08/28/2025
Toxic Waste Scandal in Ohio: Companies Dumping Hazardous Materials
By Audrey Marlowe,
First thank you Audrey Marlowe for writing this.
What if I told you that beneath Ohio’s rolling hills and bustling cities lies a dark secret that’s been poisoning communities for decades? The state that proudly calls itself the “heart of it all” harbors some of the nation’s most contaminated land, where toxic chemicals seep into groundwater and dangerous substances threaten the health of thousands. Ohio is home to sites classified by the government as among the worst environmental hazards in the nation, where the exact nature of some chemicals remains unknown, creating a magnitude of cleanup challenges that affect communities for generations. This isn’t just another environmental story – it’s a crisis that touches every aspect of life in the Buckeye State. Underground rivers flow beneath communities like Hamilton, and when chemical dumps sit above them, scientists fear that contamination could pe*****te these water sources, with effects that could last for generations. The scope of this contamination is staggering, affecting not just the environment but the very fabric of Ohio communities.
On February 3, 2023, a train carrying chemicals jumped the tracks in East Palestine, Ohio, rupturing railcars filled with hazardous materials and fueling chemical fires at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, drawing global attention as governors urged evacuations for a mile around the site while flames and smoke billowed from burning chemicals. The disaster became a nightmare scenario when Norfolk Southern made a decision that would haunt the community. Three days after the derailment, about 1 million pounds of vinyl chloride was released from damaged train cars and set aflame, creating a black mushroom cloud that federal investigators later concluded was unnecessary. But the real scandal wasn’t just the derailment – it was what happened to the contaminated waste afterward. There was outrage in Michigan when Ohio’s governor announced that contaminants from the spill were being trucked to disposal sites in Michigan, creating a firestorm among residents and politicians when the shipments became known. The incident exposed a troubling reality about how toxic waste moves quietly across state lines.
The Invisible Interstate Highway of Hazardous Waste
Think of hazardous waste as an unwelcome guest that nobody wants to host, yet someone has to deal with it. It isn’t unusual for Michigan to import hazardous waste from other states, as well as Canada, with 70 percent of all hazardous waste being processed in commercial facilities in Michigan coming from out of state. This creates a bizarre economy where states essentially export their environmental problems to neighbors. Toxic transports arrive quietly on a daily basis and will continue to do so long after headlines fade, but the uproar over Ohio shipments has led officials to question the status quo and focus attention on more than a dozen hazardous waste sites that accept out-of-state waste. It’s like a toxic shell game where communities never know when they’ll be stuck holding the dangerous materials. States cannot block shipments of hazardous waste from disposal sites to licensed facilities, according to EPA regulations.
The Environmental Protection Agency ordered an Ohio utility to stop dumping dangerous coal ash into unlined storage ponds, as coal ash contains a toxic mix of mercury, cadmium, arsenic and other heavy metals that can pollute waterways, poison wildlife and cause respiratory illness among those living near massive storage ponds. Imagine living next to what’s essentially a toxic lake, knowing that every rainstorm could wash these poisons into your water supply. U.S. coal plants produce about 100 million tons annually of ash and other waste, and 91% of coal-fired plants have ash landfills or waste ponds that are leaking arsenic, lead, mercury and other metals into groundwater at dangerous levels. Some power companies are illegally manipulating data and monitoring systems to avoid cleanup requirements and have proposed inadequate cleanup strategies that will not restore groundwater quality. The industry’s response to these violations reads like a playbook for environmental irresponsibility.
In Hamilton, Ohio, past the city ballfields and swimming pool, a pungent chemical smell leads to the abandoned Chem-Dyne toxic waste dump site, where men in white protective suits repack chemicals from rusting and leaking drums, using deodorized cat litter by the ton to solidify liquids. This sounds like something from a dystopian novel, but it’s the reality of Ohio’s toxic legacy. In the old days, thousands of gallons were hauled here from at least 289 producers of poisonous waste from practically every source east of the Mississippi, with disposal methods that included pouring chemicals into massive open-air tanks to evaporate, breaking them open with pickaxes to drain into the ground, or dumping them into the nearby Great Miami River. More than 150,000 gallons of poisons ranging from PCBs to arsenic, cyanide and DDT remain on the site. The casual brutality of these disposal methods reveals an era when environmental protection was an afterthought.
The Environmental Crimes Task Force of Central Ohio investigates and may prosecute littering, open dumping and other environmental crimes, made up of representatives from SWACO, City of Columbus, Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, and Franklin County Prosecutor’s Office who work to protect environmental health and safety. These task forces represent a new approach to environmental law enforcement, treating toxic waste dumping as the serious crime it is. Cleveland and Cuyahoga County law enforcement agencies have partnered to stop illegal dumping and environmental crimes, with the Environmental Crimes Task Force working to aggressively identify, investigate, and prosecute individuals responsible for violating Ohio’s environmental laws. In 2023, the State of Ohio launched “Shine a Light on Dumpers,” with Crime Stoppers paying cash rewards of up to $2,500 for information leading to arrest and indictment of suspected illegal dumpers. The bounty system shows how seriously Ohio now takes environmental crimes.
Researchers found contamination from the East Palestine derailment along with problems in the response and cleanup that increased chances of chemical exposure, with the EPA determining months later that handheld air testing devices approved for screening homes could not reliably detect butyl acrylate at health-threatening levels, and not all spilled chemicals were monitored in buildings. This reveals a disturbing pattern where authorities appeared more concerned with managing public perception than protecting public health. When large amounts of chemicals are released, air can become toxic, chemicals can wash into waterways and seep into ground contaminating groundwater and wells, and some chemicals can travel below ground into nearby buildings making indoor air unsafe. The invisible nature of this contamination makes it particularly insidious – families couldn’t see, smell, or taste the danger lurking in their homes.
