Called Aquasalina, the de-icer is made from brine found in oil and gas wells. While the oil and gas industry, and sellers,The brine contains radium, which is linked to bone, liver and breast cancers. In 2018, the health department concluded that someone applying Aquasalina to a driveway for roughly 8 hours 12 times a year is exposed to about 7.2 millirems of radiation, a fraction of the 300 millirems Ohioans are exposed to each year naturally, a health department spokesperson said.
At that level, someone using the de-icer would be exposed to more than 600 millirems of radiation per year, and 8,519 millirems over 20 years, the health department found. The proposed bills never passed the legislature and their sponsors have not answered questions about them.Environmentalists question the use of any Aquasalina as a de-icer, arguing that it could seep into soil and groundwater and take up to 1,600 years to decay.
The health department’s initial assessment did not consider exposure to children or the product’s use on stairs and sidewalks, said Teresa Mills, executive director of the
The fact that ODOT stopped using this product is telling. Oil/fracking industry waste products… what could possibly go wrong?