About Air and Water

Westchester Gasette: Oh, My.

2011-09-22T19:08:00.000-05:00

Westchester Gasette: Oh, My.: So here's Part 2 of that story about an Arlington Church's business deal with Chesapeake: Wednesday, August 31, 2011 High Point Church...

Westchester Gasette: What the Quack is Going On?

2011-09-22T19:07:00.000-05:00

Westchester Gasette: What the Quack is Going On?: The 5,000-member High Point Church was founded in 2000 by Simons and his wife, April, whose brother is Joel Osteen , well-k...

Fracking near dams could cause catastrophic event per US Army Corps Engineers

2011-09-08T14:04:00.000-05:00

Fracking near dams could cause catastrophic event per US Army Corps Engineers

Westchester Gasette: It's a Hurricane

2011-08-28T19:00:00.000-05:00

Westchester Gasette: It's a Hurricane: A LANDMAN on the Arlington, TX City Council?? Or What Is It, Pray Tell? The Councilman does have a very nice résumé. Here's how you,...

Westchester Gasette: It's a Hurricane

2011-08-28T18:59:00.000-05:00

Westchester Gasette: It's a Hurricane

Natural gas fields have provided a fount of cash for Texas cities Second of two parts Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11066/1130239-84.stm#ixzz1Fw4LbYBB

2011-03-07T11:23:00.004-06:00

By Bill Toland - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Monday, March 07, 2011
Note by Faith Chatham: I have read a lot of coverage on gas drilling in the Barnett Shale. Mr. Toland's 2 part series is the best articles I have read in years and can serve as a primer of what resident's need to know when the land man starts showing up in their neighborhood. I am excerpting some of his second article below but recommend that you click on the READ MORE LINK and read the entire article.

Talk of the town
Despite success stories, people remain wary about urban gas drilling, and it's hard to overstate the degree to which gas drilling dominates the news cycles.

The local newspaper, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, runs a weekly report on all the newly active rigs in the 24-county area -- usually there are several dozen new rigs put up each week. In a three-day span three months ago, the newspaper and TV news reported on the city school district's ongoing gas lease negotiations, city council's long-debated air quality study, lawsuits over polluted water wells, and an early morning gas leak (and resulting vapor cloud) at an XTO Energy well site north of Fort Worth.

Some in Fort Worth object to urban drilling notionally, concerned about long-term water quality and health effects. But others object to the way they've been treated by the industry and its "landmen" -- the free-agent real estate negotiators who gather signatures on behalf of drillers, bundling them and then selling the waivers, titles and leases to energy companies.

The process sometimes pits neighbors against one another.

"I would describe myself as very pro-drilling, pro-oil, pro-gas," said Laura Reeves, a Fort Worth resident who lives in an impeccably decorated townhome and can't remember the last Democrat she voted for.

"I have friends who work for Chesapeake. I know people who need their jobs. I don't disagree with drilling for gas. I disagree with drilling for gas in the middle of a (populated area)."

Chesapeake Energy wants to drill on a vacant tract of land to the immediate south of her new, gated townhome community. Her complex, and that empty tract --being called "Westridge" by Chesapeake -- are just a few hundred yards west of Como, a historically black neighborhood. Mrs. Reeves says the industry has tried to take advantage of the poverty levels in Como.

The landmen wanted Mrs. Reeves and neighbors to sign waiver agreements, allowing Chesapeake to drill within Fort Worth's prescribed setback radius if city council subsequently approves the variance request. The "setback" is the minimum distance that a well must be from the nearest home; in order to drill inside the city's 600-foot setback radius, an energy company has to get enough neighbors to sign waiver agreements, and it often sweetens the pot with waiver bonuses.

The waiver payments are thank-you notes written in cash, because the people who sign the waivers -- townhome residents, renters, business owners -- often won't see any other money from the drilling. They won't get royalties, because most don't own any mineral rights, and they won't receive a surface lease payment, because the drilling isn't happening on their property.

The first offer that Mrs. Reeves received from the landman that knocked on her door in autumn 2009? Sign the waiver and she gets $74.

Small potatoes to her -- but more attractive to those living in poverty, she said. Waiver bonuses can increase dramatically if you live closer to a drilling site, or if you live in a more well-to-do neighborhood, but generally landmen want to get the best lease and waiver terms, at the lowest price, for the companies they represent.

"You may as well sign," the landman told her, because "78 percent of your neighbors have signed." Turns out only three of her 70 fellow townhome owners had signed waivers, she said.

But because landmen aren't employed by the energy companies, and because there is no state board that licenses or regulates these middlemen, punishing them for misrepresentations is difficult, according to foes.

"I realized some of them had signed the waiver and didn't have a clue what they signed," said Mrs. Reeves. "They felt stupid because they just believed what the landmen told them."

When Mrs. Reeves and others tried to fight off the Chesapeake project -- organizing community meetings, attending city council hearings, going door-to-door in Como -- she says she was caricatured by some in the energy industry as a bored, blonde housewife.

"I was insulted," she said. "They were counting on me, the white blonde, not [setting] foot in a black neighborhood."

But she did, and for a time, it appeared that the drilling project near Como would be rebuffed; Chesapeake withdrew its drilling request last August. In February, though, landmen made headway with one of the neighbors to the west of the Westridge site, a prominent businessman, and Chesapeake now intends to drill a few hundred feet to the west of its original location.

Ms. Knowles, the master's student -- whose boss, state Rep. Lon Burnam, called for a moratorium on new Texas drilling permits -- said the landmen are often accused of misrepresenting the degree of neighborhood unanimity as well as the scope of the drilling projects. They say that the rigs will be up for only a few months, which is often true.

What they don't say is that the rigs can return again and again to drill new wells, as long as they have an active lease. Or that a "few months" of disruption can turn into a few years, or that your home value could decline.

"Nothing can be done if they lie, cheat or steal," she said.

Gas lines another issue
Another thing that landmen may or may not bring up is the issue of gas lines. To get the raw gas to market, the energy companies or subcontractors will also eventually have to build "gathering" lines from the pads to the nearest processing plant.

In Texas, energy companies and private pipeline owners are treated more or less like public utilities, and they have the ability to condemn pieces of private property, if need be, in order to lay the gathering lines.

"That creates a whole new issue," said Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis, a former Fort Worth city councilwoman.

"You get lines crisscrossing all over your city ... and once you've laid a line that's carrying natural gas, you can't develop it" or put other utilities beneath it, like electric or sewage. "The most you can do is put a surface parking lot on it."

And that's just the lines they know about. Pipeline maps and surveys have proven unreliable, and records from the Texas Railroad Commission, which issues the operating permits for the raw gas lines, are often incomplete, critics say.

"There are lines all over the place that really no one at the city levels were ever told," Ms. Davis said. "And we may find that it inhibits" future development -- or, worse, could cause an accident when someone tries to dig a backyard swimming pool and finds that the gathering line is not where the pipeline company thinks it is.

Add the 360,000 miles of gathering line in Texas to the 20,000 Barnett gas wells, all of it being monitored by just a handful of state inspectors, and people have good reason to worry. "Who can feel safe [when] that's the way it's functioning?" Ms. Davis said. "You can't trust these companies to self-police."

Read more article part 2: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11066/1130239-84.stm#ixzz1Fw5uh7LH

Texas Legislature 2011 Senate Committee Appointments - Contacts

2011-03-02T17:05:00.001-06:00

By Martha Estes - 2011 Texas Senate Committees
Committee of the Whole Senate (600)
Cmte. Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MembershipCmte.aspx?LegSess=82R&CmteCode=C600 &
Bills: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Reports/Report.aspx?ID=committee&LegSess=82R&Code=C600 &
Meetings: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MeetingsByCmte.aspx?Leg=82&Chamber=S&CmteCode=C600
Clerk: Patsy Spaw Phone: (512) 463-0100 Office: CAP 2E.22

Administration (C500)
Cmte. Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MembershipCmte.aspx?LegSess=82R&CmteCode=C500 & Bills: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Reports/Report.aspx?ID=committee&LegSess=82R&Code=C500 &
Meetings: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MeetingsByCmte.aspx?Leg=82&Chamber=S&CmteCode=C500
Clerk: Kara Crawford Phone: (512) 463-0350 Office: EXT E1.714

Agriculture & Rural Affairs (C505)
Cmte. Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MembershipCmte.aspx?LegSess=82R&CmteCode=C505 &
Bills: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Reports/Report.aspx?ID=committee&LegSess=82R&Code=C505 &
Meetings: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MeetingsByCmte.aspx?Leg=82&Chamber=S&CmteCode=C505
Clerk: Ashley Patton Phone: (512) 463-0340 Office: SHB 455

Business & Commerce (C510)
Cmte. Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MembershipCmte.aspx?LegSess=82R&CmteCode=C510 &
Bills: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Reports/Report.aspx?ID=committee&LegSess=82R&Code=C510 &
Meetings Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MeetingsByCmte.aspx?Leg=82&Chamber=S&CmteCode=C510
Clerk: Kimberly Selinger Phone: (512) 463-0365 Office: SHB 370

Criminal Justice (C590))
Cmte. Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MembershipCmte.aspx?LegSess=82R&CmteCode=C590 &
Bills Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Reports/Report.aspx?ID=committee&LegSess=82R&Code=C590 &
Meetings Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MeetingsByCmte.aspx?Leg=82&Chamber=S&CmteCode=C590
Clerk: Michaela Bernacchio Phone: (512) 463-0345 Office: SHB 470

Economic Development (525)
Cmte. Link: c
Bills Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Reports/Report.aspx?ID=committee&LegSess=82R&Code=C525 &
Meetings Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MeetingsByCmte.aspx?Leg=82&Chamber=S&CmteCode=C525
Clerk: Colby Karhan Phone: (512) 463-1171 Office: SHB 340

Education (C530)
Cmte. Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MembershipCmte.aspx?LegSess=82R&CmteCode=C530 &
Bills: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Reports/Report.aspx?ID=committee&LegSess=82R&Code=C530 &
Meetings: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MeetingsByCmte.aspx?Leg=82&Chamber=S&CmteCode=C530
Clerk: Holly Mabry Phone: (512) 463-0355 Office: SHB 440

Finance (540) (Sub-Committees: Medicaid C542 & Public Education Funding C543)
Cmte. Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MembershipCmte.aspx?LegSess=82R&CmteCode=C540 &
Bills: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Reports/Report.aspx?ID=committee&LegSess=82R&Code=C540 &
Meetings: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MeetingsByCmte.aspx?Leg=82&Chamber=S&CmteCode=C540
Clerk: Stephanie Hoover Phone: (512) 463-0370 Office: EXT E1.038

Government Organization (565)
Cmte. Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MembershipCmte.aspx?LegSess=82R&CmteCode=C565 &
Bills: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Reports/Report.aspx?ID=committee&LegSess=82R&Code=C565 &
Meetings: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MeetingsByCmte.aspx?Leg=82&Chamber=S&CmteCode=C565
Clerk: Jessica Schleifer Phone: (512) 463-1818 Office: SHB 630

Health & Human Services (610)
Cmte. Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MembershipCmte.aspx?LegSess=82R&CmteCode=C610 &
Bills: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Reports/Report.aspx?ID=committee&LegSess=82R&Code=C610 &
Meetings: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MeetingsByCmte.aspx?Leg=82&Chamber=S&CmteCode=C610
Clerk: Mason Moses Phone: (512) 463-0360 Office: SHB 420

Higher Education (560)
Cmte. Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MembershipCmte.aspx?LegSess=82R&CmteCode=C560 &
Bills: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Reports/Report.aspx?ID=committee&LegSess=82R&Code=C560 &
Meetings: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MeetingsByCmte.aspx?Leg=82&Chamber=S&CmteCode=C560
Clerk: Gonzalo Serrano Phone: (512) 463-4788 Office: SHB 320

Intergovernmental Relations (C520) (Subcommittee C523 on Flooding & Evacuations)
Cmte. Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MembershipCmte.aspx?LegSess=82R&CmteCode=C520 &
Bills: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Reports/Report.aspx?ID=committee&LegSess=82R&Code=C520 &
Meetings: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MeetingsByCmte.aspx?Leg=82&Chamber=S&CmteCode=C520
Clerk: Tiffany White Phone: (512) 463-2527 Office: SHB 475

International Relations & Trade (545)
Cmte. Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MembershipCmte.aspx?LegSess=82R&CmteCode=C545 &
Bills: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Reports/Report.aspx?ID=committee&LegSess=82R&Code=C545 &
Meetings: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MeetingsByCmte.aspx?Leg=82&Chamber=S&CmteCode=C545
Clerk: Natalie Fontenot Phone: (512) 463-0385 Office: SHB 335

Jurisprudence (C550)
Cmte. Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MembershipCmte.aspx?LegSess=82R&CmteCode=C550 &
Bills: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Reports/Report.aspx?ID=committee&LegSess=82R&Code=C550 &
Meetings: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MeetingsByCmte.aspx?Leg=82&Chamber=S&CmteCode=C550
Clerk: Katie Qualls Phone: (512) 463-0395 Office: SHB 350

Natural Resources (580)
Cmte. Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MembershipCmte.aspx?LegSess=82R&CmteCode=C580 &
Bills: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Reports/Report.aspx?ID=committee&LegSess=82R&Code=C580 &
Meetings: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MeetingsByCmte.aspx?Leg=82&Chamber=S&CmteCode=C580
Clerk: Tatum Reagan Phone: (512) 463-0390 Office: SHB 325

Nominations (C572)
Cmte. Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MembershipCmte.aspx?LegSess=82R&CmteCode=C572 &
Bills: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Reports/Report.aspx?ID=committee&LegSess=82R&Code=C572 &
Meetings: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MeetingsByCmte.aspx?Leg=82&Chamber=S&CmteCode=C572
Clerk: Bogan Durr Phone: (512) 463-2084 Office: EXT E1.716

Open Government, Select (585)
Cmte. Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MembershipCmte.aspx?LegSess=82R&CmteCode=C585 &
Bills: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Reports/Report.aspx?ID=committee&LegSess=82R&Code=C585 &
Meetings: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MeetingsByCmte.aspx?Leg=82&Chamber=S&CmteCode=C585
Clerk: Phone: Office: Not yet available.

Redistricting, Select (C625)
Cmte. Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MembershipCmte.aspx?LegSess=82R&CmteCode=C625 &
Bills: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Reports/Report.aspx?ID=committee&LegSess=82R&Code=C625 &
Meetings: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MeetingsByCmte.aspx?Leg=82&Chamber=S&CmteCode=C625
Clerk: Stephanie R Hoover Phone: (512) 463-8802 Office: SHB 460

State Affairs (570)
Cmte. Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MembershipCmte.aspx?LegSess=82R&CmteCode=C570 &
Bills: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Reports/Report.aspx?ID=committee&LegSess=82R&Code=C570 &
Meetings: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MeetingsByCmte.aspx?Leg=82&Chamber=S&CmteCode=C570
Clerk: Erin Fry Phone: (512) 463-0380 Office: SHB 380

Transportation & Homeland Security (C640)
Cmte. Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MembershipCmte.aspx?LegSess=82R&CmteCode=C640 &
Bills: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Reports/Report.aspx?ID=committee&LegSess=82R&Code=C640 &
Meetings: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MeetingsByCmte.aspx?Leg=82&Chamber=S&CmteCode=C640
Clerk: Tulsi Reddy Phone: (512) 463-0067 Office: SHB 450

Veteran Affairs & Military Installations (C650)
Cmte. Link: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MembershipCmte.aspx?LegSess=82R&CmteCode=C650 &
Bills: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Reports/Report.aspx?ID=committee&LegSess=82R&Code=C650 &
Meetings: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MeetingsByCmte.aspx?Leg=82&Chamber=S&CmteCode=C650
Clerk: Felicia Wright Phone: (512) 463-2211 Office: SHB 345

Texas' electric deregulation cost is tallied in study

2011-02-22T20:58:00.000-06:00

By Jack Z. Smith - The Fort Worth Star-Telegram - Tuesday, February 15, 2011

A report released Monday concludes that electric deregulation has cost Texas residential consumers more than $11 billion in higher rates and that the operator of the state's major power grid, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, has been poorly managed and industry-dominated.

The 101-page report, "The Story of ERCOT," is the result of a research project of the Steering Committee of Cities Served by Oncor and the Texas Coalition for Affordable Power, which works with 158 cities and other governmental entities to buy electricity in bulk.

Deregulation, it said, has resulted in higher rates for Texas power consumers rather than the lower rates forecast by lawmakers who passed the state law in 1999.

Before deregulation, Texas had cheaper rates than most states. Between 1999 and the first six months of 2010, however, Texas residential consumers "suffered greater increases [in electric rates] than residents in all but six other states," the report said.

"Had electric prices remained at the national average -- not below it, just at it -- Texas residential consumers would have saved more than $11 billion since the implementation of deregulation," the report said, citing data compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The entire deregulated Texas market, commercial, industrial and residential, "would have saved $15.5 billion had prices remained at the national average," the report said.

However, the latest EIA data, for November, shows that Texas' average residential electric rate was 11.37 cents per kilowatt-hour, below the national average of 11.7 cents.

Read more in the Fort Worth Star Telegram

Read more:

Reading E-Mail while tap water burns

2011-02-13T12:38:00.001-06:00

Texas AG asks U.S. House to block regulation of greenhouse gas emissions

2011-02-11T12:23:00.001-06:00

By DAVE MICHAELS Washington Bureau The Dallas Morning News - Feb. 9, 2011
WASHINGTON — Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott asked Congress on Wednesday to block the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, saying legislation would allow him to drop his lawsuits over the rules.
Abbott testified at a congressional hearing where Republican lawmakers grilled Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson over her agency’s move to regulate climate-altering gases emitted by industrial facilities.
A Republican bill would overturn the EPA’s finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and would prevent the agency from using the Clean Air Act to address climate change.
Texas’ fossil fuel producers, utilities and other businesses stand to benefit if Republicans succeed in blocking regulation, although President Barack Obama would almost certainly veto the bill. Texas Republicans have been at the forefront of efforts to stymie the EPA.
Abbott has filed six legal challenges of EPA regulations that address climate change. One of the lawsuits challenges the decision to invalidate parts of Texas’ clean-air program over its refusal to award permits for greenhouse gas emissions.
“I am here to tell you that if your legislation passes, that will mean that Texas will be dismissing those six lawsuits against the EPA,” Abbott told the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Jackson said the EPA was forced to take over parts of Texas’ clean-air program because the state failed to carry out its responsibilities. Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA sets thresholds for regulated pollutants, which states must enforce.
Texas’ refusal
While other states have challenged EPA regulation of greenhouse gases, Texas is the only state that refused to include greenhouse gases in its clean-air program. Jackson said businesses that wanted to build in Texas would have been unable to get permits without the EPA’s intervention.
“The Nucor steel facility just got a permit in the state of Louisiana,” Jackson told the committee. “If they wanted to build the exact same facility in Texas, they would need a permit for greenhouse gases — and they cannot get one because Texas refuses to consider those permits.”
Jackson also clashed with Texas Republicans on the committee over dozens of pollution permits that were invalidated when the EPA rejected three Texas permitting programs in September 2009. The EPA said the Texas programs failed to meet the standards set by the Clean Air Act.
Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville, complained to Jackson that Texas was singled out for disapproval, while other states with similar programs weren’t challenged.
“This appears to be Texas-specific,” Burgess said. “And if it is, that is wrong.”
But Jackson said EPA’s concerns with the quality of Texas’ clean-air programs went back to the Bush administration.
“When I became administrator, I found a situation where businesses in Texas have no certainty that the permits protect them from lawsuits for excessive pollution,” Jackson said. “The answer certainly could not have been to look the other way.”
Jackson testified on the same day that House Republicans unveiled their proposals for spending cuts, including a $1.6 billion budget cut for EPA in 2011. Such cuts could hurt the EPA’s ability to carry out its regulatory agenda.
‘Highhanded’ EPA
The agency has become a prime target for House Republicans who question the science of global warming and assert that EPA regulations create uncertainty for business.
“The EPA has been highhanded in Texas,” said Rep. Joe Barton , R-Arlington. “I don’t think the EPA had the authority to revoke these existing permits, and I think their [carbon dioxide] regulations are extremely onerous if implemented.”
Barton said the committee would probably approve the legislation, called the Energy Tax Prevention Act, in the next two months. Sen. James Inhofe , R-Okla., has sponsored the legislation in the Senate, where its path to passage is much less certain.
Some House Democrats, including Rep. Gene Green of Houston, said they disapproved of EPA regulation of greenhouse gases and preferred Congress to set standards. But it’s not clear that Green and other Democrats would vote for the GOP bill.
Much of Wednesday’s hearing revolved around Republicans and Democrats arguing about whether man-made activities are to blame for climate change.
Republicans faulted Democrats for ignoring the regulations’ impact on jobs and energy costs. Democrats blasted Republicans for trying to legislatively overturn the EPA’s finding that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health.
“Politicians overruling scientists on a scientific question — that would become part of this committee’s legacy,” Jackson said.
Read more in the Dallas Morning News

EPA Office of Public Engagement Notice: EPA Submits Draft Hydraulic Fracturing Study Plan to Independent Scientists for Review

2011-02-08T11:38:00.000-06:00

From Larmett.John@epamail.epa.gov

Dear Friend:

The draft plan is open to public comment.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) submitted its Draft Study
Plan on hydraulic fracturing for review to the agency’s Science Advisory
Board (SAB), a group of independent scientists. EPA scientists, under
this administration and at the direction of Congress, are undertaking a
study of this practice to better understand any potential impacts it may
have, including on groundwater. EPA has held a series of public
meetings, with thousands in attendance, across the country and developed
a sound draft plan for moving forward with the study.

EPA is planning to host webinars on Tuesday, February 15th and
Wednesday, February 16th to walk interested stakeholders through the
content of the draft study plan. We will be e-mailing details on how to
participate in these webinars later this week.

Best wishes,
John Larmett
Senior Public Liaison Specialist
Office of Public Engagement
Office of External Affairs & Environmental Education
Office of the Administrator
(202) 564-7842 - Office
(202) 280-8246 - Blackberry

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 8, 2011

EPA Submits Draft Hydraulic Fracturing Study Plan to Independent
Scientists for Review

The draft plan is open to public comment

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today
submitted its draft study plan on hydraulic fracturing for review to the
agency’s Science Advisory Board (SAB), a group of independent
scientists. Natural gas plays a key role in our nation’s clean energy
future and the process known as hydraulic fracturing is one way of
accessing that vital resource. EPA scientists, under this administration
and at the direction of Congress, are undertaking a study of this
practice to better understand any potential impacts it may have,
including on groundwater. EPA announced its intention to conduct the
study in March 2010 and use the best available science, independent
sources of information, a transparent, peer-reviewed process and with
consultation from others. Since then, EPA has held a series of public
meetings across the country with thousands attending and the agency has
developed a sound draft plan for moving forward with the study.

The scope of the proposed research includes the full lifespan of water
in hydraulic fracturing, from acquisition of the water, through the
mixing of chemicals and actual fracturing, to the post-fracturing stage,
including the management of flowback and produced or used water and its
ultimate treatment and disposal.

The SAB plans to review the draft plan March 7-8, 2011. Consistent with
the operating procedures of the SAB, stakeholders and the public will
have an opportunity to provide comments to the SAB during their review.
The agency will revise the study plan in response to the SAB’s comments
and promptly begin the study. Initial research results and study
findings are expected to be made public by the end of 2012, with the
goal of an additional report following further research in 2014.

Hydraulic fracturing is a process in which large volumes of water, sand
and chemicals are injected at high pressures to extract oil and natural
gas from underground rock formations. The process creates fractures in
formations such as shale rock, allowing natural gas or oil to escape
into the well and be recovered. Over the past few years, the use of
hydraulic fracturing for gas extraction has increased and has expanded
over a wider diversity of geographic regions and geologic formations.

For a copy of the draft study plan and additional information:
http://yosemite.epa.gov/sab/sabproduct.nsf/02ad90b136fc21ef85256eba00436459/d3483ab445ae61418525775900603e79!OpenDocument&TableRow=2.1#2

More information on hydraulic fracturing:
www.epa.gov/hydraulicfracturing

Eight of Nine U.S. Companies Agree to Work with EPA Regarding Chemicals Used in Natural Gas Extraction

2010-11-09T18:28:00.003-06:00

In a press release dated November 9, 2010, the EPA announced that eight out of nine of the largest hydraulic fracturing companies in the United States have agreed to submit "timely and complete information to help the agency conduct its study on hydraulic fracturing." The lone hold-out, Halliburton, has been served a susponea.

EPA conducting congressionally mandated study to examine the impact of the hydraulic fracturing process on drinking water quality; Halliburton subpoenaed after failing to meet EPA’s voluntary requests for information

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced that eight out of the nine hydraulic fracturing companies that received voluntary information requests in September have agreed to submit timely and complete information to help the agency conduct its study on hydraulic fracturing. However, the ninth company, Halliburton, has failed to provide EPA the information necessary to move forward with this important study. As a result, and as part of the agency’s effort to move forward as quickly as possible, today EPA issued a subpoena to the company requiring submission of the requested information that has yet to be provided.

EPA’s congressionally mandated hydraulic fracturing study will look at the potential adverse impact of the practice on drinking water and public health. The agency is under a tight deadline to provide initial results by the end of 2012 and the thoroughness of the study depends on timely access to detailed information about the methods used for fracturing. EPA announced in March that it would conduct this study and solicit input from the public through a series of public meetings in major oil and gas production regions. The agency has completed the public meetings and thousands of Americans from across the country shared their views on the study and expressed full support for this effort.

On September 9, EPA reached out to nine leading national and regional hydraulic fracturing service providers – BJ Services, Complete Production Services, Halliburton, Key Energy Services, Patterson-UTI, RPC, Inc., Schlumberger, Superior Well Services, and Weatherford – seeking information on the chemical composition of fluids used in the hydraulic fracturing process, data on the impacts of the chemicals on human health and the environment, standard operating procedures at their hydraulic fracturing sites and the locations of sites where fracturing has been conducted.

Except for Halliburton, the companies have either fully complied with the September 9 request or made unconditional commitments to provide all the information on an expeditious schedule.

More information on the subpoena and mandatory request for information on Halliburton’s hydraulic fracturing operations: http://www.epa.gov/hydraulicfracturing

Rob Lawrence
Senior Policy Advisor - Energy Issues

lawrence.rob@epa.gov

214.665.6580 (Desk)
214.665.7263 (FAX)

Fracked: Barnett Shale drilling chemicals found in blood and organs

2010-09-26T12:54:00.000-05:00

Fracked: Barnett Shale drilling chemicals found in blood and organs

Massive ice island breaks off Greenland

2010-08-07T12:46:00.004-05:00

By CNN - August 7, 2010
(CNN) -- A piece of ice four times the size of Manhattan island has broken away from an ice shelf in Greenland, according to scientists in the U.S.
The 260 square-kilometer (100 square miles) ice island separated from the Petermann Glacier in northern Greenland early on Thursday, researchers based at the University of Delaware said.
The ice island, which is about half the height of the Empire State Building, is the biggest piece of ice to break away from the Arctic icecap since 1962 and amounts to a quarter of the Petermann 70-kilometer floating ice shelf, according to research leader Andreas Muenchow.

"The freshwater stored in this ice island could keep the Delaware or Hudson rivers flowing for more than two years. It could also keep all U.S. public tap water flowing for 120 days," Muenchow said.

Muenchow's team is studying ice in the Nares Strait separating Greenland from Canada, about 1,000 kilometers south of the North Pole.
Satellite data from NASA's MODIS-Aqua satellite revealed the initial rupture which was confirmed within hours by Trudy Wohlleben of the Canadian Ice Service, according to the University of Delaware website.
Muenchow said the island could block the Nares Strait as it drifts south, or break into smaller islands and continue towards the open waters of the Atlantic.

"In Nares Strait, the ice island will encounter real islands that are all much smaller in size," he said.

"The newly born ice island may become land-fast, block the channel, or it may break into smaller pieces as it is propelled south by the prevailing ocean currents. From there, it will likely follow along the coasts of Baffin Island and Labrador, to reach the Atlantic within the next two years."

Environmentalists say ice melt is being caused by global warming with Arctic temperatures in the 1990s reaching their warmest level of any decade in at least 2,000 years, according to a study published in 2009.
Current trends could see the Arctic Ocean become ice free in summer months within decades, researchers predict.

Read more on CNN

Denton repeals item in new gas well drilling ordinance

2010-08-03T17:37:00.001-05:00

By Lowell Brown - Staff Writer Denton Chronicle - Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Denton city leaders tweaked their new gas drilling ordinance Monday after having second thoughts about a fee for wells outside city limits.

The City Council voted 5-0 to repeal a $1,800 annual inspection and administration fee for natural gas wells in the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction, or ETJ — land just outside the city where it has some limited powers. Council members Charlye Heggins and James King weren’t present for the vote.

The council approved the fee July 21 along with other drilling regulations in what city officials described as an interim ordinance that would apply until they could finish a comprehensive code review.

Energy industry representatives argued the fee was too high and questioned the city’s authority to expand its regulations outside city limits.

Council members voted to revoke the fee before it took effect at the request of city staff members but said they would revisit the issue in the second phase of the code overhaul.

City Attorney Anita Burgess said the action would allow the city time to make sure the fee was “tied to and consistent with” the city’s powers.

The city received “quite a few comments from the industry with regard to the assessment of these fees in the ETJ,” Burgess said during the meeting. “This is a little bit of a cutting-edge area and so it would be in the interest of the city to make sure that, as we proceed forward, we’re careful how we do it.”

Burgess said she remains confident that the city has the power to regulate the ETJ. The only question is the extent of that power, she said.

Council member Dalton Gregory, an advocate for stronger drilling regulations, said the city should be careful not to overcharge the industry.

At the same time, he said, inspection fees should be high enough to cover the city’s costs so taxpayers aren’t subsidizing drilling.

The new drilling rules are scheduled to take effect Wednesday. They include higher permit and inspection fees for wells within the city, stricter noise limits at drilling sites, and increased setbacks and screening between gas wells and structures such as homes and schools.

Council members, worried the city’s drilling rules were too lenient, passed the interim ordinance as an alternative to issuing a moratorium on new permits.

Mayor Mark Burroughs said he knew the swift approval process put a “healthy burden” on city staff and meant some regulations might need to be corrected along the way.

New study shows toxins travel more than a mile from natural gas compression stations

2010-07-17T12:20:00.002-05:00

Natural Gas Chemicals Disclosed-But Not Texas?

2010-07-14T18:50:00.003-05:00

By Sierra Club – July 14, 2010

Natural Gas Drilling Company Announces Partial Disclosure of its “Fracking” Chemicals
Pennsylvania Residents Will Benefit, but What about Texas?

Fort Worth, Texas – Natural gas drilling company Range Resources announced today that it would voluntarily disclose the chemicals it uses in Pennsylvania in the hydraulic fracturing process used to extract natural gas. But the company did not agree to disclose the large amount of chemicals it uses elsewhere, including Texas.

“We call on Range Resources to bring the same level of transparency to Texas that they have announced for Pennsylvania,” said Jennifer Powis, Sierra Club’s Senior Regional Representative in Texas. “While we are glad to see the company announce this first step, it’s only through full, nationwide disclosure and tough regulation of fracking chemicals that we can protect water and communities.”

Fort Worth-based Range Resources is an active driller in Texas’ Barnett Shale, boasting on its website that it makes its "highest rate of return" in Texas.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is a process in which oil and gas companies try to get at hard-to-reach natural gas by pumping millions of gallons of water, chemicals and sand into a well at high pressures to create cracks in underground geological formations, freeing trapped gas and letting it flow to the surface. Currently there's a loophole in the Safe Drinking Water Act that allows oil and gas companies to
frack without any testing of how those chemicals affect our air and water.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is seeking public input and suggestions on the design of their fracking research study. The EPA’s Science Advisory Board -- an independent, external federal advisory committee -- recently recommended that the scope of the upcoming EPA study of hydraulic fracturing be broad and encompass the entire life cycle of these "frack jobs. "

Energy needs to provide industry leadership in Barnett Shale

2010-07-14T17:48:00.005-05:00

By MITCHELL SCHNURMAN - Fort Worth Star Telegram - July 14, 2010

Devon Energy Corp. works the Barnett Shale the right way. It's the biggest natural gas producer in the region and at the same time has become an industry leader on the environment.

With several initiatives, Devon, based in Oklahoma City, has cut greenhouse gases, limited emissions and recycled more than 400 million gallons of water used in "fracking" wells. Over the past decade, it has won numerous awards for its efforts, which boosted the bottom line as well as the environment.

On older wells, Devon is replacing one part -- a valve about the size of a pinkie finger -- that costs $300 and lets the company capture more gas and rack up carbon credits. One valve cuts methane emissions by 90 percent, which is the equivalent of taking 16 cars off the road.

No one doubts that Devon is a big believer in such initiatives. But last month, Devon wrote the state comptroller to oppose a bill that would require the valve replacements.

Devon also opposed a proposal for "green" well completions, even though it uses the technique on the vast majority of its Barnett Shale wells -- and the process generated $38 million in extra revenue in 2007.

Devon also shot down a call for vapor recovery units for storage tanks and the prospect of replacing combustion engines with electric motors.

The big hang-up? Devon wants the changes to be voluntary , not mandatory.

"There are spots where the technology works and spots where it doesn't," says Darren Smith, a manager of Devon's environmental, health and safety department. "Mandate these activities, and there can be a real business disruption."

In its letter, Devon said the mandates on emissions would ultimately hurt capital investment. It warned of fewer wells and jobs, lower taxes for cities, smaller royalties for residents and the risk that gas companies would shift operations.

Reciting that litany of unintended consequences is a business reflex whenever government proposes more regulation. But it's dismaying that Devon is falling back on that playbook, because right now, the industry needs leaders that will set the bar high -- not just for their companies but for every player.

After the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico, everybody knows that you can't rely on voluntary compliance for anything. Before that, we had the meltdown on Wall Street, the mortgage lending debacle, the never-ending buildup of housing inventory. All drove home a message that no less an economic authority than Alan Greenspan later articulated: Companies will sacrifice a lot, even their future, for a quick buck.

Closer to home, in the Barnett Shale, there have been reasons to lose faith, too -- or at least to insist that any trust be verified. Several communities, led by the small town of Dish, have said residents are suffering ill effects from the gas business.

Yet state regulators consistently say all is well. This year, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality lost much of its credibility when it told the Fort Worth City Council that the air was safe -- and failed to disclose that it later learned that three air samples scored high for benzene, a cancer-causing agent.

Follow-up tests showed that contaminant levels fell, but the commission never shared the complete information with city or state leaders. The test results came to light because of an internal complaint and fraud investigation, which was revealed by Forrest Wilder at the Texas Observer.

The disclosure enraged state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, who had met with the commission's top officials repeatedly and never heard a hint about a discrepancy. Now she may introduce a bill to make it a crime for public officials to withhold information that affects public health.

Fort Worth and Dish are pursuing their own air quality tests because residents don't have confidence in the state's results. Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency is also wading in. Wilder reported that environmentalists had pleaded with the EPA to intervene in Texas issues because the state agency was far too cozy with industry.

The clash between the state and the feds was on display last week when the EPA held a huge public meeting in Fort Worth to hear residents' stories about gas drilling. An EPA study is focusing on water issues in fracking, but the EPA's Dallas office is also looking into air quality.

The day before, Gov. Rick Perry pre-empted the EPA event by launching a Texas initiative on energy. He's pulling together university programs and experts to study the Gulf, gas drilling and more. Perry wants industry to underwrite the program, unbothered by the conflict that creates.

How low is the trust factor in the Barnett Shale? It says a lot when separate government entities -- the environmental commission, the EPA and individual cities -- are spending taxpayer money on the same thing.

In this setting, gas companies can't hew to the "voluntary, not mandatory" line, not if they hope to win public support. Devon may have the money and wherewithal to adopt eco-friendly policies, but others don't.

The solution is not to let companies off the hook. Force them to figure out ways to meet higher standards.

"What Devon does is not the norm in the industry," says Ramon Alvarez, senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund in Austin. "That's why regulations are worth having -- to bring the whole industry along."

By design, Devon avoided drilling in Pennsylvania, New York and Colorado, where opposition emerged with a vengeance. That was a savvy business move, but the controversy has come home now.

So why not champion the solutions?

Mitchell Schnurman's column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. 817-390-7821

Read more in the Fort Worth Star Telegram:

Fracking not a cleaner alternative -Cornell prof. - Effects of fractured gas produces same emissions as coal

2010-07-12T01:02:00.005-05:00

By Jon Hurdle - Reuters - Mar 31, 2010
* Fractured gas produces 30 pct more emissions than oil

* Gas industry argues no hard data to support study

PHILADELPHIA, March 31 (Reuters) - Natural gas obtained by the controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing may contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions and so should not be considered as a cleaner alternative to coal or oil, according to a Cornell University researcher.

Although natural gas, when burned, produces only about half of the carbon dioxide emissions of coal, that calculation omits greenhouse gas emissions from the well-drilling, water-trucking, pipeline-laying, and forest-felling that are part of the production of hydraulically fractured natural gas, Ecology Professor Robert Howarth argues in a new paper.

Combining the effects of combustion, production, distribution, and leaked methane from hydraulically fractured natural gas gives the fuel about the same greenhouse gas emissions as coal and about 30 percent more than diesel or gasoline, Howarth says in the draft paper published in mid-March.

"A complete consideration of all emissions from using natural gas seems likely to make natural gas far less attractive than other fossil fuels in terms of the consequences for global warming," Howarth writes.

Energy companies are scrambling to develop vast reserves of natural gas from deep shale beds in many U.S. states including Texas, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania. Experts say shale gas could meet national demand for a century while helping to reduce carbon emissions and reducing petroleum imports.

"Government and industry should not be moving ahead on the basis of what is already misleading and incomplete information," Howarth told Reuters. He urged a moratorium on further development in the multibillion-dollar industry until more is known about its greenhouse gas emissions.

The damaging nature of gas from fracturing, or "fracking", undermines claims that it is a "transition" fuel between carbon-intensive sources like coal, and renewables such as solar and wind, Howarth said in the paper.

Citing preliminary data, Howarth estimates total greenhouse gas emissions from hydraulically fractured natural gas may be equivalent to 33 carbon grams of CO2, slightly more than 31.9 grams for coal, and well above the 20.3 grams for diesel or gasoline.

The data are partly based on methane leakage of 1.5 percent of natural gas consumed, a figure assumed by the federal government.

Claims by energy companies that natural gas is a cleaner alternative to coal and oil are further undermined by leaked methane - the principal component of natural gas -- which is many times more potent as a greenhouse gas component than CO2, argued Howarth, who has served on National Academy of Sciences panels looking into climate change, and has been a Cornell professor since 1985.

Dan Whitten, a spokesman for America's Natural Gas Alliance, an industry group, dismissed Howarth's assertions as preliminary and speculative and not backed by hard data and said the professor's statement undermined its own credibility.

"We concur with the author's own assessment that this two-page draft is 'highly uncertain', that the 'numbers should be treated with caution', and that there is 'no rigorous estimate' to support its conclusions," Whitten said.

"Natural gas is twice as clean as coal and is available here in America in significant abundance today," Whitten added.

"Alongside the development of renewables, natural gas has a key role to play in transitioning our nation to a low-carbon economy."

Howarth acknowledged his statement contains many qualifiers but argued that there are sufficient concerns about the greenhouse gas emissions of hydraulically fractured natural gas to warrant early publication.

Critics also claim that fracking contaminates ground water with chemicals that are forced deep underground along with water and sand to fracture the shale and release its gas. (Editing by Marguerita Choy)
Read more in Reuters

Drilling dispute's hidden conflict: Who's going to run Texas?

2010-07-11T19:50:00.005-05:00

By MITCHELL SCHNURMAN - Fort Worth Star Telegram - July 10, 2010
Science and politics go together about as well as natural gas and drinking water.
The combination can be dangerous, with long-term consequences. In the deep-red state of Texas, where history and economy intertwine with oil and gas, new clashes over science and politics are bubbling to the surface, threatening even more confusion.
It's tough enough for an average citizen to make a judgment on gas drilling. Advocates insist it's safe and there's never been a case of groundwater contamination. Residents cite cancer-causing emissions and say, "Check my back yard -- and take a swig of this water."
Science is supposed to settle the matter, drawing a bright line between things to fear and fear-mongering. But now we also have to decide whom to believe and whom to trust.
The Environmental Protection Agency came to Fort Worth last week, holding a public meeting as part of a new study on gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing. About 600 people turned out to hear stories about "fracking," and many implored the EPA to ride to the rescue because they felt betrayed by their state.
The day before, Gov. Rick Perry went to Dallas to unveil an effort to pull together all of Texas' resources on energy, including programs at major universities. Perry was responding to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but part of his mission is to stay on top of fracking -- and keep the natural gas flowing in Texas.
There was nothing coincidental about Perry's timing or the EPA kicking off its study in the home of the Barnett Shale. The conflict within the conflict: Who's going to run Texas?
Perry wants to reassert the state's primacy over all things oil and gas, and extend his vision of states' rights. The federal government, through the EPA, wants to show that it can make meaningful progress in even the most hostile territory.
On the political front, this clash has been at a high pitch since President Barack Obama took office 18 months ago (although Perry knocked heads with the EPA during the Bush administration, too). Perry rejected more than $500 million in unemployment insurance funds, saying too many strings were attached. He passed on the chance for federal education grants and pushed Texas to be among the states suing over the healthcare law.
Oil and gas should afford more room for a middle ground. Texas has a long track record developing and monitoring gas drilling. And Perry, like many local leaders, has experience balancing the economy and the environment.
At the EPA, the focus is solely on the environment, so it seems that both sides could learn from the other.
Instead, the debate over fracking could devolve into one more battle between Washington and a conservative Southern governor. That could generate more heat than light, at a time when communities want to get a handle on the true threats of drilling and protect their residents.
In North Texas, the Barnett Shale has been a huge boost to jobs and income, but more people are worrying about the long-term risks. The Gulf oil spill has become a reminder that serious dangers can lurk beyond public view.
The oil and gas industry wants states to manage fracking, fearful of new federal standards. Officials from the Texas Railroad Commission, as well as representatives from Oklahoma and Louisiana, were quick to defend their regulatory records at the EPA hearing.
The EPA didn't criticize the states directly. Plenty of citizens did that, telling stories of contaminated water, polluted air and dying cattle -- and alleging that state agencies had ignored them. Many also believe that businesses and their lobbyists have too much clout with state legislatures.
The scope of the EPA study is a bit unnerving, given the amount of fracking that's already occurred. Plus, it won't be completed for 21/2 years.
Some questions listed by the EPA: How are well casings constructed? How is dirty fracking fluid managed? What are the gaps in current knowledge?
Sounds like basic stuff -- facts that really should have been settled long ago.
The Barnett Shale has about 14,000 gas wells, and we're now asking what we don't know about the environmental impact?
Parker County Judge Mark Riley, one of dozens of speakers at the hearing, blamed the states and the gas industry for the current crisis in confidence.
"The states just haven't been responsive to citizens," Riley said.
The gas industry stirred fears by refusing to disclose chemicals used in the fracking process, he said. And states lost credibility by considering exemptions on air permits. If state regulators and industry had been more aggressive on safety and the environment, federal intervention would be unnecessary -- and Riley wants to keep the feds out.
Mark Brownstein, deputy director for energy at the Environmental Defense Fund, said the nuclear industry took its own aggressive steps after the Three Mile Island accident. One bad player damaged the entire industry, so companies set higher standards and posted annual rankings.
Investors watch those scores closely, and Brownstein says that people get fired if performance drops.
He says states and industry have legitimate reasons to police the gas drilling business. They have more experience, more staff and can tailor regulations to their geology.

"But if they fail to make sure that it's being done properly, this will be a self-fulfilling prophecy -- the federal government will step in," he said.
Reach that point, and even a Texas governor won't be able to push back.

Mitchell Schnurman's column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. 817-390-7821

Read more in the Fort Worth Star Telegram

Fort Worth meeting on gas drilling process draws heated response Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/07/08/2323407/fort-worth-meeting-on-ga

2010-07-11T19:38:00.002-05:00

BY JACK Z. SMITH - Fort Worth Star Telegram - July 8, 2010
FORT WORTH -- It wasn't an event for the meek and indecisive, nor for those seeking middle ground.
A capacity crowd of about 600 gathered at the downtown Hilton Fort Worth hotel Thursday night, and dozens of speakers voiced either grave concerns about -- or enthusiastic support for -- the increasingly controversial hydraulic fracturing process that has made possible drilling booms such as the Barnett Shale play in North Texas.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency called the meeting -- the first of four around the nation -- to determine the scope of a study that will focus on the issue of whether the fracturing process poses a significant threat in terms of groundwater contamination. But the study also will examine other issues, including the large volume of water used in "fracking" wells.
"I'm sending out an SOS to the EPA," said fervent fracking critic Sharon Wilson, a local representative of the Texas Oil and Gas Accountability Project, which favors strong federal regulation of the energy industry and full disclosure of chemicals used in fracturing.
"We need you here. We need you on the ground. We need you now," Wilson told EPA officials, as supporters applauded enthusiastically.
But Angie Burckhalter, speaking on behalf of the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association and the Independent Petroleum Association of America, also elicited enthusastic clapping after describing fracking as "a safe, proven technology that has been used over one million times for 60 years."
Fracturing is vital to producing "clean energy that makes modern life possible," she said.
Boos and cheers
Texas Railroad Commission Chairman Victor Carrillo also strongly defended fracturing, saying that without it, gas recovery from tight rock formations such as the Barnett Shale -- the leading gas-producing area in the nation -- would be "impossible." There are no documented cases of fracturing causing groundwater contamination in Texas, he said, drawing both cheers and boos.
Meeting moderator Adam Saslow repeatedly implored audience members to tone down, urging them to employ "manners your mother taught you."
Calvin Tillman, an outspoken critic of the oil and gas industry and mayor of the Denton County community of Dish, held up a container of murky water and said it came from the home of a resident who fears his water well has been contaminated by Barnett Shale operations.
In considering stronger regulation, the foremost concern should not be about what might "negatively affect Chesapeake or Devon," Tillman said, referring to two large gas producers. Instead, the emphasis should be on negative effects on drinking water, he said.
America's Natural Gas Alliance, which represents 34 independent gas exploration and production companies, defended fracking and pledged to "be a constructive participant in the progress of the [EPA] study going forward."
"We are confident that a scientifically sound and data-driven examination will provide policymakers and the public with even greater reassurance of the safety of the longstanding practice," ANGA said in a statement.
How it works
Hydraulic fracturing is a technique in which huge volumes of water and sand, along with a much smaller amount of chemicals, are injected deep underground to fracture rock formations and allow gas and oil to flow into a wellbore.
Concerns have been expressed about the potential for fracturing to pollute groundwater; about surface spills of well wastewater that include chemicals used in fracturing; and about the volume of water that fracturing requires -- often 3 million or more gallons for a single well.
JACK Z. SMITH, 817-390-7724

Read more in the Fort Worth Star Telegram

Judge who nixed drilling ban has oil investments

2010-07-11T18:02:00.002-05:00

By Associated Press - June 22, 2010
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Louisiana judge who struck down the Obama administration's six-month ban on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico has reported extensive investments in the oil and gas industry, according to financial disclosure reports. He's also a new member of a secret national security court.
U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman, a 1983 appointee of President Ronald Reagan, reported owning less than $15,000 in stock in 2008 in Transocean Ltd., the company that owned the sunken Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.
Feldman overturned the ban Tuesday, saying the government simply assumed that because one rig exploded, the others pose an imminent danger, too.
The White House promised an immediate appeal. The Interior Department had imposed the moratorium last month in the wake of the BP disaster, halting approval of any new permits for deepwater projects and suspending drilling on 33 exploratory wells.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement late Tuesday that within the next few days he would issue a new order imposing a moratorium that eliminates any doubt it is needed and appropriate.
Several companies that ferry people and supplies and provide other services to offshore rigs argued that the moratorium was arbitrarily imposed after the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers and blew out a well 5,000 feet underwater. It has spewed anywhere from 67 million to 127 million gallons of oil.
Feldman's 2008 financial disclosure report — the most recent available — also showed investments in Ocean Energy, a Houston-based company, as well as Quicksilver Resources, Prospect Energy, Peabody Energy, Halliburton, Pengrowth Energy Trust, Atlas Energy Resources, Parker Drilling and others. Halliburton was also involved in the doomed Deepwater Horizon project.
Feldman did not respond to requests for comment and to clarify whether he still holds some or all of these investments.
He's one of many federal judges across the Gulf Coast region with money in oil and gas. Several have disqualified themselves from hearing spill-related lawsuits and others have sold their holdings so they can preside over some of the 200-plus cases.
Although Feldman ruled in favor of oil interests Tuesday, one expert said his reasoning appeared sound because the six-month ban was overly broad.

"There's been some concern that he is biased toward the industry, but I don't see it in this opinion," said Tim Howard, a Northeastern University law professor who also represents businesses and people claiming economic losses in several spill-related lawsuits. "They overreacted and just shut an industry down, rather than focusing on where the problems are."

That was what Feldman essentially said in his ruling, writing that the blanket moratorium "seems to assume that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger."
Josh Reichert, managing director of the Pew Environment Group, said the ruling should be rescinded if Feldman still has investments in companies that could benefit.

"If Judge Feldman has any investments in oil and gas operators in the Gulf, it represents a flagrant conflict of interest," Reichert said.

Feldman's ruling prohibits federal officials from enforcing the moratorium until a trial is held. He wrote:

"If some drilling equipment parts are flawed, is it rational to say all are? Are all airplanes a danger because one was? All oil tankers like Exxon Valdez? All trains? All mines? That sort of thinking seems heavy-handed, and rather overbearing."

At least two major oil companies, Shell and Marathon, said they would wait to see how the appeals play out before resuming drilling.
The lawsuit was filed by Hornbeck Offshore Services of Covington, La. CEO Todd Hornbeck said after the ruling that he is looking forward to getting back to work.

"It's the right thing for not only the industry but the country," he said.
Earlier in the day, executives at a major oil conference in London warned that the moratorium would cripple world energy supplies. Steven Newman, president and CEO of Transocean, called it unnecessary and an overreaction.
"There are things the administration could implement today that would allow the industry to go back to work tomorrow without an arbitrary six-month time limit," Newman said.

BP stock dropped 81 cents Tuesday, or 2.7 percent, to $29.52, near a 14-year low for the company in U.S. trading. The stocks of other companies associated with the spill remained low despite Feldman's ruling.
Feldman is a native of St. Louis and former Army captain in the Judge Advocate General Corps who was appointed in May to a seven-year term on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, according to court records.
The court meets secretly to consider government requests for wiretaps in national security cases, such as those involving foreign terrorist groups.
A graduate of Tulane University in New Orleans with bachelor's and law degrees, Feldman frequently jokes with lawyers before his court about his friendship with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, known for his strict interpretation of the Constitution as written more than 200 years ago.

Anderson reported from Miami.
Read more on WFAA

EPA Flexes Federal Muscle on Texas Air

2010-07-08T07:43:00.007-05:00

BY KATHERINE GREGOR - Austin Chronicle - July 9, 2010
On June 30, Environmental Protection Agency Regional Administrator Al Armendaiz took decisive action to clean up air pollution in Texas by invalidating all 122 "flexible" air-quality permits issued by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The industrial polluters that now must apply for federal permits are primarily Gulf Coast oil and chemical refineries, run by corporations that include ExxonMobil, Shell Oil, BP, Valero, and Chevron Phillips; locally, the coal-fired Fayette Power Project that provides electricity to Austin Energy and Lower Colorado River Authority customers also is on the list. The Texas flex permit program has long been criticized as ineffective by environmental organizations. The EPA decision effectively agrees that flexible permits may be allowing Texas polluters to endanger Texans by emitting higher-than-allowed levels of chemicals that cause cancer, asthma, and other health problems.

To soften the immediate effects of its decision, the EPA is offering an amnesty and self-audit option for Texas permit holders, in theory allowing them to achieve compliance without aggressive enforcement action.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry immediately issued a statement flexing his states' rights muscles. In running for re-election, Perry has taken a brusque anti-Washington posture; his book, Fed Up, will hit bookstores in November. "Texas will continue to fight this federal takeover of a successful state program," he declared in a June 30 statement, criticizing the EPA as "blinded by its activist agenda."

But a number of environmental experts and attorneys around the state said there is no factual basis for claims made in the governor's statement. Perry attacked the EPA action as "irresponsible and heavy-handed." Charles Irvine, an environmental lawyer with Blackburn & Carter in Houston, has represented numerous clients before TCEQ and handles air permit and Clean Air Act matters. He countered:

"What EPA has done is exactly what is written in the federal Clean Air Act. If EPA finds that some portion of a state program does not comply with fed law, the Clean Air Act says, 'It shall disapprove' – so it has to disapprove it. Stepping in and taking over these permits is what is required."

Perry claimed that the TCEQ's program "has achieved a 22 percent reduction in ozone [smog] and 53 percent reduction in [nitrogen oxide] from regulated sources since 2000." (Nitrogen oxide and ozone pollution are linked to asthma and respiratory illness in children and the elderly, according to the EPA; ozone also can cause permanent lung damage.) Irvine said Perry cites percentages, not absolute numbers, because Texas started out with some of the worst emissions in the nation for nitrogen oxide and ozone.

"The numbers Perry is using are a classic example of 'How to lie with statistics," wrote James Marston, who leads the Environmental Defense Fund Texas office in Austin. "Perry is cherry-picking statistics, using biased base years and final years; 2000 was a bad ozone year and 2008 [due to weather] was a particularly good ozone year. Improving air quality does not mean that we have good air quality," continued Marston. "The American Lung Association ranks the Houston [seventh] and DFW [13th] metro areas among the nation's 15 worst for ozone air pollution (using 2006-2008 data)."

Perry's statement claims, "Texas' air quality program has outperformed federal programs in virtually every category." But environmental experts interviewed said the state cannot take credit for recent improvements in air quality; those have in fact resulted from tighter federal standards, they said, as well as lawsuits brought by environmental groups to force compliance. Matthew Tejada, executive director of Air Alliance Houston, said,

"It is ridiculous to state that Texas' air quality has 'outperformed' federal standards when, just two years ago, Gov. Perry asked for a full decade extension for the Houston region to meet federal requirements."

Unaddressed by Perry's statement were the health issues that underlie federal standards for clean air permits.

"Texans deserve the same clean air protection as citizens of every other state, and TCEQ's flexible permitting program has been denying all of us that right for nearly 20 years," said Luke Metz ger of Environment Texas. "The Clean Air Act is the same law that polluters in all other 49 states have to follow, and it's time that polluters in Texas follow it, too."

"EPA's decision about Texas' flexible permits is merely symptomatic of a larger problem with the way Texas leaders view clean air protection," noted Ilan Levin of the Environmental Integrity Project. "Polluters' interests get priority over public health nearly every time."

Perry stated of the EPA action, "It will also likely curtail energy supplies and increase gasoline prices nationwide." He cited no evidence to support that claim, noted Irvine.

"Gasoline prices as we have seen in recent years are tied to international markets, and have little to do with the cost of production," said Marston. "It's a ridiculous statement to say that these actions would curtail energy supplies," said Tejada. "The cost of a gallon of gas is primarily predicated on the cost of a barrel of oil."

In this campaign year, Perry has repeatedly cast the EPA's takeover of air permitting in Texas as a states' rights issue, citing "our rights under the 10th Amendment." (It states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.")

"What he's complaining about, in terms of states' rights, legally is a very weak argument," said attorney Irvine. "The federal Clean Air Act has survived all sorts of legal challenges. Every court that has looked at the issue has found that the Clean Air Act was a fully constitutional and proper exercise of federal power. The 10th Amendment, as a legal concept, is really very narrow. It gets mentioned a lot, but very little gets struck down under it."

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott sued the EPA in the 5th Circuit Court earlier this year to block two other actions: the EPA's move to regulate greenhouse gases and Armendariz's reversal of TCEQ-issued "qualified facilities" air permits. The A.G. could file a similar complaint regarding flex permits. But in Irvine's opinion, "to bang the table and complain about a rogue agency may play well in an election year," but based on legal precedent, "a Texas challenge probably would not go very far."

Read more in the Austin Chronicle

Exxon’s “Frack Attack” and What Shareholders May Do About It Read more: http://www.triplepundit.com/2010/06/exxon-fracking-shareholders/#ixzz0t5hfsnZ

2010-07-08T06:52:00.003-05:00

By Michael Passoff, Senior Program Director at As You Sow - June 9, 2010
ExxonMobil believes in public disclosure regarding its use of toxic chemicals. Either that, or it is funding lobbying groups to oppose regulations for disclosure.

Former VP Dick Cheney was concerned about your health. Either that or he gave a big handout to his gas and oil buddies.

What do the two have in common? The answer is in your water tap—and you may not want to drink it.

Welcome to the world of “fracking,” which, besides being a fun word to say, is the process of injecting a mixture of water, chemicals, and sand underground to create fractures, through which natural gas can flow for collection.

Fracking—more formally referred to as hydraulic fracturing—has been around for decades but the technology recently advanced to the point where it is able to reach and extract previously inaccessible gas deposits.

A natural gas boom may be on the horizon and many consider this both economic and environmental good news. Natural gas emits far fewer greenhouse gases than coal or oil and is viewed as a transitional energy source until renewable energy resources are fully developed. It also can bring in big money to economically depressed areas.

Six months ago, ExxonMobil announced a $41 billion merger with XTO Energy. This move will vault ExxonMobil from being about the ninth largest natural gas company in the US to the undisputed #1 industry giant (approximately 30% larger than second place BP).    At the heart of this merger is XTO’s wide range of natural gas holdings across the country.

ExxonMobil views natural gas as a major area of expansion and is aggressively moving to be the industry leader.   Yet, this move also places ExxonMobil into the center of the storm brewing over hydraulic fracturing.   While natural gas development might be better for the climate, fracking is increasingly linked to water contamination. The process is incredibly water intensive, with each well requiring one to three million gallons of water. About 60-80% of that water is returned to the surface and has to be dealt with. (PDF)

The water contains highly toxic chemicals used in the fracturing process and also picks up naturally occurring radiation, dissolved solids, and heavy metals in the process. Just this past weekend, in Clearfield County, PA, an estimated 1 million gallons of frack water spewed out of a well, causing parts of Moshannon State Forest to be evacuated.

Although there are hundreds of chemicals known to be used in fracking, companies refuse to provide specific information on toxic chemicals used. Even when an emergency room nurse in Durango, Colorado, who treated a gas field worker covered in fracking fluids, became so ill from exposure to the chemicals that she suffered liver failure, respiratory failure, and heart failure, the company still would not disclose the chemicals. The hospital was forced to guess at the appropriate treatment. Later, a Colorado study found that at least 65 fracking chemicals are listed as hazardous under any one of six federal laws.

Water contamination can also come from the gas itself. Last year in Dimock, PA, methane gas migrated thousands of feet contaminating the fresh-water aquifer and resulting in at least one explosion at the surface. Over a dozen other water supply wells within nine square miles were affected. In fact, there is so much methane gas mixed in with their water that Dimock residents can literally light the gas leaking out of their kitchen taps.

Normally, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would be regulating this. But in 2005, Vice President Dick Cheney (and former CEO of Halliburton, the company which pioneered fracking) guided a bill through Congress that exempted fracking operations from the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Without federal oversight regulation is left to the states–but they have been less than rigorous in doing so. The U.S. Department of Energy reports (PDF) that 2/3 of the drilling states have no regulations specific to hydraulic fracturing, and only four states have detailed regulations

Industry adamantly defends its safety record, but consumers are alarmed—and politicians are starting to listen. Tougher regulations have been introduced in Pennsylvania, Colorado, and New York (New York City’s drinking water supply is home to a prized gas drilling region). The ‘FRAC’ Act has been introduced in Congress (which would restore EPA oversight under the Safe Drinking Water Act), and the EPA has begun public hearings on fracking.

Industry’s lack of disclosure has raised many red flags with investors who are concerned about regulatory risks that could greatly increase operation costs, legal liabilities from health impacts, and reputational risk from the growing public and political opposition.

ExxonMobil investors just voted on a shareholder proposal asking the company to report on the environmental risks associated with hydraulic fracturing. Shareholders even took the unusual step of highlighting fracking risks with the SEC. The proposal received 24% of the vote which – to put it in perspective – is about five times higher than the typical vote in support of first year environmental proposals. Votes have been even higher at other companies such as Williams (41%), Cabot (36%), and EOG (31%) which are less diversified than Exxon and thus more vulnerable to financial risks associated with fracking.

Yet instead of developing non-toxic alternatives or providing full disclosure of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing fluids as the public, politicians, and investors are asking for, Exxon is offering sound bites. At the recent Exxon shareholder meeting CEO Rex Tillerson was asked if they support disclosure. He said yes but then refused to answer questions regarding whether Exxon would provide supportive comments to the EPA hearings, withdraw its funding for lobbying groups that are actively opposing disclosure regulations, or give preference to suppliers who could provide less toxic fracking fluids. Mr. Tillerson simply dismissed the issue by saying that fracking fluids are just pretty much what you would find in your kitchen cabinet. If what is in his kitchen cabinet put an emergency room nurse in the hospital I, for one, don’t want to go to his house for dinner.

Perhaps Mr. Tillerson should pay more attention to the Gulf oil spill– the result of BP’s ignoring regulations and safety procedures on its Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. Exxon is also trying to avoid regulations and increased safety procedures. It is a recipe for another disaster.

***

Michael is a leading practitioner of shareholder advocacy on social and environmental issues. For nearly 15 years he has been engaging the nation’s largest investors and corporations including Disney, McDonalds, Starbucks, Exxon, and DuPont among many others. His shareholder advocacy work led him to be named as one of 2009’s “100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics,” and he also received the 2009 Climate Change Business Journal award for NGO activism. Michael authors an annual Proxy Preview that is designed to help foundations identify shareholder resolutions related to their mission and provides additional information on how foundations can align their mission and investments. The Chicago Tribune called the Preview “a bible for socially progressive foundations, religious groups, pension funds and other tax-exempt organizations.”

Read more

ExxonMobil Shareholders Support Disclosure of 'Fracking' Risks

2010-07-08T06:43:00.003-05:00

By Chem News - Thursday, May 27, 2010
DALLAS, May 26 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — A proposal asking ExxonMobil to disclose what it is doing to reduce risks from toxic chemicals in natural gas drilling, and consider alternatives, won support Thursday from holders of 26.3 percent of the company's shares — the latest indication of investors' concerns about hydraulic fracturing's threat to drinking water, public health and shareholder value.

The level of support was five times the typical level for a first-time environmental resolution. The proposal was put forth by As You Sow, a shareholder advocacy organization based in San Francisco, representing the Park Foundation of Ithaca, N.Y., and the holders of 16,746 ExxonMobil shares valued at more than $1.1 million.

"Today's vote sent a strong message to ExxonMobil that shareholders are concerned about how it is dealing with hydraulic fracturing, especially in light of the expansion that will make it the nation's largest natural gas company," said Michael Passoff, senior program director of the corporate responsibility program at As You Sow.

Hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," is a controversial process of injecting water, chemicals and particles underground to increase gas production. In response to reports of contaminated water supplies and intense public concern, tougher regulations have been introduced in New York, Pennsylvania, and Colorado and legislation has been introduced in Congress to repeal the exemption of fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act.

"Fracking poses regulatory risks that could greatly increase operation costs, legal liabilities from health impacts, and reputational risk from growing public and political opposition," added Passoff. "If ExxonMobil truly aren't concerned about the financial ramifications of fracking, they're not a good bet for investors."

In the absence of meaningful disclosure by the company, shareholders took the unusual step of highlighting fracking risks with the Securities and Exchange Commission. (http://bit.ly/9TFOjP). For background on the significance of Thursday's shareholder vote, see http://jm.ly/EGys66.

"The Gulf oil spill is a powerful example of how oil and gas drilling can devastate the environment," said Jon Jensen, executive director of the Park Foundation. "This is a good first step in responsibly seeking energy in a way that protects the environment, human health, and the welfare of the company."

As You Sow (www.asyousow.org) is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting corporate social responsibility.
Read more in Chem News

State issues advisory against eating fish from Trinity River

2010-07-07T14:21:00.002-05:00

Jul. 07, 2010
By DOMINGO RAMIREZ JR.
ramirez@star-telegram.com
A fish consumption advisory was issued Wednesday by a state agency warning people not to consume any species of fish from the Trinity River in Tarrant, Dallas, Ellis, Kaufman, Henderson Navarro, Freestone and Anderson counties.
The advisory by the Texas Department of State Health Services was issued after tests indicated that fish taken from the river had elevated levels of dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyl’s or PCBs.
The agency warned that long-term consumption of fish with dioxins and PCBs might cause cancer and liver, immune system and reproductive problems.
State officials said that PCBs are industrial chemicals once used as coolants and lubricants in electrical equipment. The Environmental Protection Agency banned PCBs in 1979, but items containing it did not have to be replaced.
Dioxins are byproducts of combustion and industrial activity, state officials said.
PCB levels in fish about 0.047 milligrams per kilogram (mg/kg) may pose a risk to human health, according to state standards. The levels in fish taken from the Trinity River was at 0.185 mg/kg and they were as high as 1.301 mg/kg, state officials said.
Levels of dioxins averaged 2.64 picograms per gram (pg/g), above the state standards of 2.33 pg/g.
State officials, however, noted that the high levels of PCBs and dioxins in fish do not pose a health risk for people swimming or taking part in any water recreation activities.
The advisory includes the Clear Fork of the Trinity River from the Benbrook Reservoir Dam and the West Fork of the Trinity River from the Lake Worth Dam to the U.S. 287 bridge on the Freestone-Anderson county line.
DOMINGO RAMIREZ JR., 817-390-7763

Read morein the Fort Worth Star Telegram

TXI to shut down highest-polluting cement kilns in Midlothian

2010-07-06T20:22:00.002-05:00

By RANDY LEE LOFTIS - The Dallas Morning News - July 6, 2010

TXI will permanently shut down its four oldest, highest-polluting cement kilns in Midlothian and will stop burning hazardous waste as fuel, the company said Tuesday.

The Dallas-based company’s announcement ends an environmental battle that has raged in North Texas for decades.

TXI, formally known as Texas Industries, always insisted that the practice of fueling its oldest kilns with other companies’ waste was safe, but environmentalists maintained that it spread toxic pollution across the region.

TXI said it will continue to operate its newest kiln, which uses a different process and burns coal and natural gas as fuel. That kiln, which began operating in 2001, also emits less pollution than the old kilns, the oldest of which dates from 1960.

A longtime campaigner against North Texas cement plants’ air pollution hailed TXI’s announcement as a major victory for public health.

“This is a landmark day,” said Sue Pope of Midlothian, who founded the North Texas clean-air group Downwinders at Risk after researching TXI’s emissions. “I’ve been doing some crying today. Words can’t really describe how good I feel.”

TXI said the decision was based on its desire to boost efficiency in preparation for a recovery in the North Texas construction market. Improvements planned for its remaining kiln will let the Midlothian plant expand production, company spokesman David Perkins said.

TXI wanted “to find a way to operate in the most energy and fuel-efficient manner, as well as from an emissions standpoint,” Perkins said.

The four older kilns have been idle since late 2008, a response to a downturn in demand for cement. TXI does not expect to reduce its Midlothian workforce, currently about 170, because of Tuesday’s decision, Perkins said.

He said new federal rules governing toxic air emissions from cement kilns did not contribute to the decision. The rules are expected to become final in August and will take effect in the next three years.

Counting all five of its kilns, TXI has been the largest of three cement kilns in Midlothian. The other plants in the northern Ellis County city are owned by Kansas-based Ash Grove Cement, with three kilns, and Swiss firm Holcim, with two kilns.

Midlothian became a center for the cement industry because of extensive limestone deposits. Yet it also became the site of one of the country’s biggest environmental fights.

Federal law allows some cement kilns to burn hazardous waste as fuel to create the high heat required to make cement. TXI is the only company that has burned hazardous waste in Midlothian in recent years.

Environmentalists across the country and in North Texas said burning massive volumes of chemical waste needlessly endangered the public.

The cement industry and federal regulators called the process a safe way to destroy waste and to recover its energy content.

The practice also let cement companies cut fuel costs and essentially go into the waste-treatment business, although the market for hazardous-waste disposal has suffered as companies have reduced the amount they produce.

TXI said Tuesday that while its hazardous-waste enterprise had yielded economic benefits, “the dynamics of this market have significantly changed and are no longer applicable to TXI’s future operational strategy.”

The company said it would immediately give up its hazardous-waste permit.

TXI’s departure from the waste business does not end all environmental disputes regarding the Midlothian cement industry. Kilns there remain North Texas’ biggest industrial sources of nitrogen oxides, which produce regional ozone, or smog.

Environmentalists have pressed regulators, so far without success, to require the use of pollution-control technology that would slash emissions from the Midlothian kilns.

While that effort continues, Jim Schermbeck, field organizer for Downwinders at Risk, said the permanent shutdown of TXI’s oldest units would remove four major sources of regional air pollution.

TXI’s remaining unit is among the cleanest-burning kilns in Texas, he said.

“They should be congratulated for making the right choice,” Schermbeck said. “I am delighted.”

Denton, Johnson county residents blame drilling process for fouled well water

2010-07-04T18:00:00.004-05:00

By Elizabeth Cambell and Aman Batheja - Fort Worth Star Telegram - July 1, 2010
When her well water took on an odd odor, Linda Scoma, who has lived near Crowley in rural Johnson County for 20 years, worried something might be wrong. Then her hair suddenly turned orange after she washed it, and she knew there was a problem.

Damon Smith of the Denton County town of Dish said the water flowing from his family's well, drilled in 2002, used to run clear and clean. Now, when he pours it into a glass, Smith regularly sees sediment floating in it.
Both suspect the same source of their problems: nearby natural gas drilling activities.
While most of the discussions about the environmental impact of natural gas drilling in the Barnett Shale have centered on air quality, questions are now being raised about its potential impact on water quality as well.
Drilling critics have expressed concern that a drilling process called hydraulic fracturing -- in which millions of gallons of water and sand laced with chemicals are pumped into the ground to free up natural gas -- has the potential to contaminate groundwater supplies.
Industry advocates counter that fracturing for Barnett Shale wells typically occurs more than a mile below underground aquifers that provide drinking water. Industry practice is to install multiple layers of pipe, known as casing, and cement inside the wellbore to isolate petroleum and chemicals from groundwater.

"You're talking about 6,000 feet of strata, rock and sand separating the fracturing in the shale and the fresh water table," said Ed Ireland, executive director of the Barnett Shale Energy Education Council. "There's not any case in Texas where hydraulic fracturing has damaged a water table."

The federal government may weigh in on the issue. The Environmental Protection Agency is launching a study of fracturing that is expected to focus on effects on groundwater supplies. Congress is also considering legislation that would increase regulation of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, including forcing companies to disclose the chemicals used in the process.
After drilling began near Scoma's home, water tests detected increasing levels of chemicals used in the drilling process. The company that conducted the tests advised the Scomas not to drink the water, and they wash their clothes at a Laundromat because the couple says the water is discolored and has an oily sheen. They have sued the drilling company.

"I was embarrassed to go out in public because of my hair," Linda Scoma said.

At Smith's well, though, testing by the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates drilling, found no high levels of toxic materials. Contaminants detected in the water were not at a level that would violate state or federal water quality standards, officials said.

"Therefore, we would not expect any adverse health effects after ingestion of water with these concentrations," Railroad Commission spokeswoman Stacie Fowler said.

If that's true, Smith has an offer for the commission and anyone else who wonders if the water is OK.

"Come to my house. Drink a big glass of that water at my table," he said

.

Read more in the Fort Worth Star Telegram

Bringing it down to a "personal, on your dinner table, level

2010-07-01T23:01:00.002-05:00

Cattle From Tioga County Farm Quarantined After Coming in Contact with Natural Gas Drilling Wastewater

2010-07-01T17:40:00.003-05:00

By US News Wire - July 1, 2010

HARRISBURG, Pa., July 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Department of Agriculture announced today that it has quarantined cattle from a Tioga County farm after a number of cows came into contact with drilling wastewater from a nearby natural gas operation.
Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding said uncertainty over the quantity of wastewater the cattle may have consumed warranted the quarantine in order to protect the public from eating potentially contaminated beef.

"Cattle are drawn to the taste of salty water,"

said Redding.

"Drilling wastewater has high salinity levels, but it also contains dangerous chemicals and metals. We took this precaution in order to protect the public from consuming any of this potentially contaminated product should it be marketed for human consumption."

Redding said 28 head of cattle were included in the quarantine, including 16 cows, four heifers and eight calves. Those cattle were out to pasture in late April and early May when a drilling wastewater holding pond on the farm of Don and Carol Johnson leaked, sending the contaminated water into an adjacent field where it created a pool. The Johnsons had noticed some seepage from the pond for as long as two months prior to the leak.
The holding pond was collecting flowback water from the hydraulic fracturing process on a well being drilled by East Resources Inc.
Grass was killed in a roughly 30- x 40-foot area where the wastewater had pooled. Although no cows were seen drinking the wastewater, tracks were found throughout the pool. The wet area extended about 200-300 feet into the pasture.
The cattle had potential access to the pool for a minimum of three days until the gas company placed a snow fence around the pool to restrict access.
Subsequent tests of the wastewater found that it contained chloride, iron, sulfate, barium, magnesium, manganese, potassium, sodium, strontium and calcium.
Redding said the main element of concern is the heavy metal strontium, which can be toxic to humans, especially in growing children. The metal takes a long time to pass through an animal's system because it is preferentially deposited in bone and released in the body at varying rates, dependent on age, growth status and other factors. Live animal testing was not possible because tissue sampling is required.

The secretary also added that the quarantine will follow the recommended guidelines from the Food Animal Residue Avoidance and Depletion Program, as follows:
Adult animals: hold from food chain for 6 months.
Calves exposed in utero: hold from food chain for 8 months.
Growing calves: hold from food chain for 2 years.

In response to the leak, the Department of Environmental Protection issued a notice of violation to East Resources Inc. and required further sampling and site remediation. DEP is evaluating the final cleanup report and is continuing its investigation of operations at the drilling site, as well as the circumstances surrounding the leaking holding pond.
Media contact: Justin Fleming, 717-787-5085
SOURCE Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture
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Storage Tanks explode in Wise County

2010-06-28T15:21:00.004-05:00

By Faith Chatham - DFWRCC - June 29, 2010
When people hear that a gas well or pipeline is applying for a permit to construct a natural gas production facility near their homes, they rarely mention the storage tanks. Environmentalist argue for vapor recovery systems on the tanks, but rarely do people list the storage tanks as one of their highest concerns. Evidence exists, however, which illustrates that natural gas storage tanks can be deadly:

Four tanks explode at well site
By Wise County Messenger - March 10, 2010
Flames poured from the top of a tank battery after four exploded in a pasture on Hlavek Road west of Decatur late Friday morning. Two workers suffered first degree burns. One was knocked from a ladder. He received an air transport to Parkland Hospital in Dallas. The other burn victim was taken to Wise Regional Health System in Decatur. Welders were working on the tanks, which are owned by Devon, when sparks caused a tank to explode. The lid off one of the tank batteries blew up, landing approximately 50 yards away. Black smoke and a pungent smell of burning chemicals filled the air. Fire and smoke poured from the top of one of the batteries an hour after the explosion. The fire was contained around 1 p.m.

Click here to see incredible photos

BARNETT SHALE: Fort Worth deals with conflicting goals: redevelopment, drilling

2010-06-27T19:05:00.007-05:00

By Randy Lee - Fort Worth Star Telegram - June 26, 2010
FORT WORTH -- Two years ago, hundreds of people packed City Hall and pressured the City Council to turn down a permit for a natural gas well site because it was 225 feet from houses.
Flash forward to 2010. The council has approved three permits in the last six months for gas sites that are even closer -- 160 to 200 feet. More are on the way.

"The easy stuff's done," Councilman W.B. "Zim" Zimmerman said.

While Fort Worth is already home to more than 1,000 natural gas wells, the city's chief gas inspector estimated in April that only 20 to 30 percent of the ultimate number of wells have been drilled.
That means 3,000 to 5,000 more are possible.
Wells are moving closer to residential areas in Northeast Tarrant County and Arlington as well. The Haltom City Council approved a site on McCullar Road, despite opposition from the Planning and Zoning Commission and concerns from some nearby residents about a frac pond on the site, after dozens of other residents turned out at a meeting to say they want to be paid for their gas production.

"It wasn't the largest crowd, but it was one of the larger ones," Mayor Bill Lanford said.

Another site, on Bewley Street, is a stone's throw from an elementary school. However, Birdville school officials spoke in favor of the site because the district will earn royalties from it, which will be used to pay for scholarships, Lanford said.
This month, the Arlington City Council granted a request to drill five wells in southwest Arlington, though one was 389 feet from a house. Though the city has a 600-foot distance requirement, the council approved the well after the driller presented signatures in favor from 73 percent of affected property owners.
In Fort Worth, the trend is affecting efforts to redevelop inner-city neighborhoods. Some residents say they're worried about the potential for air pollution and other side effects, and some are concerned by what they see as the gas companies' heavy-handed tactics.
On the other side, thousands of homeowners signed natural gas leases on their homes from 2006 to 2008, before the precipitous drop in natural gas prices. Most of those leases require the company to drill a well within two to five years. So gas companies are feeling pressure to find well sites before those leases expire. And with the recession, many residents are impatient to receive royalties, even if the payout is small.

"It's not going to get any easier," Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief said.

Varied rules
Fort Worth requires wells to be at least 600 feet from "sensitive land uses" -- homes, schools, churches and the like. But it allows companies to drill as close as 300 feet if the company acquires permission from affected landowners, or if the City Council approves. Until 2008, the limit was 200 feet, and the city grandfathered "hundreds" of sites that gas companies had already bought, even if they haven't been drilled, said Rick Trice, the city's chief gas inspector.
Fort Worth's ordinance appears looser than some other area cities. Southlake and Grapevine both require 1,000-foot setbacks between wells and surrounding homes. Arlington has a 600-foot setback and allows waivers, but they have to win approval from 60 percent of affected owners and the City Council. In Haltom City, drilling is allowed only in industrial areas, unless the company first gets a zoning change.

There's another twist in Fort Worth's ordinance: Once a well site has been permitted, gas companies can apply for a pad site permit that makes it difficult to build or renovate homes and apartments within 300 feet of the site.
That provision caused Eddie Vanston some sleepless nights. He and his wife are working on a $3.6 million project to convert a warehouse into apartments or condominiums near where XTO Energy wants to drill.

"That deal doesn't happen if the well goes there," he said

.
XTO also applied for a permit this year to put a gas site in the lot next to an old warehouse off South Main Street that the couple recently converted into loft apartments.
If the site had been permitted, the view from Rob Franklin's second-floor window would have been obscured, at least for some time, by the drilling rig's sound wall and floodlights.

"I can't imagine how it would be for the folks downstairs who have kids," he said.

Ultimately, XTO agreed to withdraw its application and drill beneath the area from another site about a half-mile away. XTO officials declined to comment for this article.
Vanston and other business owners in the South Main corridor say the case points out a conflict between two goals Fort Worth officials are pursuing: drilling for gas and revitalizing inner-city neighborhoods. The city has spent millions establishing "urban villages" like South Main that combine high-density housing with mass transit. This month, local officials approved $3 million for street improvements in the South Main area, and South Main is also one of the routes for a proposed streetcar line.

"I've had a number of these [drill sites] where it has ramifications for other areas," said Councilwoman Kathleen Hicks, who represents the area. "I hope it will be an example of how we really try to work with the drillers."

In other cases, companies have permission from all surrounding owners, but residents are still worried. Daniel Garcia lives across from a Chesapeake site at Macie Avenue and Northwest 23rd Street. Garcia said the noise from the drilling wasn't excessive, but now he's worried about potential air pollution and wonders why heavy trucks and bulldozers are digging a large pit.

"You don't know what the risk is," he said.

Neighborhood divisions
Across town, Chesapeake Energy has applied for a gas pad site on Bryant Irvin Road, within 280 feet of homes in the Lake Como neighborhood.
Some residents in Como and the nearby Ridglea town

"They think they can push whatever they want down in Como," said Herman Williams, who has lived in the area for 38 years.

The permit application shows four wells on the site, for instance. That puts most of the Ridglea town homes outside the 600-foot limit. But plans on file with the city show as many as 24 wells on the site, putting the town houses within the limit.
Julie Wilson, Chesapeake's vice president for the Barnett Shale region, said the company included information about the extra wells in an effort to be transparent.

Read more in the Fort Worth Star Telegram

See photo of gas well and frac pond near homes in Fort Worth

Residents press for tougher air-pollution rules at state agency's meeting in Arlington

2010-06-26T21:26:00.001-05:00

By RANDY LEE LOFTIS - The Dallas Morning News - June 25, 2010

ARLINGTON – People who gathered Thursday night at Arlington City Hall were mad about smog, and they were even madder about the state agency in charge of fighting smog.

At a Texas Commission on Environmental Quality meeting about the latest round of strategies for cleaning up the air in North Texas, about 200 people cheered and applauded calls for tougher pollution rules.

They jeered – and coughed in unison, holding up paper masks that looked like gas masks – when state officials couldn't answer their questions.

For Susan Cooper of Richardson, it was her second attempt to press for stronger state action. She said she told a commission hearing in 2007 that she was mad about poor air quality.

"Today I am even angrier," she said. "Our air quality is even worse."

She said she was tired of picking up visitors at the airport who ask after landing, "What is that ugly brown stuff?"

The state agency must come up with a new smog plan because the region didn't meet a federal deadline this spring – far from the first time that's happened. The federal limit the region is still striving to meet dates from 1997.

North Texas is even further from meeting the much-tougher limits imposed since then.

Faith Chatham of DFW Concerned Citizens praised the commission's staff for becoming more responsive to public concerns. The problem, she said, is a lack of political support from their superiors.

"There are days when I can't open my windows because it makes me sick," she said.

She wanted environmental inspections exempted from repeated state budget cuts and a halt to new gas drilling.

Jim Schermbeck of Downwinders at Risk showed the commission's own slides that indicate how pollution from Ellis County cement plants spreads across the region. From 1997 to 2007, he said, 70 percent of ozone violations occurred in the area where the cement kilns' plumes go.

He blasted the state agency for choosing which time period to use for computer modeling of possible solutions without asking the public for advice.

"You have to see the flaw in the process when you've already made the most important decisions without any input from D-FW officials or the public," Schermbeck said.

Gina Cole of Arlington demanded jail for pollution violators and a crackdown on emissions from gas drilling in Tarrant County.

When Susana M. Hildebrand, the commission's chief engineer, answered, "I'm telling you that we are looking at those monitors," the audience responded with more coughs.

Read more in the Dallas Morning News

Jim Marston: What's missing is a commitment to healthy air

2010-06-26T02:29:00.005-05:00

By Jim Marston - Dallas Morning News - Friday, June 18, 2010
The public spat between Gov. Rick Perry's Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the EPA has been an irresistible sound-bite war for the media. A rogue governor pitted against an aggressive federal agency threatening a takeover perfectly fits the national storyline of states'-rights conservatives vs. big-government liberals. Dim the lights, and get the popcorn
What this story and the last decade have in common, unfortunately, is the absence of an honest commitment to healthy air in Texas.

For the last decade, Texas' official protectors of air quality, TCEQ, have put business interests ahead of their mission to protect human health. TCEQ's past performance and Perry's present rhetoric demonstrate that air quality and the effects it has on our health and economy are simply not a priority in Texas. Period.

TCEQ's official mission is to "protect our state's human and natural resources consistent with sustainable economic development." But its unwritten mission is to minimize the impact of environmental regulation on Texas businesses. There's an inside joke about TCEQ: Its job is to grant pollution permits to industry, and that's exactly what it does. It doesn't punish violators. It doesn't enforce standards.

First and foremost, it issues permits. Environmental protection is a secondary activity, at best.

Enter the EPA. Individual states can assume responsibility for enforcing compliance with the federal Clean Air Act within their borders. But the EPA must oversee the enforcement, and if a state fails to comply with the act, the EPA is supposed to step in. That's what's happening right now.

For years – first under Gov. George W. Bush and then for a decade under Perry – TCEQ has, in effect, served as a pro-industry buffer between Texas polluters and the Clean Air Act. After multiple strongly worded warnings dating well back into Perry's governorship, the EPA has finally had enough and stepped in to handle permitting for facilities in Corpus Christi, Houston and Garland.

Perry's and TCEQ's willful stonewalling has finally caught up with them, and they're squealing like stuck pigs. They are calling the Clean Air Act a job killer – a 20-year-old argument that can't be proved with any credible study. On the contrary, recent studies have shown that in the new economy, regions that embrace cleaner air and water create jobs and attract better talent than those that reject it.

Make no mistake. This is not a battle of jobs or state's rights, as Perry would have us think. It is Texas telling the EPA it doesn't have to follow federal laws that protect public health. And after a decade of asking nicely, the EPA is finally – and rightfully – acting.

Of all 50 states, only Texas has been singled out this way for especially flagrant noncompliance with the Clean Air Act. Yet the governor seems to think Texas industry should have some sort of special exemption. Likewise, our governor must think Texans aren't entitled to the same health protections as the residents of other states. I suspect a lot of Texans would disagree.

Fortunately for all of us, the current spat and ridiculous rhetoric are shining a light on TCEQ's "performance" just as the agency is facing scrutiny by the state's Sunset Advisory Commission. As that sunset review proceeds, let's hope the Texas Legislature will order substantial changes in the way TCEQ does business – and make it clear to the agency's three governor-appointed commissioners that Texans' health needs to move to the top of their priority list.

If it does, I am confident they will avoid being asked to step aside by the EPA, and this bluster-fest will go away. If they don't, the sound-bite saga will continue. And so will Texas' polluter-friendly, lackluster commitment to air quality.

Jim Marston is director of the energy program and Texas regional director for the Environmental Defense Fund. His e-mail address is jmarston@edf.org.
Read more in the Dallas Morning News

DMN Editorial: TCEQ is ceding control by digging in its heels

2010-06-26T02:18:00.001-05:00

By Dallas Morning News - May 28, 2010

The Environmental Protection Agency hasn't asked Texas officials to read between the lines. The EPA hasn't sent mixed signals, and it hasn't acted without warning.

For more than a year, the Obama administration has been beating the same drum, telling the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality that its permitting system falls short of federal standards.

Yet some Texas leaders and regulators still seem shocked – shocked – that the EPA made good on its promise last week and stripped the state of some of its permitting powers.

In meeting after meeting, federal officials have urged the TCEQ to change its approach to regulating industrial air pollution. The Texas response to the EPA? You just don't understand.

A key sticking point for federal officials has been our state's "flexible permit" program, which limits emissions from an entire facility instead of requiring each unit to meet pollution standards. Environmental experts have argued that the Texas approach allows some individual units to spew more toxins than permitted by law. The EPA says that the program violates the Clean Air Act.

For their part, TCEQ officials have argued – again and again – that the flexible permits are simply misunderstood. Commission chairman Bryan Shaw and executive director Mark Vickery are saying some of the right things, touting the importance of a collaborative process and a willingness to work with the EPA.

But they've offered only words – not deeds – in this saga. And they continue to make the same argument, somehow expecting a different result.

Incredibly, Gov. Rick Perry has weighed in with what amounts to self-righteous indignation, claiming that the federal government has "put a bull's-eye on the backs of hardworking Texans." If anyone should shoulder responsibility for leaving industrial facilities in this uncomfortable position, it's Perry.

The TCEQ is populated entirely with Perry appointees, who have been told in no uncertain terms that businesses' interests are a top priority. Ultimately, though, it's businesses that could pay a price for the state's lack of rigor in enforcing environmental regulations.

So far, the EPA's takeover has been limited to the permit governing an East Corpus Christi refinery. But that's just a warning shot.

Federal officials have identified dozens of other Texas permits that violate the Clean Air Act. And if state regulators don't show compliance within the next month, the EPA could take decisive action.

TCEQ officials plan to continue talks with their federal counterparts. But the argument that "we're so misunderstood" doesn't amount to a strategy or a way forward.

State regulators could do Texas industry a favor by taking a more aggressive approach to enforcement. Otherwise, the state will be handing the reins to the EPA.

Clean Air Act violations
The EPA identified several problems with the draft operating permit for a Flint Hills Resources refinery in East Corpus Christi. The permit, written by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, violates the Clean Air Act because it:

• Improperly relies on the refinery's separate "flexible" permit, which itself does not comply with the Clean Air Act.

• Obscures key requirements by directing the reader to other documents instead of stating the requirements plainly. The Clean Air Act mandates a "clear and meaningful" statement of permit provisions so the public can monitor a facility's operations.

• Requires just three years of environmental record-keeping. The Clean Air Act requires five years.

• Fails to identify the specific equipment covered by some requirements.

• Omits information needed to determine if the refinery should have been subject to enhanced scrutiny.

SOURCE: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Read more in the Dallas Morning News

Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to consider Barnett Shale in emissions plan, official says

2010-06-26T01:00:00.005-05:00

PHOTO SPECIAL TO THE STAR-TELEGRAM/WILLIS KNIGHT
Sharon Wilson of Earthworks distributed what she called the "Mark III B.S. protection mask" to people attending the TCEQ meeting Thursday night at the Arlington City Council Chambers

BY BILL HANNA - Fort Worth Star Telegram - June 25, 2010
- billhanna@star-telegram.com
ARLINGTON -- State environmental regulators "absolutely" will consider Barnett Shale emissions as part of a new plan to bring North Texas into compliance with federal ozone standards, an official with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said Thursday night.
Susana Hildebrand, the agency's chief engineer, said "everything is on the table" to bring the nine-county region into compliance with the 1997 EPA ozone standard of 85 parts per billion.

"We are particularly concerned about those emissions in Tarrant County," Hildebrand said. "I'm telling you, we are looking at those monitors. Our plan will look at those sites.

"
But most of the audience in the packed Arlington City Council chambers seemed skeptical.
Calvin Tillman, the mayor of the Denton County town of Dish, which has been a focal point in the testing of Barnett Shale emissions, said the agency is ignoring the natural gas industry as an ozone source.

"Are you here to protect the citizens, the people who came out here today, or are you here to protect large corporations?" Tillman asked. "Because frankly, I don't know whose side you're on."

Hildebrand responded that vapor recovery systems will be considered as part of the plan.
Industry praise
One of the few speakers not critical of the agency was Ed Ireland, executive director of the Barnett Shale Energy Education Council, an industry group. He praised TCEQ for installing air-monitoring systems and encouraged the agency to install more.
He said the air-monitoring sites in Dish and other locations have shown that the air near gas drilling sites is safe.
The EPA is in the process of reclassifying the Dallas-Fort Worth noncompliance area from moderate to serious. That will officially happen by Dec. 15.
The area's eight-hour ozone average for 2007, 2008 and 2009 was 86 parts per billion, placing it outside the 1997 standard.
The TCEQ will have a year to create a plan once the EPA reclassifies the area, and it will go into effect Dec. 15, 2013.
The EPA is also expected to rule by the end of August on the new standard, which will be between 60 and 70 parts per billion.
Even as the new standard is announced, the 1997 rules and deadlines will still apply, the EPA said.
Anthony Spangler, a spokesman for state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, read a statement from Davis urging that selective catalytic reduction systems similar to one that will be installed on the Lafarge North American cement kiln in Illinois be used on Midlothian cement kilns.
According to Davis, the systems can reduce nitrogen oxides by 80 to 90 percent. Davis also urged the state agency to consider transporting salt water from oil and gas drilling operations through pipelines rather than diesel trucks.
BILL HANNA, 817-390-7698

Read more in the Fort Worth Star Telegram

Exxon completes buyout of XTO Energy

2010-06-26T00:50:00.003-05:00

BY BOB COX - Fort Worth Star Telegram - June 25, 2010

XTO Energy is now part of Exxon Mobil Corp., ending a remarkable 24-year story that saw the Fort Worth company become one of the nation's leading independent oil and gas producers.
The sale of XTO to Exxon, which was announced in December, was formalized Friday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, just hours after stockholders approved the merger.
"It's been a wonderful run as an independent company," Bob Simpson, chairman and co-founder of XTO, said at the shareholders meeting after the votes were tallied.
Irving-based Exxon appointed Jack Williams, a fast-rising executive at the oil giant, to be president of XTO, which will be operated as a wholly owned subsidiary.
Williams will move into the XTO headquarters in downtown Fort Worth to assume day-to-day management, but Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers said there will be few other changes.
Keith Hutton, previously chief executive of XTO, will remain as executive vice president. All five of XTO's senior leaders were given consulting contracts by Exxon.
"We're really maintaining them as a separate entity," Jeffers said.
"We want them to continue doing what they've been doing."
Exxon is pleased that XTO has been able to retain nearly all of its 3,300-plus employees, Jeffers said, including about 1,500 downtown and at the former Swift & Co. headquarters on Exchange Avenue in the Stockyards. "We've worked very hard to make sure the people know they are valued."
In a statement issued by Exxon, Williams said: "With this agreement, we are combining XTO's skills, capabilities and asset base with Exxon Mobil's advanced research and development and operational capabilities, global scale and financial capacity. The new organization will create the opportunity for more jobs and investment in the development and production of clean-burning natural gas both here in the United States and around the world."
Fewer than 100 people, many of them XTO executives and employees, attended the stockholder meeting Friday at the Fort Worth Club. After opening the 10-minute meeting and giving time for any additional votes to be cast, Simpson announced that stockholders owning about 78 percent of the company's stock, or roughly 455 million shares, voted 99 percent in favor of the buyout.
There seemed just a trace of emotion in Simpson's voice when he told the audience, "I want to thank personally everyone who made it happen," referring to XTO's history. "Exxon has made a wonderful decision; they have the best. This company will continue as a wholly owned subsidiary, and it will continue to do well."
Simpson, who co-founded the company in 1986 with Jon Brumley and Steve Palko, declined to be interviewed after the meeting.
It was an emotional moment for Tena Pruitt, an administrative assistant for eight years who plans to stay with the company. "They're so amazing," Pruitt said of XTO's leadership.
XTO stockholders will receive a 0.7098 share of Exxon Mobil common stock for each XTO share. The cash portion of the deal was originally valued at $31 billion, but Exxon's stock price has declined about 20 percent since that time.

Read more in the Fort Worth Star Telegram

Company investigated over gas pipeline in site of old landfill

2010-06-23T18:34:00.003-05:00

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is investigating Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners for installing a gas pipeline through the site of an old landfill in Fort Worth without getting proper permission.

By AMAN BATHEJA - Fort Worth Star Telegram - June 23, 2010

FORT WORTH - The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is investigating a company that installed a gas pipeline through the site of an old landfill in northeast Fort Worth without getting proper permission.
Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners is installing a 30-inch pipeline that runs from just north of Arlington to a network of interstate pipelines near Justin.
The line, designed to transport natural gas produced from drill sites in the Barnett Shale, is expected to start operating in the third quarter of this year.
Mary Kelleher's home in the 7900 block of Randol Mill Road is next door to the empty lot where the pipeline has been installed. She complained to the environmental agency this month when she noticed that the company's workers found trash while digging. An agency investigator visited the site June 11.

"TCEQ investigators noted large pieces of concrete, limbs, stumps, wood pieces, rebar, and metal piping along with standing water in the trench," according to a statement from the agency. "In addition, the investigators noted the same types of debris in the excavated piles of soil resting next to the trench."

The site was listed as a former unauthorized landfill on a database maintained by the North Central Texas Council of Governments. Companies are supposed to check the database before installing a pipeline in the region, according to officials.
Enterprise spokesman Rick Rainey said the company was unaware of the landfill off Randol Mill. He said that the company was aware of a landfill along another part of the same pipeline and took appropriate steps there.

"If you identify a landfill along your route, it requires a little more excavation, and a few more steps are taken," Rainey said.

Enterprise has over 8,000 miles of natural gas pipeline installed in Texas.
Rainey said the company has "mitigated" the site that is under investigation, including properly disposing of the waste found there.

"At this point, we're waiting for the state to say: 'Everything looks good. We are good to proceed,'" Rainey said.

The agency hopes to complete the investigation by July 10, spokesman Terry Clawson said. Enterprise could be fined or issued a "notice of violation," he said.
The Legislature directed regional organizations to create landfill databases in 1993, said Samuel Brush, manager of environment and development for the North Central Texas Council of Governments.
The council's database includes hundreds of locations, Brush said. Some sites were once legitimately permitted landfills. Others were illegal dumps where people unloaded trucks of trash from the side of the road.
Information on many locations is sparse, so it's important for companies digging on those sites to excavate thoroughly and analyze the waste they find, Brush said.

"It is the uncertainty of what's under the ground that you need to be careful,' Brush said. "Construction debris is less of a concern than maybe drums of hazardous waste."
Another danger is methane gas, a nontoxic but explosive gas that some landfills produce, Brush said.

Kelleher owns about 11 acres on Randol Mill Road. Behind her house are a small pond and a farm with llamas, donkeys, goats and feral piglets. She calls it her "little nirvana."
For months, Kelleher has been warily watching workers install the pipeline about 60 feet from her bedroom window.
"My concern, of course, is with my own safety. I don't like the fact that the pipeline is on trash," Kelleher said. "I'm frustrated."
Search the North Central Texas Council of Governments landfill database here.

Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/06/23/2288039/houston-company-investigated-over.html#ixzz0ris4HAdC

Read more in the Fort Worth Star Telegram

Fort Worth OKs high-impact gas wells close to homes Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/06/22/2285423/fort-worth-oks-high-impact-gas.html#ix

2010-06-23T11:57:00.001-05:00

BY MIKE LEE - Fort Worth Star Telegram - June 23, 2010
FORT WORTH -- City Council members approved a permit for a high-impact natural gas site after nearly an hour of debate Tuesday.
Chesapeake Energy wants to put four wells at a site just east of Loop 820 and south of Interstate 30. The site is within 225 feet of nearby homes, though, and Chesapeake did not have permission from all the owners within 600 feet. That left it up to the council to decide.
Chesapeake argued that it had approval from the homeowners closest to the site -- those within 300 feet.
"They should have the strongest voice, being the closest to the site," Chesapeake representative Mercedes Bolin said.
The wells will produce natural gas revenue for 2,100 property owners in East Fort Worth, and several people from the Ryanwood Neighborhood Association spoke in favor of it. More than 200 people signed letters supporting the site.
But some other landowners, between 300 and 600 feet, disapproved.
Opponents said Chesapeake didn't consider alternative sites, and questioned whether the company was truthful with owners who signed waivers. They produced 100 letters opposed to the site.

"They blitzed the neighborhood but they did not mention anywhere in there the downsides," said Esther McElfish, who is on the board of the North Central Texas Communities Association.

The council split, 5-3, in favor of the site. Council members Kathleen Hicks and Joel Burns, who have opposed other high-impact sites, were opposed, as was Councilman Frank Moss, who said he was concerned about the truck route. Councilman Jungus Jordan abstained because his family receives income from Chesapeake.

Mike Lee, 817-390-7539

Read more in the Fort Worth Star Telegram

Lawmakers respond to TCEQ Snafu

2010-06-15T17:01:00.005-05:00

By Aman Batheju - Barnett Shale blog - Star Telegram - MAY 28, 2010
This week’s revelations regarding the air quality test results the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality presented to the city of Fort Worth drew plenty of responses from elected officials.

The state agency gave inaccurate results about toxic emissions from gas wells to the Fort Worth City Council in January and when it realized the error, failed to notify the city or the public for weeks.

John Sadlier, the agency's deputy director, has said the agency has learned from the mistake.

We have the responses from Gov. Rick Perry and Democratic challenger Bill White on our Politex blog.

Here's what other elected officials had to say:

State Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth:
Davis filed a wide-ranging open records request with TCEQ today including for all files and e-mails related to the Dec. air testing in Fort Worth.

"I want the TCEQ to turn over all documents pertaining to the air testing the Barnett Shale arena so that we can determine the level at which the TCEQ has been dishonest with the public," Davis said in a statement. "The TCEQ must be transparent and held accountable to the taxpayers, and we cannot allow an agency to play fast and loose with the health and safety of our communities."

Davis said Thursday that she wants to introduce legislation that would make it a crime for public officials to withhold information that could affect public health. She met with high-level officials at the environmental agency from January to March to discuss air pollution problems, but no one mentioned the problems with the previous tests.

"It is only because of the fraud complaint filed by a concerned individual that these disturbing developments about dangerous benzene exposures have been revealed," Davis said in a statement.

State Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth:

The three elevated testing sites appeared to all be in Veasey's district In a letter to the environmental agency's leadership, Veasey said its handling of the issue was "unacceptable."

"If public safety had been the TCEQ's primary concern, it would have recognized that subsequent testing showing potential problems should have been immediately reported to the media, local officials, and the general public," Veasey wrote.

He also wrote that he plans to ask Fort Worth to consider ceasing all drilling activity "in the immediate areas of concern until further testing can be done to ensure that residents of my district and their families are safe."

State Rep. Kelly Hancock, R-North Richland Hills:

Hancock said the criticism of the agency is overblown because it attempted to rectify the situation by doing the second round of tests.

"I think the key point to remember is, in February, the sites were retested, and they all came back significantly below the long-term exposure limits," Hancock said.

Hancock, a vice president at a chemical company, said he didn't understand why the agency bothered to retest the older samples in the air canisters.

"Actually the second tests were very unscientific," he said. "The canisters they used had been sitting on the shelves for a long time. ... If the tests had come back at lower levels, then everyone who's complaining now would want to throw those tests out."

Dish Mayor Calvin Tillman:

Tillman wants an outside investigation by the U.S. Justice Department or Congress.

"It's obvious they're not going to hold themselves accountable," he said. "These guys are just straight up lying to the public."

-Aman Batheja

Read more: http://startelegram.typepad.com/barnett_shale/2010/05/lawmakers-respond-to-tceq-test-snafu.html#ixzz0qxgP9mb7

Mass. study: Wood power worse polluter than coal

2010-06-10T19:36:00.004-05:00

By the Associated Press - June 10, 2010 at 7:04 PM
BOSTON (AP) — A new study has found that wood-burning power plants using trees and other "biomass" from New England forests releases more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than coal over time.

The six-month study, commissioned by Massachusetts state environmental officials, found biomass-fired electricity would result in a 3 percent increase in carbon emissions compared to coal-fired electricity by 2050.

Coal is considered one of the chief culprits of greenhouse gas emissions.
The report, conducted by the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences, concludes that the net cumulative emissions of greenhouse gases from replacing coal-fired plants with biomass would be 3 percent greater by 2050 than from using coal to generate electricity.

Researchers arrived at the figure by comparing how much carbon is emitted into the atmosphere through the burning of wood — what they termed "carbon debt" — with the amount of carbon removed from the atmosphere from the regrowth of forests, or "carbon dividends."

The report found that harvesting trees for biomass facilities could have "significant localized impacts on the landscape, including aesthetic impacts of locally heavy harvesting as well as potential impacts on recreation and tourism."

The study has broad policy implications for states like Massachusetts. And environmental groups called the study "a wake up call."

"The sobering conclusion is that Massachusetts cannot produce very much new energy from forest resources while also protecting the health of our forests and reducing greenhouse gas emissions," said Sue Reid, a staff attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation.

Biomass has long been part of the state's portfolio of renewable energy sources, along with solar, wind and geothermal energy. The Patrick administration has already invested $1 million to jump-start four proposed wood-burning plants in Russell, Greenfield, Springfield and Pittsfield, as it tries to reach the state-mandated goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.

Massachusetts Environmental Secretary Ian Bowles said Thursday the state is now rethinking that policy, including taxpayer incentives for wood-burning plants.
"Now that we know that electricity from biomass harvested from New England forests is not 'carbon neutral' in a timeframe that makes sense given our legal mandate to cut greenhouse gas emissions, we need to re-evaluate our incentives for biomass," he said in a statement accompanying the report.

Biomass plant owners have long argued that it's unfair to lump wood-burning plants in with coal plants. They say that every megawatt of power produced by wood-burning plants replaces a megawatt from a coal plant. But unlike coal, they argue, trees left standing can absorb the carbon dioxide released when wood is burned.

And trees cut down for fuel can be replanted. If done in a sustainable way, they say, the annual growth in trees replanted or left standing will be enough to recapture the carbon being released.

Matthew Wolfe, an executive with Cambridge-based Madera Energy Inc., which is developing the Greenfield plant, said the report ignores the fact that much of the fuel used by biomass plants is waste wood.

"By eliminating biomass as an energy option, you are by default promoting further use of fossil fuels," he said.

The report makes a series of recommendations, including forcing biomass facilities to detail where they get their supply of wood and requiring them to purchase wood from forests with approved forest management plans.

The report also recommends additional environmental protections at locations where trees are being cut down for biomass plants, including "requiring enough coarse woody debris is left on the ground, particularly at nutrient poor sites, to ensure continued soil productivity, as well as sufficient standing dead wildlife trees remain to promote biodiversity."

Bowles commissioned the study after environmental activists warned biomass power plants could add to global warming. Activists are also pushing a Massachusetts ballot question to severely restrict the amount of carbon dioxide the power plants can emit.
Massachusetts is planning a series of hearings on the report beginning in July.
___
Online:
Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs: www.mass.gov/eoeea
Read more

Arlington approves zoning special use permit for gas well three blocks South of Cowboy Stadium

2010-06-10T19:29:00.003-05:00

by GARY REAVES - WFAA - June 9, 2010 at 10:30 PM

Dish residents water contaminated with hydrocarbons

2010-06-10T19:24:00.001-05:00

Proposed gas well at gateway to Arlington between Cowboy Stadium and Hospital district

2010-06-08T23:41:00.001-05:00

State regulators fail to disclose benzene in Fort Worth air

2010-05-27T09:30:00.005-05:00

By CHRIS HAWES - WFAA - May 26, 2010
FORT WORTH — State environmental officials said they never found evidence of elevated levels of the cancer-causing chemical benzene during a December air study in Fort Worth.

But News 8 has proof that they did, and the mayor of a Denton County town is now calling for a federal probe of state pollution regulators.

Last January, John Sadlier, deputy director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, appeared before the Fort Worth City Council with what sounded like good news: Eight air samples analyzed in Fort Worth found no traces of benzene, the toxin that — over time — can lead to leukemia.

"Benzene is non-detect on all the slides," Sadlier said during the January presentation.

But what he didn't tell Council members was that the analysis equipment that TCEQ used in the field wasn't sensitive enough to detect lower levels of benzene — the levels that TCEQ's own scientists say can lead to cancer if sustained over a period of years.

That revelation was included in an internal TCEQ report obtained by News 8 on Wednesday.

"Every citizen should be outraged, in particular the citizens of Fort Worth, because we've been duped and lied to," said Esther McElfish of the North Central Texas Communities Alliance.

A few days after Sadlier spoke to the Fort Worth Council, TCEQ's lab tested the samples with equipment that could detect the levels they were looking for. Scientists found four of the eight samples taken indicated benzene above what the commission considers safe when considering long-term health effects.

But Sadlier and TCEQ decided not to tell the public. Why?

"I don't even know how to respond to that," Sadlier told News 8 in a telephone interview. "I don't think there's any need to. These values are so small."
Sadlier maintained that he didn't know the analysis equipment used in the field was incapable of detecting the lower levels when he talked to the city. He also said he told a Fort Worth staffer about the discrepancy last week.

Sadlier did not, however, inform State Sen. Wendy Davis, who has been active in natural gas issues.

"This agency that has been charged with ensuring the health of our community has broken our trust, in terms of assuring us that they're going to look out for our safety versus looking out for their own reputations and their own concerns about the fact that they failed to do the job that they should have been doing," Davis said

.

Sadlier said follow-up testing at the sites in question detected very low levels of benzene when they returned.

The City of Fort Worth now plans to conduct its own testing, and Calvin Tillman, mayor of the tiny Denton County community of DISH, is calling for an investigation of TCEQ by the Department o
Read more and see video on WFAA.Com

Gas pipeline lawsuit judgement affirmed

2010-05-15T03:04:00.002-05:00

By Bill Hankins - The Paris News - May 1, 2010

A $1.24 million judgement for 12 Lamar County residents against Natural Gas Pipeline Company of America has been affirmed by the 6th Court of Appeals in Texarkana.

William Wayne Justiss and 11 other property owners brought the suit more than 12 years ago, complaining about the noise and odor the pipeline’s compression station near Howland generated.

The suit was filed after the State of Texas cited NGPC for exceeding permitted emission levels.

Progress on the suit laggedfor approximately 10 years before a Lamar County jury ruled in favor of the landowners and awarded them the $1.24 million in damages for the loss of value of their properties.

The trial court also awarded the plaintiffs $645,229 in prejudgment interest the jury said accrued while the suit was pending.

On appeal, NGPC argued the trial court erred because the nuisance claim was barred by the statute of limitations, the facts of the case are legally insufficient, the facts concerning the jury awards are legally and constitutionally insufficient and prejudgement interest was improperly awarded.

The appeals court handed down its opinion Friday, finding in favor of the plaintiffs on all counts and affirming the trial court’s judgment.

“We thought the jury’s judgment was the right thing, and we are glad the appeals court agreed with us,” said plaintiff attorney James Rodgers.

He said NGPC has one more possible appeal in the case, that being to the Texas Supreme Court.

“I do not know if the Texas Supreme Court will hear the case, or if NGPC will even ask the court to hear an appeal,” Rodgers said.

“I didn’t ever think it (the judgment) would happen,” Justiss said after hearing the appeals court decision Friday. “The natural gas company is still doing that thing down there.”

The Lamar County jury awarded the $1.24 million in damages to nine of the plaintiffs who had sued.

While the lawsuit was pending, some of the plaintiffs brought another suit against parent company Kinder Morgan, which resulted in another damage verdict for trespass during the laying of a pipeline across the property of Justiss and Tommy and Judy Alspaugh.

A jury in 2003 found the company had laid a pipeline improperly on the plaintiffs’ property.

Damages were awarded in that case also.

In the latest suit, NGPC had built a compressor pump station in Howland near the residences of the Justisses, the Alspaughs and plaintiff Joseph Justiss, Joe Don and Judy Mashburn, Joe Denton and Christine Mashburn, Barry and Judy Cope and the late Richard Rast.

Rodgers was assisted by Steve Walker and Judy Hodgkiss in the trial that started Jan. 12, 2009, in Judge Scott McDowell’s 62nd District Court.

According to Justiss, by 1998, the noise and odor became a major problem, but the nearby residents were told there was nothing they could do because the company was in compliance with state monitoring.

Then in 1998, the company was cited by the state for creating “nuisance conditions.”

“The company argued it corrected the situation, but our clients did not believe this and continued to suffer from the same problems,” Rodgers said. “This suit was filed because the company did not correct the problems.”

Natural Gas Pipeline was represented at trial by the law firm of Bracewell and Guiliani of Houston. Their lawyers in trial were Phillip Sharp and Julie Wells.

British Petroleum Spills Oil on the Gulf Coast and Coats Texas Politicians With Greenbacks

2010-05-04T11:09:00.002-05:00

Faith Chatham - May 5, 2010
Thanks to Vince Leibowitz at Capitol Annex for following the money. Governor's Perry's confidence in BP may be connected to the faithfulness of their contributions to his campaign war chest. Here's a link to a spreadsheet showing the political contributions by British Petroleum to Texas Politicans.

DFWRCC Calls for Tighter Enforcement of O&G operations

2010-04-30T10:09:00.005-05:00

By Faith Chatham - DFWRCC- April 30, 2010

April 30, 2010

Comments to TCEQ on Proposed Changes to Permit by Rule and Standard Permitting for Oil and Gas Production in Texas

About DFWRCC: DFW Regional Concerned Citizens is a network of citizens in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex who monitor governmental policy in the North Central Council of Governments region. We concentrate our resources on communication and activism in the areas of transportation, environment and ethics in government.

Reviewing the draft of proposed rule changes for PBR and MMS for Oil and Gas:
We believe that proper regulation of oil and gas drilling, exploration, production, storage and transmission is crucial to protect critical water reserves and vital air resources, and to protect public health and natural habitats and the economy. We support the need for TCEQ to better regulate oil and gas activities throughout Texas.

Rules should be uniform throughout the state for all wells/production, transmission, and storage sites. Uniform rules are equitable to all producers.

There should be no grandfathering of wells and /or no staggered timeframes for implementation of new rules.

While we understand the difficult legal issues of applying new rules retroactively, we believe that these rules should apply to all Oil and Gas Facilities in the State of Texas. Where there is question about the protection of health and safety, we believe that the earliest implementation date is the best. Waiting until 2011 or 2012 is not in the best interests of either the public or the producers.

We oppose multi-tier incentives to try to get producers to do what responsible corporate citizens should do anyway.

Air pollution and water pollution travel across legal jurisdictions; therefore, wells/sites/facilities in air-quality attainment areas and non-attainment areas should all be held to the same strict standards.

Applying different dates for rule implementation to different wells, or applying different tier rating to wells, creates too much confusion and produces higher administrative costs, complicating timely and effective inspection, oversight and enforcement. Applying different rules to different wells also complicates operations for the producers and escalates administrative and legal cost, to the operation.

New rules should apply to all wells/facilities 60 days after passage by the Commission and/or Legislature. Waiting two to four years to implement better rules is detrimental to the economic health and welfare of the communities, and to public health and safety of individuals.

Texas has a tragic history with un-odorized natural gas where leaks were not rapidly detected and corrected at New London School. Leaks should be corrected within 24 hours of detection. After 48 hours fines should escalate substantially every hour that the leak remains uncorrected, and should be substantial enough to cover costs of re-inspections, monitoring and corrective action by state agencies if required.

Operators should bear the full cost of regulatory/oversight and inspection by state and federal agencies. This cost should not be passed on to the taxpayer. Operators should factor in these costs when performing cost/benefit analysis before deciding to invest. Those who profit from exploitation of the resources should bear the full cost of oversight and monitoring for health and safety of the community, but shall not have authority or over-sight of such monitoring. It is imperative that permitting fees and fines for non-compliance be high enough to cover administrative costs, frequent on-site inspection, and monitoring of air and water quality data.

Rules must be flexible enough to allow utilization of better technology as it becomes available for monitoring air and water quality and safe industry techniques.

We concur with the Sierra Club that proposed changes to the PBR and standard permit are long overdue. TCEQ began discussing some of these proposed (or similar rules) several years ago, but failed to enact them. Thus thousands of exploratory and production wells/ oil and gas facilities have been developed with minimal data and inadequate oversight by the TCEQ and the Texas Railroad Commission.

Oil and gas operators frequently take advantage of current Permit-by-Rule regulation to “stack” multiple wells and operations as separate facilities, avoiding the need for a standard permit or individual permit, despite large emissions. Stacking should be prohibited.
New rules should facilitate better access to reliable data for safe operation, maintenance, oversight and corporate decision making.

They should increase timely availability of verifiable information to TCEQ, Railroad Commission, EPA, local governmental authorities, the public and the media, and promote better communication between operators, regulators, and local planners and the public in solving joint challenges to the community. This is especially crucial in EPA non-attainment and near non-attainment areas, since data shows that emissions from gas production, storage and transmission in the DFW Metroplex equals or surpasses all non O&G industry achievements in attempting to reach acceptable clean air attainment levels.

The definition of “facility” should be clarified to help avoid the practice of stacking. Modifying the current Permit-by-Rule regulation to eliminate “stacking” multiple wells and operations as separate facilities for inspection and compliance activities, should promote implementation of Best Available or Maximum Available Control Technology while minimizing substandard operations.

Current site inventories should be mandatory and electronically recorded and reported by the operator to regulatory agencies for efficient oversight. Facility site plans should be certified by a professional engineer.

No well should go on-line before it has passed all TCEQ, Railroad Commission and EPA inspections/standards. Immediate reporting of changes in well/production status and or inspection/ monitoring data should be posted within 48 hours on the state agency’s website and be easily searchable by citizens, NGOs, media, law makers, lease holders and regulators.
Every production site should be referenced by the actual street address where the site is physically located and the reporting data should be searchable on the website by street address or geo address. Links to this data should be available to citizens on websites of the city or county where the facility is located.

The site inventory of equipment is especially important for assessment of fugitive emissions from evaporate tanks and emissions from non-fixed equipment. Utilization of non-stationary motorized equipment should accurately be reported. Current rules do not include regulation of non-fixed site equipment, yet excessive numbers of trucks, generators, and drills on one site contributes to air, noise and vibrations and creates problems to health and safety in neighborhoods. New TCEQ Rules should include oversight of non-stationary diesel equipment and place limits on the number of non-fixed equipment on any site in residential neighborhoods. Reliable site inventory records should be maintained and tabulated for utilization in inspections, rule application and effective decision making.

Every site should have clearly visible signs at the entrances stating name of owner, name of subcontractor/operator, safety officer, contact numbers and the number(s) of TCEQ/Railroad Commission/EPA where citizens can call to report possible violations or hazards to health and safety.

Operators should employ available technology to prevent and/or recapture emissions and hold ambient emission to levels which comply with state and federal standards. Operations failing to comply with these standards should incur fines high enough to cover frequent inspections and verification of continuous monitoring activities by the TCEQ, Railroad Commission, and EPA, and possible shut-down of facility and all related costs.
We oppose the proposal to create a two-tiered PBR because it will complicate effective regulation and cost-effective operation without adequately promoting necessary levels of verification and compliance.

No operator in or adjacent to urban areas or non-EPA Air Quality Attainment areas should be allowed to vent gases unless it is the last resort to prevent a larger blow-out.
We believe that TCEQ’s PBR rules should comply with EPA’s rules and standards. Therefore, we propose that TCEQ confer with EPA about acceptance of proposed PBR rules before they are enacted. TCEQ rules should be flexible enough to reflect any future changes in Federal Regulation, or to include adoption of better technologies.

If PBR’s are allowed they should be re-licensed at least every three years.
Accelerated rule implementation timeframes are imperative for adoption of these new TCEQ rules. It is mandatory that rules go into effect within 90 days from enactment since they apply to human health and safety standards and provide oversight for industrial sites in residential neighborhoods which are regulated only by TCEQ, the Railroad Commission, and EPA.

It is recommended that the definition of “receptors” should be modified to include not only homes, churches, and schools, but also businesses and other places frequented by people, especially by the “most vulnerable individuals.” It is especially unfortunate, in our estimation, that the rules do not protect children on playgrounds, in parks and day care centers, and does not protect health-impaired individuals in hospitals, nursing homes, and similar facilities. The rules should protect the health and safety of all residents (renters, surface owners without mineral rights and resident owners who sign mineral leases). All residences and places frequented by people within the agreed distances should be considered receptors.

Individuals should not be required to live within the immediate footprint of the facility in order to report health and safety concerns to the TCEQ, Railroad Commission or EPA.

Any complaint or report to TCEQ should trigger a report by TCEQ to the Railroad Commission, EPA, and to local governmental health and environmental authorities (city/county) and to School District and local water district(s).

Investigations should be completed within 14 days or less and report of findings published on the TCEQ website.TCEQ should notify local governmental entities of the link to the data so that it can be incorporated into the local governmental entities’ websites. It is recommended that the Local Government Code be modified to require that local governments post links to these reports on their websites to promote better communication with the community, and to better protect the health and welfare of vulnerable citizens. If the Local Government Code is not modified, it is recommended that TCEQ request that local governments post links to these reports on their websites.

Samples of air, water and soil should be taken prior to commencement of construction on O&G facilities to create a baseline. Air samples should be taken in the morning and afternoon and on both cold and hot days to account for variations in ozone. Air and water samples should be taken periodically, during fracking, and when any leak is detected. Soil samples should be taken at the pad site or storage site before construction commences for a baseline. Utilization of drilling mud and/or chemicals should be monitored. There is debate about what chemicals are added to drilling mud and fracking fluids. Many manufacturers claim that their content is proprietary and do not label or disclose additives. Drilling mud samples should be tested for heavy metals or additives which could pollute water and soil and/or endanger human health and safety, or endanger wildlife, or contaminate the food chain if fruits and vegetables are grown on reclaimed sites after end of production. When an operation goes into maintenance or goes out of production, soil and water samples should be taken to compare with the base samples taken prior to the commencement of construction. Operators are responsible for all expenses incurred in reclaiming the environment back to the baseline level.
Bonding levels for operators should reflect these possible costs.

Authored and submitted by co-founders:
Faith Chatham
Steve Blair
Harriet Irby

Arlington considers tigher rules for gas-drilling

2010-04-14T12:31:00.003-05:00

BY ROBERT CADWALLADER - Special to the Star-Telegram - April 13, 2010

ARLINGTON -- With natural-gas drilling on the rise, the Planning and Zoning Commission will look at higher road-damage fees, tighter time limits and other measures to buffer the industry's impact on the city.

The commission meets in a 4 p.m. work session today at City Hall, 101 W. Abram St., to consider what would be the third major revision of the 2003 gas well ordinance.

The commission plans to vote next week on final recommendations to the City Council.

"This is one of the main drilling hubs in the Barnett Shale," Mayor Robert Cluck said.

"There is more urban drilling now. We're closer to structures -- homes, churches -- than we ever have been."

The city has received 210 permit applications since 2006, when its first seven wells were drilled. The city so far has approved permits for 163 wells, of which about 130 have been drilled, said Darren Groth, Arlington's gas well inspector. The increase in drilling points to the need for further strengthening of the ordinance, he said.

That Tap Water Is Legal but May Be Unhealthy

2009-12-17T18:23:00.003-06:00

By CHARLES DUHIGG - The New York Times - December 16, 2009
The 35-year-old federal law regulating tap water is so out of date that the water Americans drink can pose what scientists say are serious health risks — and still be legal.

Only 91 contaminants are regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, yet more than 60,000 chemicals are used within the United States, according to Environmental Protection Agency estimates. Government and independent scientists have scrutinized thousands of those chemicals in recent decades, and identified hundreds associated with a risk of cancer and other diseases at small concentrations in drinking water, according to an analysis of government records by The New York Times.

But not one chemical has been added to the list of those regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act since 2000.

Other recent studies have found that even some chemicals regulated by that law pose risks at much smaller concentrations than previously known. However, many of the act’s standards for those chemicals have not been updated since the 1980s, and some remain essentially unchanged since the law was passed in 1974.

All told, more than 62 million Americans have been exposed since 2004 to drinking water that did not meet at least one commonly used government health guideline intended to help protect people from cancer or serious disease, according to an analysis by The Times of more than 19 million drinking-water test results from the District of Columbia and the 45 states that made data available.

In some cases, people have been exposed for years to water that did not meet those guidelines.

But because such guidelines were never incorporated into the Safe Drinking Water Act, the vast majority of that water never violated the law.

Some officials overseeing local water systems have tried to go above and beyond what is legally required. But they have encountered resistance, sometimes from the very residents they are trying to protect, who say that if their water is legal it must be safe.

Dr. Pankaj Parekh, director of the water quality division for the City of Los Angeles, has faced such criticism. The water in some city reservoirs has contained contaminants that become likely cancer-causing compounds when exposed to sunlight.

To stop the carcinogens from forming, the city covered the surface of reservoirs, including one in the upscale neighborhood of Silver Lake, with a blanket of black plastic balls that blocked the sun.

Then complaints started from owners of expensive houses around the reservoir. “They supposedly discovered these chemicals, and then they ruined the reservoir by putting black pimples all over it,” said Laurie Pepper, whose home overlooks the manmade lake. “If the water is so dangerous, why can’t they tell us what laws it’s violated?”

Dr. Parekh has struggled to make his case. “People don’t understand that just because water is technically legal, it can still present health risks,” he said. “And so we encounter opposition that can become very personal.”

Some federal regulators have tried to help officials like Dr. Parekh by pushing to tighten drinking water standards for chemicals like industrial solvents, as well as a rocket fuel additive that has polluted drinking water sources in Southern California and elsewhere. But those efforts have often been blocked by industry lobbying.

Drinking water that does not meet a federal health guideline will not necessarily make someone ill. Many contaminants are hazardous only if consumed for years. And some researchers argue that even toxic chemicals, when consumed at extremely low doses over long periods, pose few risks. Others argue that the cost of removing minute concentrations of chemicals from drinking water does not equal the benefits.

Moreover, many of the thousands of chemicals that have not been analyzed may be harmless. And researchers caution that such science is complicated, often based on extrapolations from animal studies, and sometimes hard to apply nationwide, particularly given that more than 57,400 water systems in this country each deliver, essentially, a different glass of water every day.

Government scientists now generally agree, however, that many chemicals commonly found in drinking water pose serious risks at low concentrations.

And independent studies in such journals as Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology; Environmental Health Perspectives; American Journal of Public Health; and Archives of Environmental and Occupational Health, as well as reports published by the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that millions of Americans become sick each year from drinking contaminated water, with maladies from upset stomachs to cancer and birth defects.

Those studies have tracked hospital admissions and disease patterns after chemicals were detected in water supplies. They found that various contaminants were often associated with increased incidents of disease. That research — like all large-scale studies of human illnesses — sometimes cannot definitively say that chemicals in drinking water were the sole cause of disease.

.... READ MUCH MUCH MORE in the New York Times

Does the gas industry threaten your health?

2009-10-07T18:32:00.000-05:00

Does the gas industry threaten your health?

Find out at the DISH, TX public meeting: 10/12 at 7pm

Public can discuss new study showing toxic air threats from gas compressor stations

Dear Sharon,

Come to DISH, TX
On Monday, October 12th at 7pm the Town of DISH will hold a public meeting to discuss the findings of recent air quality study commissioned by the Town.

Please attend and spread the word to your friends and neighbors. We need you to show your support for local government and citizens addressing toxic emissions in their community!

Town of DISH public meeting
October 12th at 7 pm
5413 Tim Donald Road
DISH, Texas 76247

Learn about the health risks of gas facilities in your community
The results of DISH's air study revealed high concentrations of carcinogenic and neurotoxin compounds near and on residential properties near the megaplex of compressors stations operating at the corner of Tim Donald and Strader Roads in DISH.

These compressors have multiple engines and support equipment, such as condensate tanks, that emit fugitive toxic emissions. The report also indicated that many of the compounds in the air exceeded the Short-term and Long-term Effects Screening Levels according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality regulations.

We need your help to support science, public health
Public health and safety may be best served by immediately shutting down these compressors until they can be operated safely with emission controls. However, The Town of DISH is taking tremendous heat from the oil and gas industry, who like Big Tobacco and other industries, are simply belittling valid concerns and studies as "bad science."

We need you to turn out to this meeting and support the efforts of local government and citizens to gather emissions data and hold companies accountable for health impacts!

Thanks,
Jennifer Goldman, EARTHWORKS' Oil & Gas Accountability Project

For More Information:

Read the study
Read an EARTHWORKS analysis of the study
Fill out the Town of DISH's health survey form

You received this message because you are a member
of the EARTHWORKS/Oil & Gas Accountability Project e-action list.

Donate to OGAP/EARTHWORKS | Visit your member page | Remove yourself

Natural Gas Development Brings "Amazing" Levels of Carcinogens to DISH, Texas

2009-09-25T21:30:00.002-05:00

The chemicals found in the DISH, Texas Study can be found in any area of the Barnett Shale were natural gas development occurs.

Natural Gas Development Brings "Amazing" Levels of Carcinogens to DISH, Texas

Evaluation of Town of DISH, Texas Ambient Air Monitoring Analysis

Secrets of Alleged Oil Price Manipulation Exposed

2009-09-06T08:46:00.003-05:00

By Landon Thomas Jr. - The New York Times - Friday, 4 Sep 2009
Its superfast, supersecret oil trading software was called the Hammer.

And if the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is right, the name fit well with an intricate scheme that allowed commodity traders in Chicago working for Optiver, a little-known company based in Amsterdam, to put their orders first in line and subtly manipulate the price of oil to the company’s advantage.

Transcripts and taped conversations of actions that took place in 2007, included in the commission’s case, reveal the secretive workings of high-frequency trading, a fast-growing Wall Street business that is suddenly drawing scrutiny in Washington. Critics say this high-speed form of computerized trading, which is used in a wide range of financial markets, enables its practitioners to profit at other investors’ expense.

Traders in the Chicago office of Optiver openly talked among themselves of “whacking” and “bullying up” the price of oil. But when called to account by officials of the New York Mercantile Exchange, they described their actions as just “providing liquidity.”

In July 2008, the commission charged Optiver with manipulating the price of oil; negotiations over a settlement continue.

In the cutthroat world of high-frequency trading, success is a function of speed, secrecy and often a bit of intrigue. Few have been more adroit at these arts than Optiver.

Optiver describes itself as one of the world’s leading liquidity providers, a trading firm that uses its own capital to make markets. It seeks to profit on razor-thin price differences — which can be as small as half a penny — by buying and selling stocks, bonds, futures, options and derivatives. (Derivatives represent about 65 percent of its business, equities 25 percent, and commodities and others make up the remaining 10 percent.)

But the extent to which market making (providing liquidity to markets that need it) and proprietary trading (the pursuit of pure profit with a firm’s own money) can properly coexist has become a thorny question for regulators. They are grappling with an exploding business that makes up as much as half the overall trading in the United States and a growing share in Europe as well.

10 Hottest Commodities of 2009
Tanno Massar, a public relations executive working for the company, said that Optiver had no comment on the case. As for Optiver’s trading conduct, Mr. Massar said that the company was committed to transparent markets and that there was no inherent conflict between pursuing profits and making markets — a view that top Optiver officials had long been trying to convey to regulators when their oil trades were being investigated.

But their pleadings fell on deaf ears. During a tense conference call in 2007, Thomas Lasala, the chief regulator for Nymex, made his doubts clear about Optiver’s trading strategies. “The market seems to move in reaction to your orders,” he said, according to a transcript of the conversation. “And I don’t think that is a market-making strategy.”

RELATED LINKS
Schork Oil OutlookOPEC Likely to Keep Output Steady
It could well be that Optiver’s cowboy trading tactics are unique to the company. But as concern grows over the effect that high-octane computerized trading is having on markets worldwide, Optiver’s conduct in the oil futures market raises questions as to whether the relentless competition of this business is forcing companies to engage in similar practices. “These are proprietary trading shops that are masquerading as market makers,” said Tim Quast of Modern IR, a consulting firm that advises corporations on market structure issues.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has opened up an investigation into high-speed-trading practices, in particular the ability of some of the most powerful computers to jump to the head of the trading queue and — in a fraction of a millisecond — capture the evanescent trading spread before the rest of the market does.

The spread of high-frequency trading in Europe has lagged behind the United States. But it is now experiencing rapid growth, spurred by arbitrage opportunities that have attracted large American firms like Getco and Madison Tyler.

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Amsterdam, as much as if not more than London, has been the breeding ground for local firms seeking the same advantages. Companies like Optiver, All Options, Tibra and others have assumed influential positions in Europe, moving from their original expertise in trading options to the full gamut of stocks, bonds and derivatives as well.

Called low-latency trading, this blend of speed and opportunism is the essence of Optiver’s business model.

It deploys a sophisticated software system called F1 that can process information and make a trade in 0.5 milliseconds — using complex algorithms that let its computers think like a trader. And the company is so careful about preserving its secrets that when some traders and engineers left for a rival operation recently, Optiver hired private investigators and subsequently sued the former employees on charges of making off with intellectual property.

Founded in 1986 by an options trader named Johann Kaemingk, Optiver has grown far beyond its roots in Amsterdam to trade on exchanges all over the world. It employs 600 people and, judging from the many positions advertised on its Web site, it is still in a hiring mode.

Which Oil-Producing Nations Make Money
Given the vicious competition that exists in the industry, Optiver and other companies have become creative in attracting the smartest people in finance. The dress code is aggressively casual. The company provides free breakfasts, lunches and Friday afternoon drinks, as well as chair massages.

And in one recruiting Web video (no longer online), an Optiver trader sitting before four giant trading screens is seen ogling two skimpily clad women as they sit on his thighs.

To enjoy these professional fruits, applicants need to subject themselves to three math-based tests to test facility with numbers and the ability to think clearly under pressure. For one of the tests, 80 questions must be answered in under 8 minutes. Sample questions include 0.034 times 0.2, or, if you have a cube made of 10 by 10 smaller cubes, how many are facing the outside?

Few of the applicants even get an interview: 80 to 90 percent of people who take the test fail it. People who have worked at Optiver say the average age is young — under 30 — as the company has a policy of not hiring traders from rival institutions, preferring recent university graduates who can more easily embrace the firm’s culture.

According to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which would not comment on the case, Optiver made about $1 million on its oil trading gambit.

While $1 million may not seem like a lot, recorded conversations reveal the extent to which the firm’s trading practices broadly have enriched its employees.

In one exchange, Christopher Dowson, head of trading in Optiver’s Chicago office and the mastermind behind the oil strategy, bragged to another employee about how he had bought a new speed boat with his share of the returns. “With these profits, might have to get a bigger one,” he said.

And in another, Mr. Dowson acknowledges that Optiver was so aggressive in conducting its proprietary trades in some smaller stocks that their activities “were as big as the volume traded on the day.”

It is precisely this — high-powered computers and the swagger of those who operate them — that is causing worries over high-frequency trading’s increasing sway. “The markets used to be about capital formation,” said Mr. Quast, the consultant. “Now 80 percent of trading is driven by some form of statistical arbitrage. We are buying into a statistical house of cards that could unravel very quickly.”

This story originally appeared in the The New York Times

State Participation in Gas Pipeline Relocations

2009-08-29T10:18:00.002-05:00

From Minutes of Texas Transportation Commission, August 27, 2009

Chapter 21 – Right of Way (MO)
New §21.24, State Participation in Gas Pipeline Relocations (Utility
Adjustment, Relocation, or Removal) and Amendments to §21.31,
Definitions, §21.33, Applicability, §21.34, Scope, §21.36, Rights of Utilities,
§21.37, Design, and New §21.42, Appeal Process (Utility Accommodation)
Legislation passed by the 81st Legislature increases the types of gas pipelines that can be placed longitudinally in state highway right of way. The proposed rule changes authorize installation of the new gas pipelines, provide for verification of Railroad Commission regulation, and establish a formal appeal process.

Filling the gap When the state won’t take on a dirty job

2009-08-24T16:31:00.003-05:00

By Editorial - HOUSTON CHRONICLE - Aug. 23, 2009

City of Houston officials have wrestled for years with this dilemma: How do you prevent industrial facilities from violating clean air standards if the state agency entrusted with that responsibility doesn't do the job?
Environmental groups frustrated by that inaction are now taking polluters to court, with encouraging results. In the latest example, the Sierra Club and Environment Texas have filed a federal suit to force Chevron Phillips Chemical to reduce emissions of air toxics at its Cedar Bayou chemical plant in Baytown.
In court filings, the groups claim that since 2003 the plant has illegally released more than a million pounds of toxic, carcinogenic chemicals, including benzene and 1,3-butadiene. Most of the releases occurred during so-called “upsets,” which occur during startups, shutdowns, and other non-routine activities.
The litigation is being brought under a provision of the Clean Air Act empowering private citizens affected by illegal pollution discharges to file federal suits if state and federal regulators do not take action.
This is the second time that the two groups have used the citizen suit provision against a Houston-area company. Last year the target was the Shell Oil Deer Park refinery and petrochemical complex. That resulted in a landmark settlement in which Shell agreed to reduce emissions and pay nearly $6 million for past Clean Air Act violations.
Reacting to the latest suit, a Chevron Phillips spokesman claimed the company is complying with existing laws and has reduced emissions.
Neil Carman, a chemist and the Clean Air Program director for the Lone Star chapter of the Sierra Club, says a single discharge of emissions from the Cedar Bayou facility 10 years ago created the highest levels of ozone in Houston in the last 20 years.
The director of Environment Texas, Luke Metzger, says citizen suits are necessary “because the state of Texas has failed to stop such violations at Cedar Bayou and elsewhere and enforce the law themselves.”
The support evidence filed in the Chevron Phillips suit is based on analysis of the company's own reports submitted to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. It's inexcusable that the state agency responsible for enforcing clean air laws apparently can't be bothered to look at what's right under its nose.

Notice of Air Quality Permitting Contested Hearing

2009-08-21T15:58:00.002-05:00

NOTICE OF HEARING

TRINITY MATERIALS, INC.
SOAH Docket No. 582-09-5906
TCEQ Docket No. 2009-0696-AIR
Proposed Permit No. 85088L001

APPLICATION. Trinity Materials, Inc., 2525 North Stemmons Freeway, Dallas, Texas 75207, has applied to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for issuance of an Air Quality Permit Number 85088L001, which would authorize construction of a Rock Crushing Plant to be located approximately 3.8 miles east of Elmo, Texas, on Highway 80. Travel south on County Road 314 approximately 1,000 feet to the plant entrance near Terrell, Kaufman County, Texas. The proposed facility will emit the following air contaminants: particulate matter including particulate matter less than 10 microns in diameter.

The TCEQ executive director has prepared a draft permit which, if approved, would establish the conditions under which the facility must operate. The TCEQ Executive Director has made a preliminary decision to issue the permit because it meets all rules and regulations. The permit application, TCEQ Executive Director's preliminary decision, and draft permit are available for viewing and copying at the TCEQ Central Office, the TCEQ Fort Worth Regional Office, and at the Terrell Public Library, 301 North Rockwall Street, Terrell, Kaufman County, Texas. The facility's compliance file, if any exists, is available for public review at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality Dallas/Fort Worth Regional Office, 2309 Gravel Drive, Fort Worth, Texas.

DIRECT REFERRAL. The Notice of Application and Preliminary Decision was published on December 18, 2008. On July 30, 2009, the Applicant filed a request for direct referral to the State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH). Therefore, the chief clerk has referred this application directly to SOAH for a hearing on whether the application complies with all applicable statutory and regulatory requirements.

CONTESTED CASE HEARING. The State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH) will conduct a formal contested case hearing at:

10:00 a.m. - September 28, 2009
William P. Clements Building
300 West 15th Street, 4th Floor
Austin, Texas 78701

The contested case hearing will be a legal proceeding similar to a civil trial in state district court. The hearing will be conducted in accordance with the Chapter 2001, Texas Government Code; Chapter 382, Texas Health and Safety Code; TCEQ rules including 30 Texas Administrative Code (TAC) Chapter 116, Subchapters A and B; and the procedural rules of the TCEQ and SOAH, including 30 TAC Chapter 80 and 1 TAC Chapter 155.

To request to be a party, you must attend the hearing and show you would be affected by the application in a way not common to the general public. Any person may attend the hearing and request to be a party. Only persons named as parties may participate at the hearing.

INFORMATION. If you need more information about the hearing process for this application, please call the Office of Public Assistance, Toll Free, at 1-800-687-4040. General information regarding the TCEQ can be found at www.TCEQ.state.tx.us.

Persons with disabilities who need special accommodations at the hearing should call the SOAH Docketing Department at 512-475-3445, at least one week prior to the hearing.

Further information may also be obtained from Trinity Materials, Inc., at the address stated above or by calling Mr. Bobby Bailey, Environmental Coordinator at 214-589-8459.

Issued: August 12, 2009

LaDonna Castañuela, Chief Clerk
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality

TCEQ HELICOPTER TAKES TO THE SKY FOR GULF COAST CLEAN AIR STUDY Looking for unreported, under-reported emissions

2009-08-06T08:38:00.002-05:00

By Lisa Wheeler - TCEQ News Release - WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5, 2009
Residents in the Corpus Christi, Beaumont-Port Arthur, and Houston-Galveston-Brazoria areas may soon notice a white helicopter hovering over or near pipelines, oil and gas production facilities, and other industrial facilities, as part of an airborne study being conducted by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Beginning the second week of August, the helicopter flights will be conducted over industrial areas in Harris, Jefferson, and Nueces counties. The study will conclude no later than August 21, 2009.

The specially-equipped helicopter utilizes an infrared camera called the HAWK that can image volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other hydrocarbon emissions invisible to the eye. VOCs are a class of compounds present in common things like gasoline and used as solvents or industrial chemicals. VOCs can combine with nitrogen oxides (NOx) in the presence of sunlight and light winds to form ground-level ozone.

When the camera detects possible VOC emissions, the technician on the helicopter will note the time and location and other information about the emissions source. The helicopter may hover or circle a particular location for an extended period of time to gather images and data on potential emission sources.

The TCEQ project is a follow-up to similar efforts conducted in the Texas Gulf Coast, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Tyler-Longview-Marshall areas to identify VOC sources that may potentially be unreported or under-reported. Identifying the emissions will assist the agency in improving the region's air quality by advancing the study of ozone formation and VOC sources, thus leading to improved air quality planning efforts.

Notification of similar flights in the future will be posted on the TCEQ Point Source Emissions Inventory page http://www.tceq.state.tx.us/implementation/air/industei/psei/psei.html, rather than via news releases.

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2009-08-02T13:00:00.003-05:00

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2009-07-22T11:22:00.002-05:00

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Penalties mean profit for polluters

2009-07-19T11:57:00.004-05:00

By RICK CASEY - Houston Chronicle - July 14, 2009
Way back in the bad old days, many prosperous Texas companies made a happy discovery.
They could earn money by not paying their taxes on time.
Under the law, the penalties they faced for being delinquent on their property taxes were less than they could earn in interest over that period of time.
Tax laws have since been changed to take away the profit motive for tax delinquents.
In another arena, however, we still are in the bad old days. Very prosperous corporations understand that the fines they will be charged by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for dumping illegal amounts of pollutants into the air are likely to be much less than they would have to pay to upgrade their equipment and limit their emissions to permitted amounts.
There's no secret about this. Back in 2003 a state audit of the TCEQ found that refineries and other polluters were consistently fined less than what the law called for. What's more, the law often capped fines at considerably less than an amount that would deter polluters.
The result, according to the audit:

“Violators often have economic benefits that exceed their penalties, which could reduce their incentive to comply. For 80 fiscal year 2001, 2002, and 2003 cases we tested, the total economic benefit gained by violators during the period of noncompliance was $8,647,005. However, these entities were fined only $1,683,635, which is approximately 19 percent of the economic benefit gained from being out of compliance.”

Last year a study by the Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention, a good organization with an egregiously cute acronym (GHASP), found that little had changed.

“The economic benefit gained and the cost of compliance thus far avoided are not recovered in the majority of penalties,” the report found, noting that violators thus “gain a competitive advantage over those that comply.”

State Sen. Mario Gallegos introduced a bill this spring that would have required that all fines would be equal to or more than the amount the company saved by not installing nonpolluting equipment and procedures.
If you breathe Houston's air, you won't be surprised to learn that the bill was buried early.
Still, some Houston clean-air activists took heart last month when Attorney General Greg Abbot filed a lawsuit against BP Petroleum on behalf of the TCEQ.
The suit seeks more than $100 million in fines, alleging that BP illegally dumped pollutants into the air at least 46 times, starting when 15 people were killed in 2005 at the company's Texas City plant.
The suit was filed after negotiations between BP and the TCEQ failed.
One clean air advocate said the suit against BP is “a big deal” that supports a local perception that in the past year TCEQ staff has been quietly increasing its enforcement activities while trying not to draw the attention of the agency's business-friendly board.
Others are more skeptical.

“I think it's a long time coming,” said Luke Metzger, director of Environment Texas, an Austin-based nonprofit. “I think they're basically piling on after the EPA fined BP with a huge penalty.”

Still, he said he was glad for the suit, if skeptical that it will go far enough.
Metzger has standing to speak. His organization and the Sierra Club last year sued Shell Oil Co. for allegedly exceeding its permitted emissions at its Deer Park plant by 5 million pounds.
They won a settlement of $6 million plus an agreement by Shell to reduce its emissions by 80 percent within three years or face more penalties.
Metzger says more suits are in the works.
Here's a sweet competition for you: Can the TCEQ and the attorney general enforce clean air laws better than a little old nonprofit? Any bets?
Read more in the Houston Chronicle

Midland Texas Wells Contaminated with Chromium

2009-07-17T09:56:00.003-05:00

By Dr. Shezad Malik - Dallas Fort Worth Injury Lawyer - July 16, 2009

Beverly Crouch spent hundreds of dollars on chemicals last fall to try to get the green tinge out of her backyard pool.
It wasn't until two months ago that she learned why the chemicals she put into her 13,000-gallon, above-ground pool wouldn't clear the water. The green color came from well water contaminated with hexavalent chromium, a known human carcinogen.
Crouch, 44, isn't alone. Some of her neighbors' wells gushed water the color of urine.
Texas environmental officials are still trying to determine the extent of the contamination. Later this month, they will ask the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to consider the site for federal Superfund status.
After that, efforts will begin to find who dumped the dangerous chemical, which appears to have been in the area for years, according to one environmental investigator.
Residents have enlisted the help of Erin Brockovich, who helped Hinkley, Calif., residents after their groundwater was found to be contaminated by the same chemical.
Industrial workers who breathe airborne hexavalent chromium may get lung cancer, and it can irritate or damage the nose, throat and lungs if inhaled at high levels. It can also damage eyes or skin.
People and animals exposed to hexavalent chromium in drinking water face an increased risk of stomach tumors.
As of June 30, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has found contamination in about one-third of the 125 wells tested in Cotton Flats, a community south of Interstate 20 on the fringe of Midland.
Most of the Cotton Flats homes are in Midland County and are not connected to the city's water supply.
The highest reading was 5,250 parts of chromium per billion — or more than 50 times the maximum allowed by the EPA.
Hexavalent chromium compounds, a toxic form of the element chromium, are man-made and used as an anticorrosive and rust inhibitor; in chrome plating; in pressure treating of wood; in dyes and pigments; and in leather tanning.
The state environmental agency continues to test wells; so far the commission has spent more than $1 million on testing and dealing with the contamination. Texas law allows the agency to seek reimbursement from polluters for costs associated with dealing with the contamination. Such costs would include filtration systems the commission has installed at homes where levels of hexavalent chromium exceed the EPA maximum.
The filtration systems provide water that is safe for all household uses, agency spokeswoman Andrea Morrow said.
The well tests began in early April, but it not known how long the chemical has been in the groundwater, Morrow said.
The concentrations of hexavalent chromium are the highest he's ever seen in groundwater, and he believes the chemical has been in the groundwater for up to five years.

The culprit is definitely oilfield activity, Bowcock said, saying that's the only industry in the area.

Bowcock and some Cotton Flats residents believe Schlumberger, an oilfield services company, is responsible. In an e-mailed statement, company spokesman Stephen T. Harris denied Schlumberger is to blame.

"Schlumberger fully appreciates the concern of the public and continues to cooperate with the TCEQ to help identify sources of chromium in the area," Harris wrote. "Independent groundwater tests, however, indicate that the source of the contamination is likely an adjacent site unrelated to our facility."

Sheldon Johnson, who has lived in Cotton Flats for 17 years and works for the city of Midland, said he doubts whoever is responsible will step forward.
Johnson and others frequently check and change the filters inside the system to ensure they are working properly. The potential heath threat is never far from their thoughts.
Read more in Dallas Fort Worth Injury Lawyer

Jim Hightower | Today's Perpetrators of Gas Pump Thievery

2009-07-02T20:12:00.001-05:00

Jim Hightower | Today's Perpetrators of Gas Pump Thievery

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CLIMATE CHANGE: EUROPE FEELS THE U.S. SNEEZE

2009-07-01T11:34:00.004-05:00

By Matthew Berger - TerraViva EU - Wed. July 1, 2009

LONDON (IPS) - Governments and interest groups around the world followed the U.S. House of Representatives' vote Friday on the first U.S. policy to limit the country's greenhouse gas emissions. They were especially interested in Europe, where a system similar to the bill's cap-and-trade scheme already exists and where EU countries agreed last December to tough emissions targets.

The reaction among European groups has been as mixed as it has been among their U.S. counterparts, with the notable difference that those opposing the passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, or the Waxman-Markey bill, largely feel it does not go far enough.

Most of the 212 U.S. representatives that voted against it, on the other hand, felt it imposed excessive restrictions and costs.

"We are disappointed. The U.S. has a responsibility when it comes to climate change," Sonja Meister, climate change coordinator for Friends of the Earth Europe told IPS Friday. Developed nations need to reduce emissions by at least 40 percent by 2020, she said, referring to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's recommendation for the most ambitious government action.

The U.S. bill calls for a reduction in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions of 17 percent by 2020, compared to 2005 levels. The EU's '20-20-20' targets call for a 20 percent reduction over the same time, compared with 1990 levels.

The position taken by many in Europe is that anything is better than nothing, however. EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso was quoted by the Associated Press Friday as saying, "We want the U.S. to go as far and as fast as they can on climate change. We want Waxman-Markey to succeed."

On Monday, Lena de Visscher, the Commission's spokesperson for the environment office, told IPS, "We welcome the approval of the Waxman- Markey bill by the House. This is an important signal of Congress's desire for the U.S. to re-engage in the global debate on climate change."

The French daily Le Monde led its Sunday-Monday edition with the headline 'Climate: Barack Obama launches his green revolution', largely focusing on the change in policy since last year when, it says, "a law aiming to fight climate change would have been unthinkable."

This rejoicing that legislation addressing climate issues is on the table now after eight years of silence under the Bush Administration is not universal, however.

Leaders in Europe were following the Waxman-Markey bill very closely, said Martin Kaiser of Greenpeace International last week from Amsterdam. They are pleased legislation is on its way after nothing happening under former president George W. Bush, but are uncomfortable with the level of emissions targets at the moment, he said.

The cap-and-trade aspects of the bill have also been criticised in European environmental circles, where they have seen first-hand the successes and failures of their own Emissions Trading System (ETS).

The EU's system, agreed in 2005, distributed a set amount of allowances to industry, mainly in the energy sector. These were distributed for free initially, though the goal was to sell the carbon permits in auction by 2013. Many concessions, including the partial delay of this auctioning, were wrangled by industry as the EU tried to strengthen the ETS in order to bring it in line with the 20-20-20 targets last winter, and the story of U.S. legislation looks very similar.

Concessions to industry and opposition in the House led to the Waxman- Markey bill's original hopes being set aside in the name of simply getting something passed. Among the concessions included in the final draft, the bill would initially distribute 85 percent of allowances for free.

According to Meister, cap-and-trade programmes could work well, but only when they have 100 percent auctioning for all sectors, no offsetting, and earmarking of revenue to help the countries and industries that need the most help in adapting.

"Governments tend to over-rely on market-based solutions," she said. "Because of our experience in the EU, I'm skeptical that this could work, particularly because of the pressure that will come from industry and the loopholes that will develop over time as businesses adapt to the new restrictions."

But the most interesting aspect for Europeans may be not the efficacy of the legislation in the U.S. but the way it affects international climate change discussions, as will take place at the G8 talks in Italy Jul. 8 to 10.

De Visscher, speaking for the European Commission, said the bill shows the U.S. is "ready for a climate change deal in Copenhagen at the end of this year."

There seems to be one consensus - U.S. domestic legislation has an international effect which can raise or lower the bar for everyone else.

"It is really hard to push the EU to enact stronger targets if everyone else is much weaker," says Meister. "The EU says, 'Look, we have the strongest emissions targets.' But even those targets aren't in line with the science."

The bill now moves to the U.S. Senate, where it is expected to face even more scrutiny and criticism than it did in the House. The debate will surely continue in Europe, as well. Read more in TerraViva EU

Limits on Emissions Have Wide Support

2009-06-25T10:32:00.004-05:00

By Steven Mufson and Jennifer Agiesta - Washington Post Staff Writers - Thursday, June 25, 2009
Three-quarters of Americans think the federal government should regulate the release into the atmosphere of greenhouse gases from power plants, cars and factories to reduce global warming, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, with substantial majority support from Democrats, Republicans and independents.
But fewer Americans -- 52 percent -- support a cap-and-trade approach to limiting greenhouse gas emissions similar to the one the House may vote on as early as tomorrow. That is slightly less support than cap and trade enjoyed in a late July 2008 poll. Forty-two percent of those surveyed this month oppose such a program.

The Washington Post-ABC News survey showed that support slipped slightly when people were asked whether they would be willing to pay higher prices in general or higher electricity bills in exchange for significant decreases in greenhouse gases. Although 62 percent of those surveyed said they would support regulation even if it raised the price of purchases and 56 percent would back cap and trade if it resulted in a $10 increase in utility costs, 44 percent said they would back a cap-and-trade system if it boosted monthly electricity bills by $25.

"I think there hasn't been enough regulation," said Janet Opkyke, 60, a freelance book editor in northern Michigan. "Way back when deregulation started, I thought it was the wrong thing to do. I thought it was a license for greed. And I'm glad to see it swinging the other way." She added, "I think greenhouse gases are very harmful, and we have to do something about it."

Cap and trade is a signature issue for President Obama and the Democratic congressional leadership, and it is the centerpiece of the 1,201-page climate bill co-sponsored by Reps. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.). House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) hopes to bring the measure to the House floor for a vote tomorrow -- before a week-long recess for the Fourth of July holiday -- but a dispute with Republicans over annual spending bills could delay that plan.

Pelosi called the bill "a wonderful collaboration," and most environmental groups and a large number of companies endorsed it yesterday, despite last-minute concessions made to win the support of farm-state lawmakers led by the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Collin C. Peterson (D-Minn.).

"These changes will not help the cause of making real reductions in greenhouse gases," said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch. "And even some strong supporters of the Waxman-Markey legislation are now holding their noses, as if on the perimeter of a hog farm."

Nonetheless, American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman said yesterday in a statement that despite the changes, the group still opposes the "seriously flawed" climate legislation.

A cap-and-trade system sets a limit on the nation's emissions of greenhouse gases, then issues or auctions emission allowances that can be bought or sold by individuals, funds and companies. Over time, the cap is lowered to reduce the nation's emissions. Making emitters pay for carbon dioxide, a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, would provide incentives for developing renewable energy sources and new technologies to limit emissions from coal plants.

Debate over the cap-and-trade approach has focused on the cost to the average American. The Congressional Budget Office estimated this week that cap and trade would cost the average U.S. household $175 a year in 2020, but House Republicans have pushed the message that the legislation would cost many times that and drive millions of jobs offshore.

That message has failed to sway liberal and moderate Republicans, 60 percent of whom back a cap-and-trade program, but it appeals to the party's conservative base.

Tiffany Collins, 31, a part-time children's activity director at a church and a mother of four in Riverside, Calif., said she does not think greenhouse gases are causing climate change. She said she read a report on the Internet saying climate change was linked to changes in the sun's activity. But in any case, she does not support government intervention. "

I'm opposed to the government overregulating just about everything. It costs us money, and they don't do a very good job of it," she said.

One argument used by foes of climate legislation is that the United States should not take action unmatched by China and India, among the world's fastest-growing economies and sources of greenhouse gases. But the Post-ABC poll showed that six in 10 Americans favor U.S. action, even if other countries do less to confront climate change.

One of the sharpest dividing lines in attitudes toward climate legislation was age, with younger adults more receptive to cap and trade and federal regulation of greenhouse gases. Nearly two-thirds of those younger than 30 said they support cap and trade, and eight in 10 support federal limits on emissions. Among seniors, about four in 10 said they back a cap-and-trade proposal, and half favor federal intervention on emissions.

Sensitivity to increased prices is highest among those in households with incomes under $50,000. Nearly all of the drop-off in support for cap and trade or other greenhouse gas regulation comes among people who live in such households. Those in higher-income households were relatively unfazed by the increased costs.

The Post-ABC poll was conducted by telephone June 18 to 21 among a national random sample of 1,001 adults; results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Staff writer Paul Kane contributed to this report.
Read more in the Washington Post

Barnett Shale rights of way bill among 37 vetoed by Perry

2009-06-20T12:49:00.007-05:00

By Dave Montgomery - Fort Worth Star-Telegram - June 19, 2009

AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry on Friday vetoed 37 bills passed by the 2009 Legislature, including a measure that would have allowed natural gas pipelines in the Barnett Shale to be routed along state rights of way.

Perry also struck down a major expansion of pre-kindergarten programs sponsored by state Rep. Diane Patrick, R-Arlington, along with bills sponsored by two other House members from Tarrant County. Sunday is the deadline for Perry to deal with legislation.

Perry signed the nearly $182 billion budget to run the state for the next two years. But he cut $288.9 million through line-item vetoes, mostly appropriations for bills that were either vetoed or failed to make it through the Legislature.

The budget includes $5 million that will allow the University of Texas at Arlington’s School of Nursing to establish a regional nursing education center. The program intends to double the number of undergraduate nursing students from 400 to 800 by 2012, according to a university news release. The appropriation was sponsored by state Sen. Chris Harris, R-Arlington.

"I am proud of the accomplishments lawmakers made this session and thankful for their solid leadership," Perry said. "However, there was some legislation that, in its final form, would have done more harm than good to our citizens."

Barnett Shale

In vetoing the Barnett Shale bill sponsored by state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, Perry said he agreed that the measure "would provide a benefit to communities and reduce the impact on private property owners." But, he said, the measure, Senate Bill 686, conflicted with a similar bill he signed into law that permits gas corporations to lay and maintain lines under public rights of way.

Davis’ bill was a top priority for Fort Worth during the legislative session and was aimed at easing disruptions in residential areas as a result of natural gas drilling.

On Friday night, Fort Worth City Councilman Jungus Jordan said city officials would review the bill Perry referred to — House Bill 2572 — to determine whether the city could use it to meet its goal of routing natural gas pipelines away from residential neighborhoods.

"We’re going to have to sort through it," said Jordan, saying the city’s fundamental objective is to accommodate "the need for pipelines without interfering with the quality of life in neighborhoods."

Perry said HB 2572 "accomplishes the same objectives statewide while ensuring that pipelines are installed using the highest safety standards."

Pre-kindergarten

Patrick’s bill would have created a grant program to enable eligible school districts to implement or continue full-day pre-kindergarten programs.

Perry said that a similar grant program exists and that the $25 million appropriated for Patrick’s bill could be used to dramatically increase the number of students served through the program.

Passage of the bill was a major legislative accomplishment for Patrick, a former teacher who served on the Arlington school board. She could not be reached to comment Friday night.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank, applauded Perry’s veto, saying it would have created "an additional and unnecessary government" pre-kindergarten program.

Tarrant County reps

Reps. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, and Todd Smith, R-Euless, also lost bills to Perry’s veto pen.

Smith was the sponsor of House Bill 3148 that would have allowed certain defendants to petition a judge for an exemption from registering as a sex offender. The legislation would have applied only to age-based offenses involving consensual sex in which the defendant was no more than four years older than a victim who was at least 13 years old.

Smith, a lawyer, said the bill was designed to protect teens and young adults engaged in consensual sex from being branded as sex offenders. But Perry said the bill "fails to adequately protect young victims."

Veasey’s bill, House Bill 3481, would have permitted criminal records to be expunged in cases in which no charges resulted from an arrest or investigation. In vetoing the bill, Perry said it "precipitates an untenable injustice to victims and a hazard to public safety."

Veasey said the veto was unwarranted. "I’m shocked," he said. "I thought this was a good chance to give innocent people back their names."

Other legislation

Perry has used a lighter hand with his veto pen this year. Shortly after his first session as governor in 2001, he set the known record for vetoes by a Texas governor with 83. He vetoed 49 bills after the 2007 legislative session.

Gov. George W. Bush had far fewer vetoes during his tenure. His highest total for a legislative session was 38 in 1997.

Other vetoes Friday included:

A bill that would have made it easier for Child Protective Services to remove children from a home while investigating possible abuse. The governor agreed with critics that the measure would infringe on the rights of parents and guardians. At the same time, Perry ordered the Department of Family and Protective Services to develop statewide procedures for seeking court orders without compromising the rights of parents and families.

A proposal to require that drivers give bikes, motorcyclists and pedestrians at least a 3-foot space when passing,

A resolution that would have requested that Perry appoint a task force on horse and greyhound racing,

A measure that specifies what types of marketing and public opinion campaigns the Texas Department of Transportation can spend money on.

Perry signed legislation allowing public schools to buy electronic textbooks, saying it will "further propel Texas schools into the 21st century and ensure that our students have access to the most up-to-date information available in each subject."

And he said he would allow nine bills to become law without his signature, including a resolution that would have designated the Brady World Championship BBQ Goat Cook-off as the official state goat barbecue championship cook-off.

This report includes material from The Associated Press.

Read more in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Natural Gas - A devastation arial view

2009-06-14T01:50:00.004-05:00

By TxSharon - Daily Kos - June 15, 2009

Is this "the industry standard" for covering up a drilling well sump hole so children can't fall in?

2009-06-06T09:52:00.011-05:00

By Faith Chatham - DFWRCC - June 6, 2009

PHOTO BY EDDIE CROSSWHITE - copyright 2009 - used by permission
Driver Pipeline's work crew's responded to instructions this week to cover-up the deep well hole (sump holes) on the Daniel Drive DFW Midstreams Pipeline/ONCOR constuction site in East Arlington. Homeowner Eddie Crosswhite photographed the hole from his back yard after the crew was gone. The president of DFW Midstreams Pipeline, in a phone coversation with Faith Chatham Wednesday afternoon stated:

"They are supposed to be covering the sump hole when they leave each day. Do you know if that is happening?"

Faith assured him that she could find out.

A call to Mr. Crosswhite, whose's home shares a common boundary only a few feet north of this site, prompted him to shoot this picture. Harriet Irby shot video tape of one of the Zapada children, an adorable pre-schooler, playing in his side yard about ten feet from this uncovered, insufficiently-fenced, unsecured, toxic sump-hole filled with drilling chemicals, petroleum residue, salt water and sludge from the coring process. This is not a mud puddle. It is a deep-well hole filled with quick-sand-like drilling sludge.

Construction commenced on this site about nine weeks ago. The company has not fenced the site, despite knowlege that several children reside in the home sharing the southern boundary of this pipeline construction site.

Neither ONCOR/Luminant, owner of the utility right-of-way, nor DFW Midstreams Pipeline, nor their parent company, Texas Energy Futures, has exercised minimal work-site security precautions at the Daniel Drive pipeline construction site in this residential neighborhood.. Their one security guard usually sits in a car parked without a clear view of the opening between the Zapata children's back and side yards and the uncovered sump-holes on the construction site.

Blantant disregard for the health and safety of residents in this neighborhood opens investors in these companies to unnecessary risks.

See related article in The Arlington Texan with embedded links to Jim Grimes and the NEWS 33 teams coverage.

Persuaded by pipeline industry lobbyist citing the advantages of "self-regulation",and generous campaign contributions by individuals and industry PACS, Texas lawmakers have stripped municipalities and other governmental agencies (other than the Texas Railroad Commission) from authority to enforce local building codes and ordinances at pipeline construction sites. Lawmakers have granted the Texas Railroad Commission sole authority to enforce what few restrictions Texas places on the pipeline industry. Gas development in the Barnett Shale, in high-density inner city neighborhoods creates health and safety hazards on par with construction in backward third-world countries.

It doesn't take a petroleum engineer or environmental scientist to identify numerous violations to common decency and reasonable work-place safety practices at this site.

I don't believe there is a parent or grandparent employed at any of these companies would trust the less than "half-ass" poles forming a triangle around this well-sump hole we saw at the Daniel Dr. site Wednesday night to keep any of their children or grandchildren from falling in if they were, like the Zapata children, living within a few feet of this hazard!

Curiousity is natural. Children learn about danger by testing it. Small children disobey parents and go out in their yard when the get a chance.

We urge investors in Luminant, ONCOR, TXU, Texas Energy Futures, and DFW Midsrtreams Pipeline to complain to your investor relations officials about unnecessary risks at these company's work-sites and/or on their utility easements in Arlington.

Without reasonable regulation and sensible enforcement, chaos thrives. Where there is chaos, there are accidents. This job site reflects chaos and shows evidence of unmigitated stupidity.

PHOTO BY EDDIE CROSSWHITE - copyright 2009 - used by permission
This is not the only unsecured, uncovered sump-hole at a DFW Midstreams Pipeline construction site in East Arlington.

After videotaping this site, Mr. Crosswhite and Harriet Irby, photographed another one on the ONCOR/LUMINANT utility easement at a City of Arlington park adjacent to Hugh Smith Recreation Center on New York Ave. The coring/drilling site on the park is farther away from homes than the narrow distance between the Zapata home and Crosswhite home on Daniel Drive. However, parks attract children. All families do not keep their children home after dark. Instead of erecting a fence and installing a gate around the drilling site which they can lock, the company erected barriers on some sides and left at least one side open.

Other Problems:
At the Park, we saw a hose running from the sump hole into a creek outside of the utility easement (a possible E.P.A. violation to The Clean Water Act). The sump-hole was uncovered.

The security guard was on the parking lot, across the creek some distance from the worksite. It appears that the company uses security more to insure that their equipment is not stolen than to help prevent people, especially children, from wandering in and getting hurt.

Chemicals utilized in the drilling operation were not secured at either job site. What good does it do to regulate child-safety at day care centers, schools and residences when companies are allowed to to leave hazardous chemicals unsecured near children's play yards. We videotaped one of the Zapata children playing near stacks of buckets/pails of drilling chemicals stored by the pipeline construction crew between his home and the temporary plyboard wall they erected. The company refers to it as "sound-baffling" but it has no sound absorbant blankets on it like are normally used when companies are serious about sound-abatement. For the convenience of the workers, they left a generous opening between the plyboard so they could get to the chemicals, without concern that their opening (and other unfenced openings) makes it easy for children to wander onto the jobsite, and possibly fall into one of three deep quicksand-like sump holes on the site!
They drill down 15' to 20' and install the steel pipe utilizing horizontal drilling similar to when they drill the gas wells. They bring up salt water and sludge from the coring operation out of the well-holes (sump holes). These are deep, dangerous, wet, sump holes filled with drilling mud and drilling chemicals. They are wide enough for an adult to fall in and drown, let alone a child.

Industrial Development in parks and neighbors:

What good does it do for parents and schools and daycares to lock dangerous household chemicals in closets and kitchen counters when an industry is allowed to leave pails and buckets and barrels of chemicals on unfenced worksites adjacent to children's play-yards? Perhaps the pipelne industry will take work-site safety more seriously if Texas lawmakers grants the Department of Child Protective Services inspection authority for work-sites in residential neighborhoods and at parks. An industry which chooses to operate in residential neighborhoods deserves greater, not less, scrunity. Fines generated for safety violations involving risks to children's health and welfare could help fund additional social workers to inspect worksites and to cover regular CPS case work for at-risk children. To avoid CPS caseworkers coming onto their worksites, they may get serious and take child safety issues on worksites in residential neighborhoods seriously.

If the youngest and most vulnerable members of our society are put at the greatest risk as their parks and neighborhoods are invaded by industrial development, state lawmakers cannot continue exempting an arrogant industry from observing zoning codes, safety ordinances and construction/worksite regulations which other businesses have to observe.

Lawmakers should allow local municipalities to enforce reasonable regulations on pipeline transmission, construction, and gas and petroleum production and storage in high-density residential neighborhoods. Since children are at greater risk, companies who ignore basic child safety practices while profiting from developing gas (and transmission) in the Barnett Shale should fund additional services for those who bear the cost -- the children who live nearby.

Solar plant planned for Austin

2009-05-29T20:11:00.003-05:00

By Environment Texas - Summer Report 2009

In March, the Austin City Council approved a contract to build a 30-megawatt utility scale solar plant—the largest photovoltaic installation in the United States.

“We don’t settle for less than the best in Texas,” said Luke Metzger, director of Environment Texas. “The city of Austin made a major investment in the green economy that will pay dividends in jobs, economic development and environmental protection.”

According to a new report by Environment Texas, Public Citizen and Vote Solar, legislation proposed by state Rep. Rafael Anchia and Sen. Florence Shapiro could lead to solar installations on as many as 500,000 roofs in Texas by 2020, at a cost of about $0.98 per month per Texan. This investment would create tens of thousands of jobs and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 29 million tons, the equivalent of taking 4.3 million cars off the road for a year.
Read more in Environment Texas

Report Finds Barnett Shale Emissions Contributing to DFW Smog - Environmental Defense Fund

2009-05-28T15:11:00.001-05:00

Report Finds Barnett Shale Emissions Contributing to DFW Smog - Environmental Defense Fund

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PUC awards wind power transmission line contracts

2009-05-28T09:28:00.001-05:00

By ELIZABETH SOUDER / The Dallas Morning News - January 30, 2009
esouder@dallasnews.com

The Public Utility Commission on Thursday assigned seven utilities to build pieces of a $5 billion transmission line project to bring West Texas wind power to North Texas and Houston.

The decision marks the next step in the Competitive Renewable Energy Zone project, designed to promote renewable energy investment.

Texas has more wind power than any other state, and most of it is in West Texas. Existing transmission lines have nearly reached their capacity to bring wind power to population centers.

"Oncor is pleased by the PUC's movement from discussion to action, stimulating economic development through investment and the creation of hundreds of new jobs," said Don Clevenger, vice president of external affairs for Oncor, which won the largest piece of the transmission project.

Oncor, the electric delivery arm of Energy Future Holdings, will build around $1.34 billion in transmission lines in North Texas for the project.

Another Dallas company, Sharyland Utilities, lead by Hunter Hunt, will build $394 million in transmission lines.

The commission also included newcomers in the process. Wind Energy Transmission Texas, a unit of Spain's Isolux Corsan Concesiones SA, will build $402 million in transmission lines.

Traditionally, transmission line utilities own and operate the power lines in particular regions of the state. In the past, each utility suggests and builds its own projects.

For the CREZ project, the commissioners came up with power lines themselves and allowed anyone to bid on them.

Next, the utilities must file a traditional transmission line application by October, said PUC spokesman Terry Hadley. The application would include proposals for exactly where the lines should go.

WIND POWER TRANSMISSION LINES

Here's how the major projects awarded by the Public Utility Commission for wind power transmission lines break down. The numbers are estimates, and the PUC may award other contracts.

Oncor: $1.34 billion

Electric Transmission Texas: $789 million

Lower Colorado River Authority: $750 million

Lone Star Transmission: $564 million

Wind Energy Transmission Texas: $402 million

Sharyland Utilities: $394 million

Cross Texas Transmission: $390 million

SOURCE: Public Utility Commission
Read more in the Dallas Morning News

Pipeline Nightmare: Gas Industry Goes Unscathes This Session

2009-05-28T07:13:00.007-05:00

By Jim Grimes - News33 Team - May 27, 2009
Fort Worth - Texas lawmakers have just days until the end of the session, and the natural gas industry has emerged without a scratch.

"The gas industry has completely controlled the legislative process," said Rep. Lon Burnam of Fort Worth.

Burnam was among the lawmakers who filed bills aimed at tighter regulations for gas companies. Those bills addressed eminent domain, environmental and safety issues. "None of that's going to be addressed in this legislation," said Burnam.

Gary Hogan who sits on the Fort Worth Gas Ordnance Task Force said, "most people would see we are building ourselves into a catastrophe."

Burnam also wanted gas to be odorized at the wellhead, which he said would allow the highly combustible gas to be detected in the event of a leak.

Industry expert Ed Ireland said odorizing gas would be ineffective in an outdoor setting. "These companies have stockholders to answer to," said Ireland.

Copyright © 2009, KDAF-TV
Watch more on News 33

SEE RELATED COVERAGE

BILLS TO PROTECT NEIGHBORHOOD BLOCKED IN COMMITTEE by Faith Chatham - DFWRCC - May 26, 2009

Battle Over Fracking Capitol Hill

Face-off Over 'Fracking': Water Battle Brews On Hill

2009-05-27T17:16:00.004-05:00

by Jeff Brady -NPR Morning Edition, May 27, 2009 ·
Environmentalists and the natural gas industry are getting ready for a battle in Congress over something known as "hydraulic fracturing."

"Fracking," as the industry calls it, involves injecting a million gallons or more of water and chemicals deep underground to pry out gas that's locked away in tight spaces.

Environmentalists want the federal government to regulate the practice because, in some cases, fracking may be harming nearby water wells. The industry says regulation should be left up to the states.

Hydraulic fracturing allows drillers to dramatically increase production. The chemicals pumped underground with the water help drillers bore through the hard rock. The pressure used is tremendous — about 300 times a typical garden hose. That creates small cracks in the rock that allow gas to escape.

Steve Harris believes that pressure also ruined his well. He lives on 14 acres south of Dallas. Shortly after a driller fracked a nearby well, he and his neighbors noticed a change in water pressure.

"When you'd flush the toilet — in the back where the bowl is — water would shoot out the top of the bowl," says Harris.

When he took a shower, there was a foul odor, and the water left rashes on his grandson's skin. His horses stopped drinking from their trough, and there was an oily film on top of the water.

Similar stories are popping up around the country. In Ohio, a couple's house blew up when gas from their water well filled their basement. A woman in Colorado blames her health problems on the chemicals used for fracking.

For the most part, people nearby don't even know what chemicals are being injected into the ground — companies don't have to report that.

Theo Colborn, who founded The Endocrine Disruption Exchange, based in Paonia, Colo., has spent years trying to figure out what chemicals the industry is using, with some success. She says removing the exemption fracking has been given from the Safe Drinking Water Act would bring some much-needed light to the industry.

"Believe me, we have a lot of good people within our federal agencies that would love to be working on this issue and addressing it. And they can't — it's hands-off right now," says Colborn.

Generally, the Environmental Protection Agency regulates anything that could affect underground drinking water supplies. But in 2005, the industry successfully lobbied for the exemption for fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act. That leaves regulation up to the states, which don't have the kind of resources the EPA does.

"We have no evidence that hydraulic fracturing is causing problems," says Lee Fuller, vice president of government relations for the Independent Petroleum Association of America. Without evidence of problems, he says there's no reason to pile on more regulation.

"I think people need to have more faith in the regulatory agencies that are watching it very closely and their ability to respond to issues if they arise," says Fuller

.

But environmental groups are lobbying Congress to get that exemption overturned as hydraulic fracturing becomes increasingly common. Halliburton, which pioneered hydraulic fracturing, says about 35,000 wells are fracked each year.

Gwen Lachelt of the Oil and Gas Accountability Project says that politically, now is the time for those on her side of this issue to move.

"We have a different presidential administration. We have new regions of the country that are now experiencing oil and gas development," says Lachelt. "New York City is a case in point. ... Companies are wanting to drill natural gas wells in New York City's drinking watershed."

Several City Council members have expressed concern over that idea, and there's been talk of finding a way to ban drilling in that region.

But the natural gas industry argues that more regulation will push up prices. To be sure, hydraulic fracturing is, in part, responsible for the low natural gas prices consumers are paying now.

Colorado School of Mines professor Geoffrey Thyne understands that. Still, he wants the industry to start encouraging more scientific research on fracking.

"Let's prove to everybody what we're saying — that's there's absolutely no danger — but let's do it in a rigorous way we can defend," says Thyne.

Thyne says the industry also could agree to stop using harmful chemicals in the process. Already, several of the largest drillers have agreed to stop using diesel, which can poison groundwater with benzene.
Read (or hear) more on NPR

U.S. to Issue Tougher Fuel Standards for Automobiles

2009-05-18T20:55:00.005-05:00

By JOHN M. BRODER - The New York Times - May 18, 2009

WASHINGTON — President Obama will announce tough new nationwide rules for automobile emissions and mileage standards on Tuesday, embracing rules that California has sought to enact for years over the objections of the auto industry and the Bush administration.

The rules, which will begin to take effect in 2012, will put in place a federal standard for fuel efficiency that is as tough as the California program, while imposing the first-ever limits on climate-altering gases from cars and trucks.

The effect will be a single new national standard that will create a car and light truck fleet in the United States that is almost 40 percent cleaner and more fuel-efficient by 2016 than it is today, with an average of 35.5 miles per gallon.

Environmental advocates and industry officials welcomed the new program, but for different reasons. Environmentalists called it a long-overdue tightening of emissions and fuel economy standards after decades of government delay and industry opposition. Auto industry officials said it would provide the single national efficiency standard they have long desired, a reasonable timetable to meet it and the certainty they need to proceed with product development plans.

Yet the industry position represents an abrupt about-face after years of battling tougher mileage standards in the courts and in Congress, reflecting the change in the political climate and the industry’s shaky financial condition. The decision comes as General Motors and Chrysler are receiving billions of dollars in federal help, closing hundreds of dealerships and trying to design the products and business strategy they will need to survive.

“For seven long years, there has been a debate over whether states or the federal government should regulate autos,” said Dave McCurdy, president of the Alliance of Auto Manufacturers, the industry’s largest trade association. “President Obama’s announcement ends that old debate by starting a federal rulemaking to set a national program.”

Mr. McCurdy, a former Democratic congressman from Oklahoma, has been working with Mr. Obama and his advisers on the issue since early this year.

In announcing the new program at the White House, Mr. Obama will be accompanied by Gov. Jennifer Granholm of Michigan and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, along with auto industry executives and environmental leaders.

The administration’s decision resolves a question over California’s application for a waiver from federal clean air laws to impose its own, tougher vehicle emissions standards. Thirteen states and the District of Columbia have said they plan to adopt the California program.

The new national fleet mileage rule for cars and light trucks of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016 roughly corresponds to the California requirement, which will be shelved as a result. The current national standard is slightly more than 25 miles per gallon.

The California plan, first proposed in 2002, had been stalled by industry lawsuits and the Bush administration’s refusal to grant a waiver from less stringent federal rules, although California has been given dozens of such exemptions over the last 40 years.

The program will also end a number of lawsuits over the California standards, officials said.

“This is a very big deal,” said Daniel Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign, who has pushed for tougher mileage and emissions standards for two decades with the goal of curbing the gases that have been linked to global warming. “This is the single biggest step the American government has ever taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions.”

The administration had faced a June 30 deadline set by Congress to decide whether to grant California’s application to put its emissions rules into effect. President Obama became personally involved in the issue because he was also trying to find a way to rescue American auto companies from their financial crisis.

One ranking industry official said that the administration wanted to get the new mileage rules in place before General Motors made a decision on a bankruptcy filing, which could happen by the end of this month. The new rules also provide some certainty for Chrysler, which is already under bankruptcy protection, so that it can plan its future models.

To meet the new federal standards, auto companies will have to drastically change their product lineups in a relatively short time.

The companies have declined so far to comment on the costs involved in meeting a fleet standard 0f 35 miles a gallon. For starters, the automakers will probably have to sharply reduce the number of low-mileage models, like pickup trucks and large sedans.

The president’s decision will also accelerate the development of smaller cars and engines already under way.

But Mr. McCurdy said the industry could meet the new mileage targets using existing technology and improvements in future models. He said that 130 models already got 30 miles a gallon or better on the highway.

In January, Mr. Obama directed the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider the Bush administration’s past rejection of the California application. He also instructed the Transportation Department to draw up rules to complement a 2007 law requiring a 40 percent improvement in mileage for autos and light trucks by 2020. The Bush administration wrote no regulations to enforce the 2007 law.

Mr. Obama will direct the E.P.A. and the Transportation Department to jointly write enforcement regulations.

Daniel J. Weiss, director of climate strategy at the liberal Center for American Progress, said that under the White House plan, California would retain the ability to set its own emissions standards in the future when the current program expired.

He also said the new administration program was very close in language and intent to a provision in the climate change and energy bill now before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. That bill calls for a “harmonization” of the California and federal regulatory programs to provide a nationwide standard.

Mr. Obama has been thinking about the future of the American automobile industry for years. He co-sponsored two bills in 2006, during his second year as a United States senator, one to raise fuel economy standards and the other to encourage the use of alternative fuels.

During the presidential campaign, he gave a speech in Detroit chastising the American automobile industry for doing too little to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil and improve their vehicles’ efficiency.

“The auto industry’s refusal to act for so long has left it mired in a predicament for which there is no easy way out,” Mr. Obama said.

That inaction has been a factor in the current dire state in which General Motors and Chrysler find themselves. The Japanese automakers are far ahead in developing smaller, more efficient vehicles, although they, too, will have to adjust their product lines.

Fran Pavley, the California state senator who sponsored the legislation that established the California standard, praised the decision as she traveled to Washington Monday to join the White House meeting on Tuesday.

She said through a spokeswoman that California would work on its own rules while the federal regulations were drafted. “This cleans up our air, reduces our dependence on foreign oil and continues to allow California to lead the way,” she said.

Republican lawmakers back carbon tax (yes, that's right)

2009-05-17T19:38:00.003-05:00

By James Rosen - McClatchy Newspapers - May 13, 2009

WASHINGTON — Reps. Bob Inglis of South Carolina and Jeff Flake of Arizona on Wednesday became the first Republican lawmakers to introduce legislation imposing a carbon tax on producers and distributors of fossil fuels.

The bill, co-sponsored by Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski of Illinois, would set a tax of $15 a ton of carbon dioxide produced in its first year in effect, with the tax rising to $100 a ton over three decades.

"The first axiom of economics is if you want less of something, you tax it," said Flake, a leading fiscal conservative, in an interview. "Obviously, we want less carbon, so we tax it."

Inglis noted that several prominent conservatives support a direct carbon tax: Arthur Laffer, a former economic adviser to President Ronald Reagan, and Gregory Mankiw, who advised President George W. Bush and is now a Harvard University economics professor.

The three lawmakers offer their measure as an alternative to a massive climate change bill backed by President Barack Obama and now before the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

That cap-and-trade legislation would set a national limit on total carbon dioxide emissions and attempt to lower them over time through the sale and trading of carbon "allowances," or credits, among the government, factories, utilities, automakers and other sources of pollution.

Inglis and Flake call their measure "tax neutral" because it would reduce payroll taxes by however much revenue the carbon tax raises, with employers and employees splitting the payroll tax cut equally.

The impact of such a direct carbon tax, however, would vary widely in different regions of the country.

Businesses and homeowners who rely heavily on coal for electric power — such as those in Kentucky and Missouri — would face significantly steeper price increases because coal produces much more carbon dioxide.

Such disparities, Flake said, would be an unavoidable outcome of trying to reduce global warming and wean the nation's dependence on foreign oil, some of it from unfriendly governments.

"There's no way you can compensate or have a perfect outcome in which everyone pays the same rates," Flake said. "If you try to do that, then you take away the incentive to change."

The bill puts the two lawmakers at odds with Republican congressional leaders, who've criticized the Democrats' cap-and-trade plans as carbon taxes in disguise.

"Cap and trade is code for increasing taxes, killing American jobs and raising energy costs for consumers," House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said. "The so-called 'cap and trade' proposal amounts to a carbon tax, plain and simple."

Tom Williams, corporate vice president for federal issues with Duke Energy, said his Charlotte, N.C., utility is the nation's third-largest carbon emitter.

A cap-and-trade system is better than a direct carbon tax, Williams said, because it enables Duke Energy and other large polluters to transition away from fossil fuel gradually.

"A carbon tax is effective in many respects, but we consider it more of a blunt instrument," he said. "Cap and trade is designed to be more surgical."

Inglis, whose district around Greenville, S.C., is among the most conservative in the country, acknowledged that it's a huge political risk for him, as a Republican, to propose a new tax.

Inglis said some of his GOP colleagues have pointed out the risk to him.

"They say, 'Inglis, why are you doing this?'" he said. "My answer is because the reward for the country is huge. If you're not here to do courageous things, then go home."

Inglis and Flake oppose the cap-and-trade measure, saying it would create a huge federal bureaucracy to regulate the sale and trade of carbon credits — on the heels of catastrophic financial services failures because of lax government oversight.

"We stand a chance of being a significant possible replacement of cap and trade when cap and trade fails," Inglis said. "It's a carbon-credit trading scheme similar to the Wall Street fiasco we've just seen, complete with a Federal Reserve Board of Carbon Credits."

The cap-and-trade measure would establish an oversight agency, but it doesn't name it.

WHO'S AFFECTED

The new carbon tax bill by Reps. Bob Inglis, Jeff Flake and Dan Lipinski would raise the cost of fossil fuels for consumers.

The measure would initially impose a tax of $15 a ton of carbon dioxide on the producers and distributors of gasoline, natural gas and coal, with the tax rising to $100 a ton over three decades.

The tax increases would be offset by equivalent cuts in payroll taxes, with employers and employees sharing the reductions equally.

The lawmakers acknowledge that users of coal-fueled power would see much bigger cost increases — 83.5 percent in the first year — than the 6 percent price increases for drivers buying gasoline, or consumers of power from natural gas, or the 14.3 percent price increase for users of oil-based power.

The payroll tax cuts would be distributed equally around the country. That means the carbon tax would hit people especially hard in states that rely heavily on coal-based power:

Top 10 states most reliant on coal power

State ........... % of power from coal

West Virginia .......... 97 percent

Indiana ........... 95 percent

Wyoming ............ 95 percent

North Dakota ......... 94 percent

Kentucky ........... 92 percent

Utah ................. 89 percent

Ohio ................ 86 percent

Missouri ............... 85 percent

New Mexico ........ 80 percent

Iowa ................ 76 percent

Other states

Kansas ............... 73 percent

Georgia ............... 63 percent

North Carolina ............... 60 percent

Pennsylvania ............... 56 percent

Illinois ............... 48 percent

South Carolina .............. 40 percent

Mississippi ............... 39 percent

Texas ............... 37 percent

Florida ............... 29 percent

Alaska ...............9 percent

Washington ............... 6 percent

California ...............1 percent

Idaho ............... 1 percent

Source: American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity
Read more in the Fort Worth Star Telegram

Spot bids to blame for high electricity bills, AARP says

2009-05-09T11:56:00.002-05:00

By ELIZABETH SOUDER - The Dallas Morning News - Thursday, May 7, 2009

AARP says it's found the real reason that Texas electricity prices are so high.

A study, released Tuesday and funded by AARP, concludes that Texas could cut consumer electricity prices by $956 million a year, or $52 annually for the average household, by making the wholesale power market more transparent.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the Texas power grid, waits 60 days to disclose information about some types of wholesale electricity bids. That gives power companies time to operate in secret and potentially manipulate prices, according to the report.

"Because of the lack of transparency, all [observers] know is that the prices are doing something odd. They don't actually know what's happening in the market that's causing the prices to be high," said Robert McCullough, head of McCullough Research and author of the report.

The report calls on state lawmakers to pass legislation filed by Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, and Rep. Todd Smith, R-Euless, to require that all spot market bids be disclosed within two days. The bills remain in committees in the Texas House and Senate.

The Public Utility Commission, which oversees ERCOT, addressed the transparency issue four years ago by requiring the grid operator to disclose in 48 hours information about the bids that set the market price. In the Texas market, the highest electricity bid that ERCOT accepts at any given moment sets the price for all generators – even those generators that turned in lower bids.

ERCOT must disclose information about all the other bids in 60 days.

Prior to the new rule, ERCOT took six months to disclose bid information.

"I think it works well. I think wholesale prices are down," said PUC Chairman Barry Smitherman. "I think firms, many firms, are reluctant to offer at high prices because they are afraid of the publicity associated with that. That kind of sunshine was exactly what we intended."

Waiting 60 days to reveal certain bids was part of a compromise to prevent a lawsuit. Constellation Energy said a 48-hour transparency rule would require wholesalers to reveal sensitive information and destroy their business.

TXU Wholesale, now a unit of Energy Future Holdings called Luminant, argued at the time that disclosing bid information could even help competitors raise market prices, not lower them.

A small fraction of power trades over the spot market. Most retail electricity companies buy power directly from wholesalers.

But the wholesale market tends to influence negotiation of those one-on-one deals, the report states. Ultimately, the wholesale trades affect all consumers.

The report also states a common complaint about deregulation among consumer advocates. In a regulated environment, the PUC sets consumer rates based on utility costs plus profit margin.

"Deregulation has broken the long-standing bond between what it actually costs to generate electricity and what consumers ultimately pay," the report states.

Commodity markets tend to set prices based on supply and demand, rather than the cost to provide the commodity.
Read more in the Dallas Morning News

Southlake gas drilling debate: Did city drag its feet or show needed caution?

2009-05-03T18:32:00.002-05:00

By AMAN BATHEJA - Fort Worth Star Telegram - May 3, 2009
Gas drilling screeched to a halt in Southlake months ago, but it’s emerged as an issue in the mayoral race all the same.

Mayor Pro Tem John Terrell is vying with former Mayor Rick Stacy to be the city’s new leader.

Stacy argues that Southlake has been run ineffectually since he stepped down in 2003. As one example, he has repeatedly said the city missed out on a multimillion-dollar payday by not leasing its mineral rights before the natural gas market collapsed.

"It didn’t take 18 months to write the U.S. Constitution. Why would it take 18 months to write the ordinance?" Stacy said. "To miss that window of opportunity for the taxpayers, that cost us probably $12 [million] or $13 million."

The city spent well over a year holding public meetings on drilling before finally adopting a revised drilling ordinance last May. Before that, Southlake allowed drilling only in industrial areas. By last fall, the decline in natural gas prices had prompted most drilling companies to stop signing new leases.
Read more in the Fort Worth Star Telegram
On his campaign Web site, Terrell describes himself as "a prime architect" of the new ordinance. He said the city needed to make sure that residents had time to have their say. The city needed to have the revisions in place before leasing its minerals rights to ensure that a drilling company followed the stricter rules. The city will lease its mineral rights when natural gas prices rebound, he said.

"There’s always a way to spin any story," Terrell said. "To me, our safety and our property values were far more important than the city retaining and extracting our minerals early."

1,000-foot setback

City Attorney Allen Taylor echoed Terrell’s argument. He noted that a drilling company that signed a contract before the new ordinance was approved would not have had to honor the revised ordinance’s required 1,000-foot setback for wells.

In October, the city issued a request for proposals to lease the mineral rights on its property, 520 acres on 46 sites scattered around the city. The request specified that a proposal must include a bonus of at least $20,000 per acre and a royalty of 25 percent or more of all revenue from oil and gas produced from the land.

The city received no responses, city spokeswoman Pilar Schank said. City staff spent time working with the council to create the request and issued it once "it met expectations," she said.

Karen Whitaker helped organize the White Chapel Corridor group in Southlake, whose members received signing bonuses of over $20,000 an acre for its mineral rights last summer. She questions why the city didn’t sell its mineral rights last summer as well, soon after the new ordinance was approved.

"We hit it at the perfect time, and I think at that point, if you were hitting your ear to the ground, you would have known the time was right," Whitaker said.

Whitaker said the bonus money would have been put to good use and agrees with Stacy that the city dragged its feet. "We need a rec center for our teens. There’s infrastructure that needs to be completed to handle our growth," Whitaker said. "We don’t have that, and that was free money."

Shortsighted criticism?

Southlake resident Tommy Pennington said he is comfortable with how the city handled the drilling issue.

"I’d love to see the city get the money, but at the same time I think we have to have our plan be solid instead of asking for forgiveness later when the damage is done," Pennington said.

Gene Powell, publisher of the Barnett Shale Newsletter, said the intense competition by drilling companies to sign up property owners is probably gone for good.

"I don’t think we’ll ever see bonus money anywhere near the range it was," Powell said.

Despite the worry about missed opportunities, Powell said, the focus on bonus payments was shortsighted. "The publicity has really been over the bonus money, which is wrong," Powell said. "The real money is in the royalties."

Whenever drilling companies did start signing up people again, Powell said, he expected royalty offers would be around the same levels they were last year.
AMAN BATHEJA, 817-390-7695