The Ohio Department of Natural Resources must provide a public hearing on Powhatan Salt Company LLC’s permit applications to carve solution mining wells from the Salina salt formation along the Ohio River in Monroe County, Ohio.

These wells will allow Powhatan’s sister company, Mountaineer NGL Storage LLC, to store millions of gallons of natural gas liquids (NGLs).

The permit applications do not fully document how construction of this NGL storage facility threatens local groundwater supplies. The wells would be drilled close to the Ohio River and just one mile from Clarington, Ohio’s drinking water wells. The applications provide no comprehensive plan to prevent leaks, well failures, drilling-related emergencies, or detailed discussion of local geology and hydrology. The project reviewed only a quarter-mile radius around each of the three proposed injection wells, ignoring nearby fracking operations and private wells.

Collectively, these application deficiencies demonstrate that Powhatan’s permits do not fully consider the risks to residents’ safety and underground water supplies.

Mountaineer NGL Storage LLC’s recently announced plans to store “carbon-free” hydrogen are misleading. Although hydrogen combustion does not produce carbon dioxide, the hydrogen would be manufactured from fossil fuels, thus contributing to our ever-worsening climate crisis.

Moreover, there are no known existing sources of hydrogen in the region nor even any “green” projects to create hydrogen from water using electrolysis and renewable energy sources. Even if hydrogen was available, storing it creates additional explosion hazards for people who live in the area.

It is more than likely the Mountaineer facility will store NGLs to make plastics. This is a key permit to supply raw materials for ethane crackers, such as the PTT Global Chemical cracker proposed in Belmont County, and Shell’s cracker in Beaver County, PA, scheduled to come online in 2022. Exxon is also considering making plastics in the region. It is imperative that these NGL infrastructure permits undergo a comprehensive environmental review, including the impact of more plastic production and the environmental justice impacts of an expansion of fracked plastic infrastructure in the Ohio River Valley.

Plastic is made from ethane, a natural gas liquid. Ethane is “cracked” in a facility called an ethane cracker that can produce more than 1.6 million tons of virgin plastic each year. At least 18.3 trillion pounds of plastic have been manufactured since 1950 — more than half since 2004. Less than 9% has ever been or will ever be recycled; 12% has been incinerated.

Since the U.S. fracking boom there is more fracked gas than markets can absorb. Gas sales will decline further as the world acknowledges the climate crisis and renewable energy becomes more accessible. The gas industry is turning to plastics to solve its market problems, and eyeing the Ohio River Valley as a fracked plastic mega-hub.

Petrochemical companies claim that plastics manufacturing is safe for the community and environment, but it is telling that the petrochemical hub in the Gulf Coast is openly referred to as “Cancer Alley.” Toxic chemicals used to make plastics are known carcinogens and endocrine disruptors.

Petrochemical companies promise jobs and economic growth. They are temporary promises and would come with a steep cost: centuries of metastasizing harm, desecration of Ohio’s stunning natural landscapes, and major decreases in property values. From extraction to manufacturing to transportation to “disposal,” fracked plastics contribute to climate change. If plastic was a country, it would be the fifth largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world.

This project will only slightly delay the fast-approaching and inevitable collapse of the fracking industry as the world responds to climate change.

There are people alive today who remember a world before plastic pollution and an economy that did not depend on fracking. Now there is one ton of plastic for every person on Earth.

Microplastics are in our food, water, air, and bodies. The average person ingests a credit card’s worth of plastic each week. Researchers in Italy recently discovered microplastics in human placentas.

Fifteen million tons of plastic enter the oceans every year. We can’t recycle our way out of this problem. We must change course now.

The Mountaineer NGL facility would encourage more fracked plastic buildout. Because of their emissions and explosion risks, this infrastructure would inhibit recreational use of the Ohio River, hunting, fishing and tourism, and discourage homebuyers from settling in the area.

The community needs more information, including a fair and accessible public hearing and a comprehensive fact sheet, about the risks associated with Powhatan Salt Company LLC’s permit applications and what it means for our environmental future.

Alexi Goldsmith is the national organizing director of Beyond Plastics, a Bennington, Vermont, organization with the mission to end plastic pollution through institutional, economic and societal changes.

Ben Hunkler is a Bridgeport resident and an organizer of the group known as Concerned Ohio River Residents, which opposes further development of the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries.