Company investigated over gas pipeline in site of old landfill

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

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

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

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

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

Dish residents water contaminated with hydrocarbons

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