Drilling, water quality debated in Pantego

By ROBERT CADWALLADER - Special to the Star-Telegram - April 11, 2009
PANTEGO — Like many of this town’s 2,700 residents, Harriet Irby finds the city’s high- sodium water nasty to drink and harmful to spray on some grasses and plants.

Irby, an environment and animal-care advocate, is running for the Pantego Town Council and trying to spark community debate over the city’s first gas well, expected to be drilled in the next couple of months.

She is worried about potential leaks that could contaminate the city water supply and many private irrigation wells.


Arlington, Fort Worth and other cities in the area rely primarily on surface water.

But concerns about gas drilling’s impact on water quality have already been raised in other areas, particularly in rural areas west of Fort Worth that rely on groundwater.

"There’s all sorts of ways water supply can be impacted," said Irby, who is running for Place 4 in the May 9 election. "The people need more information."

Many others rebuff those concerns, citing the exploration industry’s safety record and confidence that the town can all but eliminate risks through diligent water testing.

And the gas-production revenues from Carrizo Oil and Gas could help ease the pain of slowing sales tax revenues.

"Over the last year, this council created the first-ever gas drilling ordinance for Pantego, and we put everything into our ordinance that we could to protect our water supply," said Councilman Jason Williams, Irby’s election opponent.
"We’ll have to watch during the drilling and fracing and throughout the production of gas to make sure our water is protected."

The council appointed an ad hoc committee of 17 residents last summer to address the water’s taste and how to ensure its safety during gas drilling and production.

The group is set to present its recommendations at the April 27 council meeting.

Irby challenges some of the committee’s testing to get base-line readings on sodium content.

She hired a different laboratory that determined that the salt level at her own tap was about one-fifth the level that the committee’s lab found at the closest municipal well to Irby’s house.

"I question the integrity of the data this committee is using to make decisions about our entire municipal water supply," Irby said.

Don Surratt, a committee member who is challenging Place 5 Councilman Calvin Kost, said he’s confident in the committee’s work.

He is invested in the outcome: His irrigation well is within 500 feet of the gas drill site.

"I do have a concern, but the town is going to test my well water before and after drilling," he said. "If Carrizo does everything that’s required when they drill their well, there should be minimal chance that anything would be polluted as far as the aquifer is concerned."

Carrizo officials did not return multiple phone calls seeking comment.

Despite the industry’s safety record with the thousands of wells drilled in the Barnett Shale, problems do occur.

In November, a Parker County family sued an energy company and its pipe layer, alleging that a saltwater spill from a steel pipe connecting gas wells to saltwater injection wells killed hundreds of trees and other vegetation and contaminated soil and a stock tank.

A 2007 report by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said that while water quality in the Trinity River Aquifer is acceptable for most municipal and industrial uses, there were 12 cases of oil-field-related pollution in Cooke, Montague, Parker and Wise counties in a previous groundwater contamination report.

For flavor — and some say health, for those on sodium-restricted diets — many Pantego residents drink bottled water.

Many also have individual irrigation wells to avoid potential harm to plants.

Those wells are much shallower than their municipal counterparts, which tap into the more reliable but saltier deep end of the water table.

The water committee has studied options, including the long-considered and expensive idea of tying into Arlington’s water system.

Irby and others say that would markedly raise water rates and further burden the town’s large population of senior citizens.

Kost said that he wants to hear what the committee has to say but that he has no complaints about the water.

"I like it — I drink it straight," Kost said. "And it’s better than Arlington’s water by 100 percent."



Staff writer Mike Lee contributed to this report

Read more in the Fort Worth Star Telegram

Drillilng in the Barnett Shale contributes to air pollution in the NT Region

See video and documentation on Blue Daze

Video: Emissions Created From Hydraulic Fracture of Barnett Shale Gas Well

Part of the reason the EPA is being sued.

If you live in D/FW and drink water

You might want to ask the Texas Railroad Commission this question:

WHERE DID THE WATER GO?

Cheney Helped Halliburton Hide Secrets About Dangerous Chemicals in YOUR Drinking Water.

Cheney Helped Halliburton Hide Secrets About Dangerous Chemicals in YOUR Drinking Water.

H.R. 7231 to Close the Hydraulic Fracturing Loophole That Is Fracing Up America’s Water.

Hydraulic fracturing (fracing) is a drilling technique that was developed by Halliburton. Millions of gallons of fresh water, along with sand, and cancer-causing and toxic chemicals are injected under high pressure miles down the drilling hole to fracture the limestone shale and release the oil and gas trapped within.

In 2005, at the urging of Dick Cheney, former Halliburton CEO, Congress exempt fracing from the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. In 2001, Cheney’s energy task force report “touted” benefits and ignored consequences. His office was “involved in discussions about how fracturing should be portrayed in the [EPA] report.” Halliburton earns about $1.5 BILLION annually from hydraulic fracturing. (Ibid)

The oil and gas industry is the only industry in America that is allowed by EPA to inject KNOWN hazardous material—unchecked—directly into or adjacent to underground drinking water supplies.

EARTHWORKS-Hydraulic Fracturing of Oil and Gas Wells

H.R. 7231 will reinstate basic federal standards for hydraulic fracturing under the SDWA and enable the EPA to protect our drinking water from oil and gas pollution.
________
Read the rest and take action HERE

Interior Department racing to weaken endangered species rules

By The Associated Press, Oct. 22, 2008
WASHINGTON — Rushing to ease endangered species rules before President Bush leaves office, Interior Department officials are attempting to review 200,000 comments from the public in just 32 hours, according to an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has called a team of 15 people to Washington this week to pore through letters and online comments about a proposal to exclude greenhouse gases and the advice of federal biologists from decisions about whether dams, power plants and other federal projects could harm species. That would be the biggest change in endangered species rules since 1986.

In an e-mail last week to Fish and Wildlife managers across the country, Bryan Arroyo, head of the agency’s endangered species program, said the team would work eight hours a day starting Tuesday to the close of business Friday to sort through the comments.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., whose own letter opposing the changes is among the thousands that will be processed, called the 32-hour deadline a "last-ditch attempt to undermine the long-standing integrity of the endangered species program."

At that rate, according to a committee aide’s calculation, 6,250 comments would have to be reviewed every hour. That means that each member of the team would be reviewing at least seven comments each minute.

It usually takes months to review public comments on a proposed rule, and by law the government must respond before a rule becomes final. How fast the rule is finished could determine how hard it is to undo.

A new administration could freeze pending rules. But if the regulation is final before the next president takes office, reversing it would require another review and public comment period — a process that could take months and sometimes years.

North Texas agencies near deal to pump in water from Oklahoma

By MAX B. BAKER - Fort Worth Star Telegram - Oct. 22, 2008
FORT WORTH — In a sweeping cooperative agreement to provide water to North Texas’ growing population, the Tarrant Regional Water District, the city of Dallas and the North Texas Municipal Water District say they will work together to pipe water out of Oklahoma, a massive project that could cost several billion dollars.

Under the agreement, the Tarrant district will be the lead agency in negotiating with Oklahoma officials and in fighting any legal challenges.

The district approved the agreement Tuesday, and the Dallas City Council is scheduled to consider it today. The North Texas district approved it last month.

"I think it is a very positive step toward coordinating a regional water supply approach in North Texas," said Hal Sparks, vice president of the Tarrant district board.

By working together, the three agencies would also be able to share water stored in their own reservoirs to prevent shortages in the area, said Jim Oliver, general manager of the Tarrant district.

It is the first step to a regional water supply that would make the Metroplex "almost drought-proof," Oliver said.

So far, the estimated cost of the pipeline is about $3 billion, he said.

Details of how the cost may be shared by the agencies have yet to be determined, officials said.

Cost sharing

Last year, the Tarrant district, searching for water for its exploding population, developed a plan to pump hundreds of millions of gallons from Oklahoma creeks and streams into its reservoirs.

Called a "robust project," it would provide enough water to serve the 4.3 million people who are expected to live in the district’s service area by 2060.The district now provides water to about 1.6 million people.

The Tarrant district wants to capture water from the Kiamichi River, Cache Creek and Beaver Creek basins before it enters the Red River and takes on too much salt. The first pipeline would pump water about 60 miles, from near Lawton, Okla., to Lake Bridgeport.

About the same time it filed permits for the water, the Tarrant district filed a lawsuit contending that a 2001 Oklahoma moratorium on out-of-state water sales violates federal law concerning interstate commerce.

Oklahoma contends that it can enforce the moratorium until a study of its water supply is completed. The lawsuit is pending before a federal appeals court in Denver.

The Tarrant district has spent about $2.4 million in developing its Oklahoma water plans, about half of it going for the legal challenge, said Wayne Owen, the district’s planning director.

He said Dallas and the North Texas Municipal Water District have agreed to retroactively share in those costs.

"The water we are all going to try and get into the Metroplex is going to be coming from farther and farther away," said Denis Qualls, senior engineer for the Dallas water department. "To partner in that and share the costs is a prudent thing."

How much each agency would contribute could depend on the amount of water used, Qualls said.

So far, the agreement only mentions the Kiamichi River basin near McAlester.

"We will be looking at this as it progresses into how much, when and how," he said.

Irving deal

The agreement could prove problematic for Irving, which reached a deal in August with the southeast Oklahoma town of Hugo to buy millions of gallons a year.

Under the contract, Irving would pump the water from Hugo Lake into North Texas, initially paying about $1.7 million a year.

Hugo, using money provided by Irving, filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Oklahoma’s ban on out-of-state water sales.

Tarrant district officials have painted Irving as looking out for its own interests to the detriment of everyone else.

Under the three-party agreement, Owen said, the water districts and Dallas may use the available capacity in many local reservoirs, making it harder for Irving to store water.

Irving Mayor Herbert Gears said that the city has spent millions developing its plans for Oklahoma water and that he doesn’t think the new agreement will affect them.

"In the end, we will all be partners in bringing water to North Texas," he said. "We’ll need pipelines, water treatment plants and reservoirs. And we’ll all have to win some court cases."

Read more in the Fort Worth Star Telegram