—which involves actual soil testing—was not conducted, or at least not shared. Now, after public pressure, the school district says it will conduct testing. EA: Zooming out, how big is this problem? SE: In the Dallas-Fort Worth area alone, there have been around 21,000 fracked wells. Each one produces thousands of tons of waste. That adds up to tens of millions of tons, much of it spread on land in rapidly growing suburban areas. And in Texas, companies can legally bury waste without notifying landowners. So we’re talking about vast quantities of potentia…