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

State regulators fail to disclose benzene in Fort Worth air

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

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.