(NEW YORK) — Three suspects have been arrested for allegedly throwing large landscaping rocks toward at least seven cars on Colorado roads last week, authorities said. The last of the seven incidents claimed the life of 20-year-old driver Alexa Bartell.
The suspects, all 18-year-old men, were taken into custody at their homes in Arvada overnight and are all facing charges of first-degree murder, with extreme indifference, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office announced. Additional charges are expected, authorities said.
It’s not clear which suspect or suspects — identified as Joseph Koenig, Nicholas “Mitch” Karol-Chik and Zachary Kwak — were driving during the spree, authorities said.
Around 10:45 p.m. on April 19, Bartell was driving when someone threw a large rock through her windshield, hitting and killing her, the sheriff’s office said.
In the hour before Bartell was killed, six other cars in the area had rocks thrown at them, according to the sheriff’s office. In two of those incidents, the drivers suffered minor injuries.
Nathan Tipton, a Lyft and Uber driver, was one of the four uninjured victims.
“When I found out that this series of events actually took a young lady’s life, I feel for Alexa and her family. It put me in a bit of a shock. My wife, it really got to her,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
“Nobody should lose their child for a random act. … It’s heartbreaking,” said Tipton, a dad of three.
The sheriff’s office said phone forensics and information from the public helped lead to the arrests.
(NEW YORK) — Active shooter incidents in the United States in 2022 decreased, while the number of people shot increased, according to statistics released by the FBI on Wednesday.
The FBI, which defines an active shooter as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area,” noted that it is not an all-encompassing gun report. Incidents related to self-defense, gang violence, drug violence, domestic disputes, hostage situations or other criminal acts were excluded, according to the bureau.
“While we see a decrease from 2021 to 2022, we see over time over the past 20 years since we’ve been reporting on active shooter incidents and certainly in the last five years, there’s been an overall increase in this number,” an FBI official told reporters on a call Tuesday.
Statistics released by the FBI on Wednesday show that in 2022, there were 18% fewer active shooter incidents than in 2021, but the number of casualties rose from 243 to 313. The number of people killed, however, decreased by three.
The rate of wounded law enforcement officers jumped dramatically, jumping from five in 2021 to 21 in 2022, according to statistics.
The month of May saw the highest number of incidents at nine, while Sunday was the day on which the most shootings were carried out.
The deadliest incident in 2022 was the mass shooting at the Robb Elementary School in Uvdale, Texas — and the largest number of incidents occurred in Texas. The July 4th shooting at a parade in Highland Park, Illinois, saw the most injuries, with 55 people wounded when a shooter opened fire on a parade.
Nearly half of the incidents occurred in open spaces, like the Independence Day parade, while 14 took place at a business and four took place at a school.
All but three of the 50 shooters were male, the youngest was 15 and the oldest was 70, according to the report. In nearly 50% of the incidents, shooters had a connection to the target of the shooting, whether it be the physical location or someone inside, the bureau said.
In 50 incidents, 61 firearms were used — 29 of them handguns, 26 rifles, three shotguns and three unknown.
(NEW YORK) — Communities in California are bracing for substantial flooding as near-record high temperatures threaten to melt record amounts of heavy snowpack.
Surface levels in bodies of water all over California are the highest they have been in decades since the start of the mega drought due to several rounds of atmospheric rivers that walloped the West Coast during the wet season.
The influx of rainfall has already saturated reservoirs and rivers, but a rampant rise in temperatures will quickly melt the incredible amount of snowpack that accumulated along the Sierra Nevada mountain range.
As many of the reservoirs are at capacity, the melting will have no where to go, experts say.
There is 221% more snowpack than average in some areas in California, according to the state’s Department of Water Resources. The National Weather Service has forecast spring inflow to be 90% of the average in several waterways in California.
In the San Joaquin Valley, heavy thawing is expected to start Wednesday and will rapidly increase over the next seven to 10 days, Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Monday during the “office hours” session he streams on YouTube.
Several rivers are already at high surface levels and will likely exceed the flood stage this week, Swain said. There is particular concern for the level of inundation in the Tulare Lake Basin, which is already overflowing.
“There problem is, again, there’s no where else for this water to go in the Tulare Lake Basin,” Swain said. “It’s just going to fill up like a bathtub.
Days before the substantial warming began on Wednesday. thousands of acres of farmland in the San Joaquin Valley were under several feet of water, with farmers racing to install new levees.
“The big melt is here,” Swain said.
By Friday, temperatures are expected to reach record highs from California to Washington, with temperatures near Sacramento reaching 92 degrees and 105 degrees in Palm Springs by the start of the weekend. The National Weather Service has issued a flood watch the Sierra Nevada mountains in California and Nevada from Thursday into Monday in anticipation of the rapid melting.
As the heat wave continues, temperatures are expected to stay warm even at night.
A cooldown is expected in early to mid-May, so there may not be a sustained period of above average temperatures, Swain said. However, once the heat is ignited this week, the region will continue to head toward rising temperatures through the summer, he added.
Earlier this month, the Department of Water Resources advised those living in snow melt areas to take steps to prepare for heavy flooding.
“Be aware of your flood risks, know where you’re headed, know where your house or your business sits within or around potential for flooding,” DWR officials said.
(NEW YORK) — One of at least seven victims of rock-throwing incidents in Colorado, the last of which took the life of a 20-year-old woman, is sharing his story.
Nathan Tipton, a Lyft and Uber driver, had just finished driving a customer when, around 10:15 p.m. Wednesday, he was driving southbound on Highway 93 and heard what “sounded like a shotgun blast,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
The sound “scared the heck out of me,” Tipton said.
He pulled over, but then “thought it was just wind damage, so I continued on home,” Tipton said.
As Tipton drove, he said he spoke on the phone to his wife, and she mentioned that the news was reporting that a woman was killed by a rock that struck her car.
Tipton then took a closer look at the driver’s side sliding glass door of his Chrysler minivan and said he saw “both those windows got shattered out — from what I imagine was a rock hitting my window.”
Tipton said he reported it to police and officers responded and took photos.
Tipton said no one was on the side of the road at the time his car was struck and he believes the object was thrown from a car driving in the other direction.
“When I found out that this series of events actually took a young lady’s life, I feel for Alexa and her family. It put me in a bit of a shock. My wife, it really got to her,” he said.
“Nobody should lose their child for a random act. … It’s heartbreaking,” said Tipton, a dad of three.
About 30 minutes after Tipton’s car was struck, around 10:45 p.m., 20-year-old Alexa Bartell was driving when someone threw a large rock through her windshield, hitting and killing her, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said.
In the hour before Bartell was killed, six other cars in the area had rocks thrown at them, according to the sheriff’s office. In two of those incidents the drivers suffered minor injuries.
Tipton said he’s grateful that he didn’t have an Uber or Lyft customer in his car at the time his minivan was hit.
To the suspect or suspects, Tipton said his message is: “Grow up … turn yourself in. Give this family some closure on what happened to their daughter. They didn’t deserve to have their daughter taken away from them.”
“I hope Alexa and her family can get some type of justice,” he added.
The suspect’s car may have been a light-colored pickup truck or SUV, the sheriff’s office said. A $17,000 reward has been offered, according to the sheriff’s office.
Anyone with possible information is asked to call Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at 720-913-STOP (7867).
(NEW YORK) — A wrong address, a mistaken car, and stray basketball – five times over six days, seemingly mundane interactions turned violent or deadly after one party pulled out a firearm.
Though the facts in each instance vary, experts tell ABC News that the cases broadly reflect the sheer numbers of firearms in the United States and elements of gun culture that have bled into vital legal frameworks governing self-defense.
“There’s absolutely a risk that the combination of loosening gun carry laws, relaxing self-defense laws, and politicizing self-defense through pardons and the like could lead to more incidents like the ones that we’ve seen,” law professor Eric Ruben told ABC News.
The incidents began in Kansas City, MO, when 84-year-old Andrew Lester shot 16-year-old Ralph Yarl after he mistakenly approached Lester’s home and rang his doorbell after looking for the wrong address. Two days later, Kevin Monahan, 65, shot and killed Kaylin Gillis, 20, when she and her friends pulled into his driveway mistakenly in upstate New York.
The same day, Antonio Caccavale, 43, shot at the car of Waldes Thomas Jr., 19, and Diamond Darville, 18, who drove into the wrong driveway while delivering groceries with Instacart in Florida.
On April 18, Robert Louis Singletary, 24, shot at a family, including a 6-year-old girl, after a stray basketball rolled into his yard in North Carolina. In Texas, that same day, Pedro Tello Rodriguez Jr, 25, allegedly shot two high school cheerleaders after they mistakenly entered the wrong car.
Experts warn that the incidents reflect the sheer number of firearms in the U.S., with estimates suggesting there are more than 400 million firearms in circulation throughout the nation.
“The prevalence of guns is fueling what we’re seeing. We are seeing the idea that we are a shoot-first culture,” Johns Hopkins professor Joshua Horwitz told ABC News’ Pierre Thomas. “Everybody seems to be afraid, they’ve been told to be afraid.”
While each of these cases includes a different set of facts, similar cases often rely on a set of laws governing self-defense, according to ABC News legal contributor Kimberly Wehle.
The “castle doctrine” is a common law principle, codified by many state legislatures, that allows individuals to use reasonable force to protect themselves in their homes against intruders.
Florida expanded the idea of the castle doctrine in 2005, passing a law that permits residents to “stand your ground” if they believe they are preventing death or bodily harm, or a felony, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Ten states have since adopted laws with similar language about standing one’s ground.
However, some legal scholars believe this push for broader self-defense gun rights is a product of the U.S. gun culture rather than firmly rooted in the Second Amendment or legal traditions.
“The loosening of self-defense, this is actually a lot of the rhetoric, and a lot of the legal changes are actually contrary to the American legal tradition,” law professor Eric Ruben said.
Ruben said that multiple signals – including trial outcomes, public comments from politicians, and decisions to pardon notable defendants – have contributed to a meaningful social norm about using guns in defense.
“If we were trying to reduce violence, the norms are as important or more important than the letter of the law,” he said.
Trials of Kyle Rittenhouse, who fatally shot two men in Kenosha, WA, and George Zimmerman, who killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, were found not guilty after jury trials, strengthening the public perception of firearms used in self-defense, according to Ruben. Public statements by politicians who promise to pardon individuals who use guns in self-defense further strengthen the social norms of standing one’s ground.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott recently made such a public promise, tweeting that he was “working as swiftly as Texas law allows” to pardon Daniel Perry, an Army sergeant found guilty of murdering a protester in 2020, according to Ruben. Ruben noted that such comments further strengthen the public’s perception of acceptable self-defense gun use, which often is not aligned with the laws governing actual firearm usage.
Harvard professor David Hemenway explained to ABC News that Americans’ perceptions of self-defense gun use are often unrealistic. Research from 2019 found that a high percentage of guns used in self-defense are utilized in manners that are not socially beneficial, such shootings related to drugs, gangs, and escalating arguments, rather than home invasions.
When he examined data from National Crime Victimization Surveys, Hemenway found little evidence that self-defense gun use reduces the chance of injury or property loss. Studying self-defense gun use for over 20 years, Hemenway summarized his research to the idea that carrying a gun, even in self defense, makes people less safe.
“The evidence seems to indicate that this should not be a surprise what happened, and it’s sad,” he told ABC News about the recent incidents.
Nevertheless, America’s self-defense gun laws have bent in favor of more guns in the hands of more citizens.
“I think there is a narrative in this country being pushed by the gun industry and certain legislators that a person needs to be armed in public at all times to be safe,” Allison Anderman, Giffords Law Center director of local policy, told Martha Raddatz on ABC’s “This Week.”
With last week’s string of incidents exemplifying seemingly mundane interactions gone wrong, experts worry the incidents will likely send a chilling public message about the danger of common mistakes.
“It is going to create a chilling effect to deliver an Amazon package, to trick or treat, to have a postal worker or a delivery service just make a common sense mistake,” Wehle said.
(TEXAS) — At least four people of interest have been identified in a shooting at an after-prom party in Texas over the weekend that injured nearly a dozen teenagers, authorities said Tuesday.
Eleven teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19 were injured in the shooting, which occurred very early Sunday, just after midnight, at a residence on County Road 263, just north of Jasper in the Deep East Texas region, officials said.
The sheriff’s office initially said nine teenagers were injured, though have since learned of two additional victims in the shooting who went to the hospital the following day, according to Jasper County Sheriff Mitchel Newman.
Three of the victims remain hospitalized, while eight are recovering at home, the Jasper County District Attorney’s Office said.
The shooting occurred at an after-party that was attended by more than 250 people following the Jasper High School prom, authorities said.
The Jasper County Sheriff’s Office and the Texas Department of Public Safety have increased the officer presence at schools within the county “out of an abundance of caution,” Newman said.
“We will bring those responsible to justice and want to remind the public that violence will not be tolerated in this county,” Newman said during a briefing Tuesday. “Our kids deserve to be safe.”
A motive in the shooting is unclear at this time, Newman said. Deputies are continuing to process evidence and statements and follow leads in the shooting to establish suspects and motives, he said.
“I don’t know if you can find a motive where you would go shoot 11 innocent children, but we’re looking for it,” Newman said.
A second shooting occurred within the city limits of Jasper around 12:45 a.m. Sunday that did not result in any injuries, authorities said. A vehicle involved in that shooting was seen at the after-party on County Road 263 and has since been processed for evidence, Newman said. Authorities are investigating a possible connection between the two shootings, Newman said.
The sheriff’s office was reluctant to release any additional information on the after-prom party shooting — including the caliber of weapon used and if there was more than one shooter — until an arrest is made in the case.
“We’re close to answering more questions, but until we get our answers and we get these people arrested where they won’t seek revenge on our children, then at that time we will release everything we’ve got,” Newman said.
The Texas Department of Public Safety and the Jasper County District Attorney’s Office are assisting in the investigation, Newman said.
The district attorney’s office is also offering support to victims of this “senseless and intolerable act of violence,” Jasper County District Attorney Anne Pickle said at the briefing.
The Jasper County Sheriff’s Office requested witnesses to send any photos or videos they may have from the party amid the investigation.
(FLORIDA) — A woman has admitted to dressing up as a clown and fatally shooting her husband’s first wife at the victim’s Florida home more than 30 years ago, though her attorney still maintains her innocence.
Sheila Keen Warren, 59, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in a Palm Beach County court on Tuesday as part of a plea deal reached weeks before her trial was set to begin. She was arrested in 2017 for the murder of Marlene Warren, who was shot in the face after opening the front door of her home in Wellington in 1990 and died two days later.
Keen Warren withdrew her plea of not guilty and changed her plea to guilty during Tuesday’s court appearance. The plea deal calls for a 12-year sentence, though Keen Warren’s attorney, Greg Rosenfeld, told reporters outside the courtroom that he expects her to be home in 10 months. If convicted, she faced a life sentence.
Keen Warren, who has been in jail since her arrest, will receive 2,039 days of credit toward her sentence, Judge Scott Suskauer said while accepting the deal.
Rosenfeld called the plea “a big win for our client” — while continuing to deny her guilt in the shocking crime.
“It was an incredibly hard decision for our client, saying you did something that you didn’t do,” Rosenfeld said. “I mean, nothing’s harder than that.”
“Our client wanted to go home,” he added.
During the hearing, prosecutors outlined evidence they would have brought forward during the trial that they say implicated Keen Warren in the fatal shooting on May 26, 1990 — including testimony from witnesses from a local costume shop that placed her buying a clown costume and wig approximately two days before the incident.
Palm Beach County Assistant State Attorney Reid Scott said that witnesses inside the home at the time of the shooting saw “a clown come to the front door, hand Miss Warren balloons and flowers before shooting her in the face,” then drive away in a white Chrysler LeBaron.
A white Chrysler LeBaron was found approximately four days later in a Winn-Dixie parking lot that had “trace evidence,” including long brown human hairs and what law enforcement officers “described as artificial orange-like fibers,” Scott said. A search of Keen Warren’s home at the time turned up similar fibers, he said.
At the time of the murder, Keen Warren was a repossession agent who would repossess cars for the victim’s husband, who operated a used car and rental business, prosecutors said.
Keen Warren and the victim’s husband, Michael Warren, would go on to own a restaurant in Tennessee and marry in 2002, prosecutors said. The two lived in Abingdon, Virginia, until Keen Warren’s arrest in 2017.
The facts of the case “would lead a jury to find her guilty of the crime,” Reid said.
When asked by the judge if they were aware of any physical evidence that may exonerate the defendant, Keen Warren and her attorney both responded no.
Warren’s son, Joseph Ahrens, was at home at the time of the shooting, authorities said. He told Judge Suskauer he agreed with the terms of the plea deal.
“The only thing I want to say is, all through this trial, I didn’t see any remorse,” Ahrens told the court while appearing remotely.
“God be with her,” he added.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Unit reopened the homicide investigation in 2014. After contacting witnesses and conducting additional DNA analysis, authorities said they established probable cause linking Keen Warren to the murder. A grand jury subsequently issued a true bill for first-degree murder a month before her arrest in September 2017.
(FLORIDA) — A woman has admitted to dressing up as a clown and fatally shooting her husband’s first wife at the victim’s Florida home more than 30 years ago, though her attorney still maintains her innocence.
Sheila Keen Warren, 59, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in a Palm Beach County court on Tuesday as part of a plea deal reached weeks before her trial was set to begin. She was arrested in 2017 for the murder of Marlene Warren, who was shot in the face after opening the front door of her home in Wellington in 1990 and died two days later.
Keen Warren withdrew her plea of not guilty and changed her plea to guilty during Tuesday’s court appearance. The plea deal calls for a 12-year sentence, though Keen Warren’s attorney, Greg Rosenfeld, told reporters outside the courtroom that he expects her to be home in 10 months. If convicted, she faced a life sentence.
Keen Warren, who has been in jail since her arrest, will receive 2,039 days of credit toward her sentence, Judge Scott Suskauer said while accepting the deal.
Rosenfeld called the plea “a big win for our client” — while continuing to deny her guilt in the shocking crime.
“It was an incredibly hard decision for our client, saying you did something that you didn’t do,” Rosenfeld said. “I mean, nothing’s harder than that.”
“Our client wanted to go home,” he added.
During the hearing, prosecutors outlined evidence they would have brought forward during the trial that they say implicated Keen Warren in the fatal shooting on May 26, 1990 — including testimony from witnesses from a local costume shop that placed her buying a clown costume and wig approximately two days before the incident.
Palm Beach County Assistant State Attorney Reid Scott said that witnesses inside the home at the time of the shooting saw “a clown come to the front door, hand Miss Warren balloons and flowers before shooting her in the face,” then drive away in a white Chrysler LeBaron.
A white Chrysler LeBaron was found approximately four days later in a Winn-Dixie parking lot that had “trace evidence,” including long brown human hairs and what law enforcement officers “described as artificial orange-like fibers,” Scott said. A search of Keen Warren’s home at the time turned up similar fibers, he said.
At the time of the murder, Keen Warren was a repossession agent who would repossess cars for the victim’s husband, who operated a used car and rental business, prosecutors said.
Keen Warren and the victim’s husband, Michael Warren, would go on to own a restaurant in Tennessee and marry in 2002, prosecutors said. The two lived in Abingdon, Virginia, until Keen Warren’s arrest in 2017.
The facts of the case “would lead a jury to find her guilty of the crime,” Reid said.
When asked by the judge if they were aware of any physical evidence that may exonerate the defendant, Keen Warren and her attorney both responded no.
Warren’s son, Joseph Ahrens, was at home at the time of the shooting, authorities said. He told Judge Suskauer he agreed with the terms of the plea deal.
“The only thing I want to say is, all through this trial, I didn’t see any remorse,” Ahrens told the court while appearing remotely.
“God be with her,” he added.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Unit reopened the homicide investigation in 2014. After contacting witnesses and conducting additional DNA analysis, authorities said they established probable cause linking Keen Warren to the murder. A grand jury subsequently issued a true bill for first-degree murder a month before her arrest in September 2017.
(ALABAMA) — Nearly 90 shell casings were found on the floor of the Dadeville, Alabama, dance studio where four people were killed and 32 others were injured this month, according to court testimony on Tuesday.
In a bond hearing for the six defendants, Jess Thornton, a special agent with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, revealed new details about the April 15 shooting, which terrorized attendees of a Sweet 16 party and rattled the small Alabama community.
A Tallapoosa County official, who was in the courtroom, confirmed to ABC News the contents of Thornton’s testimony, which was recounted in local reports.
Thornton said that roughly 50 to 60 people were inside the dance hall at the time of the shooting.
At one point, he added, a DJ’s speaker fell over, making a sound similar to a gunshot and prompting several of the partygoers to lift their shirts to show they had guns.
An adult told the crowd that anyone over 18 or carrying a gun needed to leave. Soon after, shots rang out.
Thornton described how at least two of the defendants were linked to the massacre.
He said that one of the defendants, Willie Brown, denied being at the party, but shell casings from an unrelated incident, in which Brown was a suspect, matched a casing found in the dance hall.
Another suspect, whom Thornton did not name, was wearing an ankle monitor from an unrelated shooting, whose GPS tracker showed he was in Dadeville.
Meanwhile, a gun that was determined to have been fired was found on the chest of Corbin Holston, one of the victims, said Thornton.
A circuit court judge has 48 hours to determine whether the defendants will be held on bond.
(ERIE, Pa.) — It’s been over a decade since researchers began looking into microplastics in the Great Lakes.
Now, the issue is getting renewed attention amid broader concerns about the potential effects of microplastics on the human body and a possible future link to the hydro-fracking boom currently happening in the region.
Microplastics form as plastic pieces in the environment erode into smaller and smaller pieces, eventually becoming so small that they can’t be seen with the naked eye, according to Sherri Mason, director of sustainability at Penn State University’s Barr Campus on Lake Erie, who’s spent years researching microplastics in waterways.
Unlike other types of litter, the plastic bits will take far longer to disappear.
“If you were to see a paper bag on the side of the road, it’s unsightly, but within weeks it has completely, what we call, mineralized. There are organisms in the soil that can use it as a food source,” Mason told ABC News’ Start Here podcast host Brad Mielke.
Mason’s research has focused on Lake Erie, which has a concentration of microplastic that rivals the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a floating landfill that’s twice the size of Texas, according to multiple studies.
But the majority of plastic in Lake Erie is less than 5 millimeters in diameter, much of it approaching microscopic size “about the width of a human hair,” Mason said. She describes it as a “smog” of particles drifting around, which also makes it impossible to meaningfully clean up.
Mason and her students spent a year collecting samples of trash from Lake Erie and sorted them into different categories.
“Thousands of bottles is the No. 1 thing. Bottles and cups, and then a lot of chip bags. It’s mostly a lot of food packaging,” Mason said.
Before plastic gets pressed into a shape like a water bottle or bag, it starts off as plastic pellets that get fed into big machines.
The pellets, about the size of a grain of rice, are transported by millions on freight trains before being siphoned out onto trucks that take them to factories. Not far from the banks of Lake Erie, small piles of pellets litter the tracks where they’ve spilled out during this process, Mason said. When it rains, the pellets start making their way into nearby Mill Creek and later into lakes and oceans.
And it’s just one of the ways that plastic can end up in bodies of water, according to Mason.
What’s more, one study suggests that the average person may be ingesting about 5 grams of plastic per week, or the equivalent to the mass of a credit card, according to a study commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund. Microplastics have even been found in the lungs of living people, according to recent research. Mason said that microplastics are getting so small that in some cases they are able to find their way beyond the digestive tract.
“When you get a piece that’s smaller than a hundred microns or the width of a human hair, they can migrate across the gastrointestinal tract. They get carried in the blood. We have found them in the blood, and they can make their way into certain organs. They can make their way across the placental boundary,” Mason said.
The World Health Organization says that although more research is needed, so far it has found no direct evidence that microplastics make people sick. The Plastic Industry Association, which represents plastic makers, said in a statement that claims about microplastics “lack sound data,” and that plastic is overwhelmingly safe. In fact, the association said, plastics are essential to hygiene, which is why it is in so many medical products.
But Mason is concerned that the use of plastics shows no signs of slowing down.
The Midwest is currently in the midst of a hydro-fracking boom, and half of the fracking wells in Pennsylvania produce ethane. Ethane can be turned into polyethylene, which is the most common type of plastic.
“So now there is a connection between basically hydro-fracking and the plastics industry,” Mason said.
Last year, a new plant opened just north of Pittsburgh that converts this material into plastic, and two more facilities are being proposed in Ohio.
According to the Center for International Environmental Law, the health of the fossil fuel industry is deeply reliant on plastics, and these investments could cause plastic production to spike.
Mason believes that the ultimate responsibility to curb plastic usage lies with the companies that make and use them.
“You’ve given your money to that corporation. You end up with their container, which you don’t want, but then you also have to pay to get rid of it. You have to pay to clean it out of the water,” Mason said.
