ProPublica Photographer: I Was Followed by BP Security and Then Detained by Police

Welcome to the corporate land of the free...

by Lance Rosenfield, Special to ProPublica Today, 10:37 a.m.

Freelance photographer Lance Rosenfield was working on assignment for ProPublica in Texas City, Texas, last week, when a BP security guard began following him. Rosenfield was later detained by police after taking photos for two ProPublica stories. One revealed that BP’s Texas City refinery had illegally emitted 538,000 pounds of toxic chemicals into the air in April and May. The other reported that the Texas City refinery continues to have serious safety violations five years after an explosion at the plant killed 15 workers.

What follows is Rosenfield’s account of what happened on Friday night after the police, accompanied by the BP security guard, stopped him at a local gas station.

I parked my car on the shoulder of Hwy. 197 near the Texas City sign that is in the pictures, on the south side of town and the refinery. I walked onto the median where the sign is and took the pictures. I walked back to my car and drove a couple of miles to a gas station that is on the way to my hotel. I noticed that what looked like a security truck, which had a light on the top, was following me, although he continued on when I pulled into the Valero gas station. I got out of my car to fill the tank and moments later two Texas City police cars pulled in next to my car, essentially blocking me in, although I wasn't trying to go anywhere, I was trying to get gas.

The first police officer asked me what I was doing and said he had gotten a report that I was taking pictures near the refinery. I told him I am a photojournalist and had only taken some pictures of a Texas City sign. He asked to see the pictures and I told him I didn't think I had to show them, legally. Another police officer walked up and again asked to see the pictures. I told him the same thing, but assured him that they were just pictures of the city sign, taken while I was in the public right of way.

He said I could show him the pictures or he could handle this another way, including calling Homeland Security and taking me in. I agreed to show him the pictures on the back of my camera, while he took my driver's license. Meanwhile, the truck that had been following me showed up, driven by a security guard with a BP patch on his uniform. The first police officer seemed to fade back during all this, but remained present in the background. I asked the second police officer-- Officer T. Krietemeyer--for his card, which he gave me.

Officer Krietemeyer took my name, driver's license, the car license number, my D.O.B., Social Security Number and phone number.

The BP security guard asked for my personal information and I declined because he is a corporate security guard and I had already given it to the police. Then the BP security guard asked Officer Krietemeyer for my information, which he gave him.

I protested and asked on what legal grounds could the police officer share my information with BP? I was never on BP property. They told me it was standard procedure and I told them I didn't agree with it and didn't understand what legal authority they had to share that information.

They said that when there is a Homeland Security threat, then BP files a report. I said I wasn't a Homeland Security threat, that Officer Krietemeyer had already determined that the pictures posed no threat. Also, I was not under arrest, so why was BP getting my information? I asked the BP guard for his information, which he gave me: Gary Stief, BP Security.

They both told me they would call Homeland Security/FBI agent Tom Robison to come down and explain it, as if that were a threat to me. I said I didn't think that was necessary but Officer Krietemeyer called Mr. Robison anyway and handed me the phone, which I didn't ask for, but my natural reaction was to take the phone. They had already spoken to Mr. Robison when they arrived; when he got on the phone he asked what my problem is. I told him I didn't understand why BP was getting my information, but he had it anyway and we were starting to wrap up here. He said, "Oh no you're not, you're staying right there until I get there." This was obviously a scare tactic.

Mr. Robison arrived several minutes later and asked what my problem was. His demeanor was aggressive and antagonistic. I repeated myself, in a respectful manner. He aggressively explained that a refinery like this is a terrorist target and any time people take pictures of it, they have to investigate.

He asked who I was working for. I said I'm a freelance photojournalist working on assignment for ProPublica. He asked for verification of that so I showed him the letter from (ProPublica senior editor) Susan White. Officer Krietemeyer took down the information. Mr. Robison tried to dig at what the article was about, and I stayed mostly vague because I'm not the writer and I didn't see the significance anyway. Eventually he asked if it's about BP and I said yes, which seemed to make him angrier.

I then felt like Mr. Robison and Mr. Stief, the BP guard, started harassing me, primarily by keeping me there and talking to me in an aggressive and antagonistic manner, and relating what I had done to terrorist activity, ignoring what had actually happened. This went on for some time. I stayed calm and polite and on point.

Mr. Robison twice asked Officer Krietemeyer if had he reviewed the pictures carefully and concluded there was no threat, to which Officer Krietemeyer said yes. Mr. Robison seemed to be shaky with adrenaline; he was clearly worked up.

Stief said he was ready to go so the group broke up quickly.
I shook all three men's hands.
I'm guessing the whole thing lasted 20 to 30 minutes.
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WFFA--Flower Mound parents worried about gas drilling near schools

I think most of us tend to assume that there are some places drilling just wouldn't ever occur. But the more I learn, the more aware I become that nothing is sacred any more. From war veteran graveyards surrounded by waste pits, to gas wells next to your kids elementary school, the oil and gas industry will set up shop anywhere that offers a profit.


Flower Mound parents worried about gas drilling near schools
by STEVE STOLER
WFAA
Posted on June 14, 2010 at 11:23 PM

FLOWER MOUND — Some Denton County parents say any natural gas drilling near their kids' schools is too close.

A Fort Worth-based company wants to drill two dozen wells in Flower Mound near Bluebonnet Elementary and Shadow Ridge Middle schools, which are in the Lewisville ISD. Titan Operating officials say none of the wells would be within 1,000 feet of the schools.

Parents who spoke with News 8 say that makes no difference to them.

Melinda Krupa has two children. One attends Bluebonnet; the other goes to Shadow Ridge.

"Who would want their children to be out on the playground or out on the ball field and be inhaling these fumes from the gas wells?" she asked.

The application for a drilling permit was filed last November, before town leaders issued a moratorium on new permits. Titan wants to build up to 24 wells in the next two to five years.

Krupa says the risk is too high to gamble on the health and safety of children.

"It just doesn't make sense to bring the drilling anywhere close to the schools," she said.

Steve Schmidt came to Monday's school board meeting to voice his concerns. He still has many unanswered questions about gas drilling.

His four-year-old daughter has leukemia and his second-grader attends Bluebonnet.

"The right direction is the safe direction," Schmidt told the school board. "Safety first and foremost."

Flower Mound parents are also concerned about land owned by the school district across from the proposed drilling site. They fear property values could plummet when drilling begins.

Flower Mound's oil and gas board is expected to discuss Titan's application at its next meeting.

E-mail sstoler@wfaa.com

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Onshore accidents add to concerns

Onshore accidents involving oil and gas extraction are nothing new. Unlike the BP disaster; however, they usually get little to no attention outside the immediate area where the accident or problem occurs.

By BRETT CLANTON
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
June 13, 2010, 5:10PM
A string of accidents this month at natural gas operations on land could not have come at a worse time for Houston’s vast energy industry.

With BP’s massive oil spill already prompting questions about the safety of offshore drilling in deep waters, a key growth area for the sector in recent years, the natural gas accidents are bringing new scrutiny to a business that may be even more important to the local oil and gas economy.

The incidents include two well accidents in the Marcellus Shale play in the Northeast U.S. that have reinforced regional concerns about gas drilling. Last week, two fatal gas pipeline accidents in North Texas also focused public attention on dangers associated with infrastructure used to transport the fossil fuel.

It’s not clear whether those incidents will draw onshore gas operations into the push for tighter regulation that the offshore industry already is facing amid the unfolding disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

But they do represent another setback for an industry desperate to repair its image and to reassure Americans that domestic oil and gas resources can be developed safely.

“Right now, the industry just can’t afford any more mistakes,” said Michelle Foss, chief energy economist and head of the Center for Energy Economics at the University of Texas’ Jackson School of Geosciences.

Greater scrutiny on land-based natural gas operations comes as offshore drilling practices are already under the microscope. In late May, federal regulators announced a six-month ban on deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

That was in response to the April 20 blowout at BP’s Macondo well in mile-deep waters off the Louisiana coast that killed 11 workers aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and started the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.

Government action has idled 33 rigs currently permitted to drill in the deep-water Gulf, which could result in tens of thousands of job losses across the Gulf region, say industry groups.

In Houston, the impact of the ban, along with temporary delays in shallow-water drilling, could cost 25,000 to 80,000 jobs, said Lee Hunt, president of the International Association of Drilling Contractors.

Recent accidents
No one is predicting that kind of fallout from the recent slate of onshore accidents, but they haven’t gone unnoticed either.

In Texas last week, two people were killed and three injured after a natural gas pipeline owned by DCP Midstream Partners exploded near the town of Darrouzett when a bulldozer accidentally hit it.

The day before, one person died when a power line contractor inadvertently struck a pipeline near Cleburne that was partly owned by Houston’s Enterprise Products Partners LP.

Elsewhere, a fire raged for five days last week at a rig near Moundsville, W.Va., after workers hit a pocket of methane while drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale. Seven were injured, and state officials cited the permit holder, AB Resources, for not following submitted well plans.

Also, Houston’s EOG Resources was ordered by Pennsylvania officials to halt all drilling in the state after a June 3 blowout spewed natural gas and chemicals out of a well for 16 hours before it was secured. The state has since allowed the firm to resume some drilling.

‘Accelerated’ concerns
Prior to that incident, concerns about offshore drilling safety were already starting to transfer to the onshore realm, but the EOG blowout “appears to have accelerated this trend,” wrote Kevin Book, industry analyst with Clearview Energy Partners, in a report last week.

Indeed, a handful of federal lawmakers are moving forward with bills to place greater restrictions on a drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, and environmental groups are seeing an opening.

“It just demonstrates that we’re at a point where the extraction of fossil fuels is very risky, whether it’s deep-well drilling under the ocean or hydraulic fracturing, that our dependence on fossil fuels comes with some significant risks,” said Larisa Ruoff, with Green Century Capital Management, a Boston-based investment advisory firm. The firm is trying, through shareholder proposals, to push oil and gas companies to disclose more about risks associated with hydraulic fracturing.

While proponents say hydraulic fracturing has been key in unlocking dense shale rock formations that have greatly boosted U.S. natural gas supplies, critics have raised concerns about the millions of gallons of water required to fracture each shale gas well and about possible contamination of groundwater supplies by chemicals injected into the rock.

Effect in Houston
If new regulation arises, Houston undoubtedly will feel it.

The city’s energy industry is full of small and mid-sized exploration and production companies, as well as larger players, that have made big bets on shale gas. They, in turn, support hundreds of other service providers and equipment makers with headquarters here.

“Houston is the epicenter for shale gas technology development,” said David Pursell, managing director of Houston investment bank Tudor Pickering Holt & Co.

The fear in the natural gas industry is that the latest string of onshore accidents will erase momentum it had made in building support for natural gas as a clean, abundant alternative to crude oil.

“These kinds of events give environmentalists a mail-order funding cause,” said Porter Bennett, CEO of Bentek Energy, an energy market research firm in Evergreen, Colo. “That’s not a good thing from the gas industry’s standpoint.”

But Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy Corp., the nation’s second-largest natural gas producer, said while the recent accidents are regrettable, he doesn’t believe they will have a meaningful impact on the industry.

“You want to have no accidents ever, but as long as humans are involved and you’re dealing with great unknowns underneath the earth, you’re going to have some surprising things happen,” he said.

“The question is what do you do with it? If BP had been able to control that spill in a day, we wouldn’t be talking about the BP incident today.”

brett.clanton@chron.com

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TCEQ botches air quality oversight

Decisions about Texas air quality ought to be made in Texas, not in Washington. Unfortunately, the bumbling efforts of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality under Gov. Rick Perry have invited an Environmental Protection Agency takeover of the air-pollution permitting process in the Lone Star State.
For 15 years, Texas has operated an air-pollution-permitting program that lacks EPA approval required by the federal Clean Air Act. The program began under Ann Richards and continued under George W. Bush and Perry.

At issue is TCEQ's use of flexible permitting that measures emissions from a group of emission points at a facility rather than from a specific emission point. That allows individual smokestacks to far exceed pollution standards as long as the groups they are in collectively meet them.

The EPA, under the Bush administration, warned state officials and flexible permit holders about potential non-compliance. Perry chose to ignore those warnings. Now the EPA is threatening to take control of the process.

Perry mistakenly sees this as yet another example of the unbridled exercise of federal power. It's a good campaign sound bite, but it doesn't reflect the reality of the failure of leadership — handpicked by Perry — at TCEQ.

This is the same TCEQ that has outraged residents of North Texas by failing to disclose errors in air quality testing related to gas drilling in the Barnett Shale. And it is the same TCEQ that has fought a legitimate open records request from Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, to turn over records of agency officials who met with representatives of a copper smelter company while it had an air emission application pending.

Perry and TCEQ officials claim the EPA takeover is unwarranted because Texas has one of the most successful clean air programs in the nation [I suggest visiting Bluedaze Drilling Reform for Texas if you are curious about all that great air Texas residents are breathing]. Perhaps they're correct. But given TCEQ's track record, Texas residents and federal authorities have every reason to be skeptical.
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.Blast in Texas Panhandle kills 2, injures 3

Well...Just wow. Accidents like this are becoming way to common place. I think they highlight the importance of county-based regulations. Mora and San Miguel Counties currently lack the resources to respond to events like these. In such remote areas that lack both manpower and equipment, a pipeline explosion would be extremely dangerous, causing fires that could spread far beyond the accident site itself.



Tue Jun 8, 9:05 pm ET
DARROUZETT, Texas – A Texas Panhandle sheriff says two people are dead from a natural gas pipeline explosion.

Lipscomb County Sheriff James Robertson said in a news release Tuesday that the men were killed shortly after the blast in a remote part of the region.

Three people were injured. One was taken by helicopter to a hospital in Oklahoma City. Two others working near the explosion had injuries not considered life-threatening.

The five men were moving clay from a pit near the pipeline when a bulldozer struck it, causing the explosion.

The blast about 270 miles northeast of Lubbock is the second natural gas line explosion in Texas in as many days.
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Natural gas facility explodes in Johnson County killing three

WFAA
Posted on June 7, 2010 at 3:14 PM
Updated today at 4:11 PM

JOHNSON COUNTY - A natural gas facility has exploded near Cleburne in Johnson County killing three, according to the Cleburne city manager.

At least 10 people are missing, Chester Nolen said.

A lot of people have been transported to hospital with burn injuries.

A massive fireball and a huge plume of smoke can be seen in the area.

“About 2:40 p.m., we heard a loud explosion, rumbling, almost like a tornado. It shook our entire house. The plume of smoke that came out or steam is heading this way, the wind is blowing it right over our house. We are trying to work out whether it is something we need to evacuate or not," said Laura Harlin in Johnson County.

“We don’t really smell anything at this point. It sounds like faraway thunder at this point,” she added. At 3:15 p.m., she said she could still hear the rumbling.

“There is a lot of onlooker traffic in the area,” said Hood County resident, Franklin Daniel.

People living in nearby Pecan Plantation have been told they don't need to evacuate.

A gas company is working to turn off a gas line. The underground line measures 36 inches.

"There's not a whole lot they can do, until they get that line turned off," Nolen said. "A lot is going to depend on where the main valves are that control that section of line. Obviously, what's in the line is going to have to burn off before they can get it shut off. So it may be late into this evening when they get the fire controlled."

Firefighters from eight departments are surrounding the fireball. Parkland Hospital is expecting patients to be transported to its specialist burn unit and are making preparations.

Dirt devils can be seen in the area.

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Denton Record-Chronicle, Filmy water vexes family

11:51 PM CDT on Saturday, June 5, 2010
By Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe / Staff Writer
DISH — Amber Smith no longer takes soaking baths, one of the young mother’s favorite ways to unwind at the end of the day.

Since early May, she and her husband, Damon Smith, and their two children, Hannah, 8, and Bryson, 3, use bottled water to cook with and drink. She has her children use bottled water to brush their teeth.

She said she worries about vapors in the shower mist, and what her family is rubbing into their skin with each short shower they take to clean up.

And she wishes they had taken precautions much sooner.

On Saturday, Damon Smith shows the dirty water filter he changed just five days ago. Smith said his wife, Amber, first noticed the water’s gray appearance last year after a gas well was drilled near the family’s home.
Amber Smith first noticed a gray tinge to the family’s water in March 2009, not long after Devon Energy drilled three new gas wells several hundred feet northwest of their seven-year-old home on Hovenkamp Lane.

“You could see it when you flushed the toilet, or in the bath,” she said.

She complained to her husband, who wasn’t concerned at first — he thought their water well, at 530 feet deep into the slow-moving sands of the Trinity Aquifer, was safe.

Finally, she drew a bath one night and let it settle to show him.

“Amber called me in to see,” Damon Smith said. “You could see it — it looked like gray sand at the bottom of the tub, but when you reached down to touch it, you couldn’t feel anything.”

He went to a home improvement store to buy a filtration system. After finding that he had to change the filter cartridges fairly frequently — about once a month — he bought a crate of them online.

“When I would change them out, it was more of that fine, gray clay, real slimy,” Damon Smith said.

Then, in late April of this year, the Smiths began having major water pressure problems. The gauges on the pump and pressure tank were fine, he said, but when he pulled the filter cartridge, it was caked in a fine, gray sediment. He could see that little water was passing through the filtration system.

He and his father, Dish Town Commissioner Charles Smith, worked all day the first Saturday of May, taking the system apart and cleaning it thoroughly. The plumbing worked fine for about two days, and then the pressure problems began again.

Damon Smith pulled the filter and the cartridge was completely caked again. The Smiths consulted with Mayor Calvin Tillman, who recommended they call a contact at Devon Energy. They told their story to a company representative and urged him to take a filter with him to show his boss, but the representative urged the couple to call the Texas Railroad Commission instead.

A Railroad Commission inspector came out May 5 and took water samples.

Meanwhile, the town of Dish voted to provide for private testing of any area water well that showed a need to be tested. The Smiths signed up and Wolf Eagle Environmental took samples May 13.

At the time, Tillman said town officials had been so focused on emissions coming from a nearby compression complex that they had neglected the possibility that hydraulic fracturing could have compromised well water in the area.

Nationwide, industry officials have said repeatedly that hydraulic fracturing is safe and has been used for years without any documented cases of groundwater contamination. The process was exempted from the Safe Water Drinking Act after a 2004 study by the Environmental Protection Agency deemed it safe.

Recently, that study was discredited and the agency has ordered a new study.

Environmentalists dispute the claim that it’s safe.

“We think they are playing a game of semantics with that statement,” said Amy Mall, spokeswoman for the National Resources Defense Council. The group has chronicled cases in Arkansas, Colorado, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wyoming, and near Grandview, Texas, where water wells appear to have been compromised after a gas well was fracked nearby.

A Railroad Commission inspector called the Smiths a week after the May 5 visit, saying they wanted to come out again. Damon Smith said he pressed them, but the inspector would only tell him that they’d found barium at troubling levels.

“I may be the dumbest guy in the room when you all start talking about these levels,” Damon Smith said, “but when you want to come back out and test some more, I know that’s not good.”

When the family got the commission’s lab results on paper several days after the call, they asked environmental expert Wilma Subra to analyze it, Amber Smith said.

She said Subra’s analysis showed chromium from that sample at 2.5 times the maximum contaminant level, or MCL, established by the EPA; arsenic at 10 times the MCL; and lead at 21 times the MCL.

Barium levels came in not quite half the MCL.

The Smiths were stunned by the report. State health inspectors had been in their home in January, part of the health study being conducted throughout Dish.

A lab report provided to the couple showed state health inspectors had detected benzene, ethylbenzene, styrene, toluene and xylene in their water, but at levels far below federal limits.

The Wolf Eagle samples did not detect the same levels of the heavy metals, but instead found acetone and 2-butanone above the federal limits. Wolf Eagle also tested for total dissolved solids, and found those, too, exceeded federal limits for drinking water.

Railroad Commission inspectors turned around the next battery of tests gathered May 24 in three days, documents show. The lab looked for a larger array of compounds, but did not detect the heavy metals of the May 5 test.

The Smiths said since early May, after they complained to the Devon representative, they’ve not had to change filters as often — maybe every four or five days — but they’ve also questioned whether something had changed at the well. Neither Damon nor Amber — nor Damon’s father, who lives next door — has seen the kind of truck traffic servicing the well in the last month that had been typical up to that point.

Devon Energy spokesman Chip Minty said he did not have any knowledge of the well’s operations, so he could not comment on the family’s observation. He said the company was aware of the complaints about the water well and that the Texas Railroad Commission was investigating the problem, but so far the company had not seen any kind of report.

“It’s too soon to comment,” Minty said.

Ramona Nye, a spokeswoman for the Railroad Commission, did not respond to a request for comment.

The Smiths said they thought the problem would be solved quickly, once the company saw the data. They’ve talked to the EPA, too, and don’t understand what everyone is waiting for.

“We don’t have city water out here,” Amber Smith said. “We don’t have any other options.”

PEGGY HEINKEL-WOLFE can be reached at 940-566-6881. Her e-mail address is pheinkel-wolfe@dentonrc.com.

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U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess calls on Texas AG to investigate state's environmental agency

I have heard a lot of reassurances from oil and gas industry representatives. The most common is in regards to a lack of need for county-based regulations. This comes in the form of a statement like "there are already regulations and entities that enforce them, so why on earth would you want unnecessary regulations that will negatively impact business?" Well, I think the article below is a clear illustration of why counties need to take responsibility for their own well being.

11:57 PM CDT on Tuesday, June 1, 2010
By PEGGY HEINKEL-WOLFE / Denton Record-Chronicle
pheinkel-wolfe@dentonrc.com

U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess has called on the Texas attorney general to investigate the state's environmental agency, following an audit report that showed agency officials may have withheld information about toxic compounds found near natural-gas facilities.

"They have a credibility problem now," Burgess, R-Lewisville, said of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. "That's what's so disturbing. It calls into question virtually everything else they have done so far. You don't like to be treated dismissively."

Burgess had asked for a briefing on the TCEQ's air quality work, which the agency provided in late April. At the time, he wasn't as concerned about findings in Fort Worth as much as he was the Denton County findings, but no mention was made of the TCEQ audit. He said he was troubled that agency officials were sitting on the information.

The call for a full investigation could help restore confidence in the agency, Burgess said.

"We continue to work with both the public and elected officials to keep them informed of TCEQ's air quality activities in the Barnett Shale area," agency spokesman Terry Clawson said in a prepared statement.

The TCEQ audit followed a Feb. 3 complaint sent by e-mail to the agency's fraud division. According to the audit report, dated March 25, leadership in the TCEQ compliance division knew early on that, during a December air quality study of natural-gas facilities in Fort Worth, inspectors used equipment that was not sensitive enough to detect toxic compounds, including the carcinogen benzene, at long-term screening levels. More>>>

What the ****?

Industry representatives will say anything to landowners. I do mean Anything. And if you think your health department, public officials, and regulating bodies are any better, you may want to think again.
A Colorado resident was told something that would be completely laughable if the situation wasn't so serious. She was complaining about emmissions "you know, VOC's and stuff" and the county health guy told her, well you know, pine trees give of VOC's too. What the?? But wait, it keeps getting better. Here is a few things industry representatives have said to a Texas resident:
Oxygen turns water red.
Methane seeps from the ground all the time, you just never noticed it before.
Igniting bubbles in your backyard is normal, you just never tried it before now.
Thermal incinerators give off rainbow fairy dust (or at least give off no more emissions than your husband's truck).
What odor?
Its just a little benzene.
It's just sand.
It's just mud.
Nothing to see here.

Wow. Those are some really good neighbors huh.

I'm sure Texas is thanking us for all those jobs we sent their way

Okay, it's no secret that jobs and money are a big issue for most of us. Suzana Martinez is making her bid to be the next Governor of New Mexico. Her latest ad mentions "job killing regulations [that] drove our jobs to Texas." Now, she's referring to the pit rule which requires all waste pits to be lined, and states that those who benefit from the rule have ties to Governor Richardson. I see a couple of not so funny things about this. For one, I think that the people who benefit most from the pit rule are those who actually live or ranch near them. As well as the minor fact that anything liquid will eventually sink into the ground and burying it does nothing to minimize the environmental damage. Instances of water contamination from unlined waste pits is not as rare as one might hope. For two, I don't think the residents of Texas are thanking us for all those great jobs we apparently sent their way by implementing the pit rule. I want to see an oil and gas executive or political candidate who has a waste pit in their backyard and doesn't want to see it lined. Anybody got some?

A little bit of love to the meanies

I just had to send some traffic over to that big meanie TXSharon over at Bluedaze Drilling reform for Texas. The Oil and Gas Accountability Project (OGAP) is putting the fear of regulation (apparently far worse than the fear of God) into Texas oil and gas developers. Please check out Sharon's great post. Her and others like her have been working very hard to get some protection for the citizens and water of Texas. And it is starting to pay off. So here's a big thank you to Sharon and the rest of the folks at OGAP for all that they do.

When oil's gone, a mess remains

Living in a county that currently has no active gas wells, I see citizens (myself included), spending a great deal of time talking about the dangers posed by the drilling process. Since we don't have old abandoned wells and waste pits in our back yards, most of us don't think beyond the initial phases of drilling development. It is important to remember that natural gas wells do not produce forever. At some point, the developer will move on and probably leave a very big mess if there are not adequate regulations and enforcement in place.

When oil's gone, a mess remains
By JOE CARROLL Bloomberg News
Published: Sunday, April 18, 2010 at 1:00 a.m.

Bo Vavrusa was heaping dirt into the path of a wildfire on a Texas ranch in October 2007 when his tractor rammed an Exxon Mobil Corp. natural-gas pipe hidden in a thicket. Flames engulfed the tractor, burning his face, arms and hands as he fled.

"This isn't something the states are proud to advertise. It's the ugly side of the oil and gas business."– Philip Dellinger, Environmental Protection Agency

"I thought I was fixing to die," said Vavrusa, 28, who was earning $10 an hour to groom the ranch for quail and dove hunters.

Exxon, the biggest U.S. oil producer, has neglected this stretch of Texas since its oil fields began drying up in the 1970s, said Jerry Patterson, the state's General Land Office Commissioner. Now Patterson and other state officials are urging Texas lawmakers to follow the examples of California and Pennsylvania in cracking down on oilfield practices that have left leaking pipelines, wells and storage tanks.

Oozing chemical pits and Vavrusa's scarred skin are emblematic of a legacy Exxon has sought to keep buried in court, even as it gears up for a return to active exploration within miles of the ranch through its pending $29.3 billion acquisition of Fort Worth, Texas-based XTO Energy Inc.

Exxon's renewed focus on North America follows nationalist energy policies in Venezuela and Russia that reduced opportunities to profit abroad. It coincides with fresh scrutiny in the United States that is leading Congress to examine whether stricter drilling regulations are needed.

"This isn't something the states are proud to advertise," said Philip Dellinger, chief of the groundwater section in the Austin, Texas, office of the Environmental Protection Agency. "It's the ugly side of the oil and gas business." More>>>

Eleven Variances

I was searching for some news to post and ran across an article about Corinth Texas. I decided to post the variances requested by XTO instead of the article itself. These seem like some pretty basic responsibilities to be requesting variances for. To read the full article, click here.


ELEVEN VARIANCES

XTO Energy has asked for 11 variances to drill for natural gas at Lake Sharon Christian Center.

* To allow a $25,000 bond or check per well in lieu of a letter of credit to pay for road damages.

XTO has said it’s against company policy to issue letters of credit. Council member Randy Gibbons has said a letter of credit is counted as a liability in a company’s balance sheets.

* Reduce the setbacks to allow drilling within 300 feet of a protected use.

XTO claims it has received waivers from the Lake Sharon Christian Center and nearby residences and discloses that one of the protected uses — one of the buildings at the center — is 200 feet from its operations.

* To not require a chain-link fence around the drill site.

XTO has said it will install a noise fence, which is not penetrable, on three sides of the pad site. The company said it would consider a chain-link fence on the north side, but it is not preferred.

* To drop the requirement that the area within 300 feet of the drill site be kept free of weeds, trash and debris.

XTO has said part of that perimeter is in the city’s right of way, and it cannot go there without the city’s permission.

* To drop the requirement that drilling fluids be contained in pipelines at all times, including for movement to a disposal well.

XTO has asked that it be able to temporarily store fluids on site until they can be trucked to a disposal well.

* Reduce the setbacks to allow a tank battery within 100 feet of a protected use.

XTO claims it doesn’t have enough space on the well site to meet this requirement.

* Reduce the setbacks to allow waste disposal tanks within 100 feet of a protected use.

XTO claims it doesn’t have enough space on the well site to meet this requirement.

* To allow a lift compressor station.

XTO claims it doesn’t know whether the well will produce without one.

* To drop the masonry fence requirement.

XTO claimed the cost — about $75,000 — would not create the screening that could be affected by a “living” screen the company would rather install, and would make it more difficult to re-enter the site for additional operations. Manthei has told the council it could drill as many as five to 18 more wells at that site.

* To drop the tree mitigation requirement

XTO claims it would cost $1 million to comply with this requirement, making the site too expensive to develop.

* To drop the requirement to disclose the pipeline route for the site

XTO claims it is too expensive to secure the easements without knowing whether it will be permitted to drill.

Tests detect Barnett Shale emissions toxins in Dish residents' blood, urine

Here on the home front, we spend a lot of time concentrating on drilling's adverse impacts on water. I think this has drawn our attention away from all the other elements like air. You can survive without water for a few days, but not air. Lets not forget that our ability to live on earth means breathing (nontoxic please) air.

07:02 AM CDT on Wednesday, April 14, 2010
By PEGGY HEINKEL-WOLFE / Denton Record-Chronicle
pheinkel-wolfe@dentonrc.com

Tests on blood and urine samples taken from Dish residents by state health officials in January have found the same toxic compounds in people's bodies that have been detected in the air and water here.

The results showed that exposure is occurring, according to Louisiana chemist Wilma Subra.

"Clearly, it's connecting the dots – which we didn't want to happen," Subra said.

Subra, the recipient of a 1999 MacArthur Fellowship ("genius" grant) for her work as an environmental health scientist, has been working with the community since Dish spent $15,000 last year to commission a study of the western Denton County town's air quality.

Eleven gas gathering pipelines converge in southern Dish, where five energy companies run major compression and metering facilities in a side-by-side complex of plants on Strader Road.

Allison Lowery, Texas Department of State Health Services spokeswoman, confirmed that the department sent results last week to all 28 residents who were tested, far fewer than the 50 people the agency originally planned to choose at random for testing.

In addition, the department will release a summary report, since individual results are considered confidential. The aggregate report is being drafted now and should be released the last week of April or the first week of May, Lowery said.


Angry at explanation

Resident Amber Smith said she was troubled that it took so long to get the individual results. When investigators came to take a water sample along with blood and urine samples in January, she was told it would take four to six weeks to get results.

As she read the April 2 cover letter that came with her results, she said the words seemed carefully crafted.

She was angered, however, at how the letter suggested she had been exposed to the solvent N,N-dimethylformamide through "the production of electronic components, pharmaceutical products, textile coatings, and synthetic fibers."

"I'm around none of that," Smith said. "They found the same compounds in all my neighbors, but in trying to explain that, they failed to associate that it could be the drilling. They never once did even mention that in their explanation."

Mayor Calvin Tillman said he was reassured at first when he received his results, since the levels detected in his blood did not exceed any average values for the general population.

But no such baseline comparison exists for urine, where toxic compounds show up as metabolites in the body. And, after Smith and Tillman compared their individual results with several other residents, they became more concerned.

The same toxic compounds found in their own blood and urine tests were detected in other residents. Tillman said he asked Subra to make some comparisons. More>>>

Most Barnett Shale facilities release emissions

09:48 AM CDT on Sunday, April 11, 2010
By RANDY LEE LOFTIS / The Dallas Morning News
rloftis@dallasnews.com

Plumes of toxic, smog-causing chemicals from Barnett Shale natural-gas operations are so common that inspectors find them nearly every time they look, a Dallas Morning News examination of government records shows.

What's more, the inspectors have rarely looked.

Hundreds of pages of documents obtained by The News under federal and state open-records laws, plus other reports and studies, reveal a pattern of emissions of toxic compounds, often including cancer-causing benzene, from Barnett Shale facilities.

More than 90 percent of the gas-processing plants, compressor stations and wells that agencies have examined with leak-detecting infrared cameras since 2007 were lofting otherwise invisible plumes of chemicals. In the most recent surveillance late last year, every facility checked was emitting pollution.

Many were near homes, emblematic of drilling's spread into North Texas urban areas. One was next to the University of Texas at Arlington. Another was just over the right-field fence of a Decatur softball field.

Gas operators say most pollution the cameras caught was routine and legal, requiring no repairs. Even authorized emissions face new scrutiny as state and federal regulators cope with drilling's impact in Tarrant County and areas to its north, west and south.

The infrared cameras – the newest ones cost $106,200 each, including lenses, plus $1,000 per user for training – are potentially powerful weapons against environmental violators and sloppy operators, revealing problems that neither inspectors, neighbors nor companies can see. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has two new ones and six older models.

State and federal agencies have aimed infrared cameras at only a tiny fraction of the 13,000 natural-gas wells and support facilities that have appeared across North Texas since 2005.

The fact that regulators find chemicals rising virtually every time they aim the camera suggests that a comprehensive search might reveal thousands of releases of volatile organic compounds into the air – some authorized, some not.

Months after companies told the TCEQ that they had fixed any problems the state's cameras detected, other scientists found chemicals wafting into the atmosphere.

"We found emissions from wells, condensate tanks, compressor stations" – just about every component of the Barnett Shale production system, said Wilma Subra, an environmental scientist helping the Denton County town of Dish monitor air pollution.

"There are toxic air emissions being released by the majority of the facilities that we have looked at."

Texas officials acknowledge that just about every Barnett Shale installation emits invisible air pollution.

"When we aim the camera at any one of these facilities, be it a compressor station or a condensate tank battery, we are going to see some emissions," said John Sadlier, the TCEQ's deputy director for enforcement. More>>>

EPA Disapproves Air Permitting Exemption in Texas

Considering all of the oil and gas development emmissions issues in Texas, I would say this is a good thing.


EPA Disapproves Air Permitting Exemption Program in Texas
Release date: 03/31/2010
Contact Information: Dave Bary at 214-665-2200 or r6press@epa.gov

(Dallas, Texas – March 31, 2010) Today, EPA disapproved the Qualified Facilities exemption rule that TCEQ had submitted for inclusion in its federally approved State Implementation Plan. The rule allows companies that have Texas issued air permits to avoid certain federal clean-air requirements including public review when they modify their plants. EPA has determined that this regulation does not meet several federal Clean Air Act requirements.

“Today’s action improves transparency by requiring companies that modify their operations to notify the public and will assure that all air emitting sources are properly permitted under the Clean Air Act,” said Al Armendariz, Regional Administrator. “Improved public review will better inform our communities about the environmental conditions where they live.”

The Clean Air Act ensures that businesses across the country operate efficiently and cleanly. Under the Act, all states must develop plans for meeting federal requirements to protect pubic health, including an air permitting program. Since EPA approved Texas’ major clean-air permitting plan in 1992, the state has submitted over 30 regulatory changes to the EPA approved plan. Today’s action represents final agency decision on one of those regulatory changes. More>>>

Drawn into focus

Part two of the Denton-Record Chronicle series about the Ruggerio family in Wise County Texas. It is worth reading Aruba Petroleum's written response. I doubt the representative interviewed has to live with the immediate consequences of the way Aruba Petroleum appears to be conducting business in people's backyards.


Drawn into focus

Risks of gas drilling prompt investigation, vigilance as man stands up for family

10:04 AM CDT on Monday, March 29, 2010
By Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe / Staff Writer

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second in a two-part series examining the effects of oil and natural gas drilling in eastern Wise and western Denton counties.

By Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe / Staff Writer

WISE COUNTY — Tim Ruggiero had a lot of time to think, sitting in the secretary’s office as his father met privately with the grade school principal.

He remembers shaking as he sat in that chair 30 years ago, afraid after seeing how unhappy his father was and unsure of the punishment that would come.

The tension between Ruggiero and another boy — the school bully — had been growing for some time. That day, the bully had confronted him in the hallway, saying they had to meet after school. Scared, Ruggiero shoved the boy and challenged him to meet right then. The boy was taken aback, saying it couldn’t happen with all the teachers around. Ruggiero punched the boy, giving him a black eye.

“I thought for sure there was going to be hell to pay from Dad,” Ruggiero said.

On the way home, though, Ruggiero’s father told him that the boy had been causing problems for other children and for a long time. He said he was proud that his son did his best in standing up to the bully.

Ruggiero, 45, is a father now. He and his wife, Christine Ruggiero, moved to the northeastern part of Wise County in 1994, buying 10 acres near CR2514 on Star Shell Road for their home and horses.

In September 2009, Aruba Petroleum claimed about four acres of their land to drill a new gas well as part of the lease known geographically as Wright 7H and 8H. The company surprised the couple one September morning, taking down their horse fence and bulldozing their pasture after the family left for work and school.

Company officials said in answers to written questions that they notified the Ruggieros two weeks earlier that work was about to start.

Only peripherally aware of problems in the Barnett Shale, Tim Ruggiero realized he had a lot to learn about the natural gas industry, because it had set up shop in his backyard.

His concern increased the following month, when he learned that health problems had come to the fore in Dish. Ruggiero traveled more than 30 miles to attend a Dish town hall meeting and learn more about the risks of living close to natural gas facilities. He had planned on only listening, but when he saw the faces of Dish residents trying to get information out of state regulators, he decided to speak out.

“For the last 20 years, my job has been talking to people who’ve done things that they should not have done,” said Ruggiero, an investigator for a large retailer. “I’ve learned how to read people and when they are being honest. All I saw in the room that night were victims, legitimate victims. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know the half of it. I thought, ‘Oh my God, that’s what we have to look forward to.’”

Since then, investigators from both the Texas Railroad Commission and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality have been out to the Wright lease and the site next to the Ruggieros’ home many times.

On Oct. 29, 2009, Christine Ruggiero reported a massive spill to the Railroad Commission after she watched drilling mud shooting across the waste pit and onto a neighboring pasture for much of the afternoon.

* On Nov. 4, a diesel cloud covered the neighborhood and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality found elevated levels of ozone-forming pollutants.

* On Nov. 30, TCEQ investigators returned to investigate odors associated with fracking operations.

* On Jan. 17, Feb. 3 and Feb. 20, TCEQ investigators returned to investigate odors associated with condensate production.

* On Feb. 8 and Feb. 27, TCEQ investigators also investigated odors associated with venting from the frack tanks.

* On March 16, the couple filmed and reported a condensate tank both venting and overflowing onto their property.

On March 5, state inspectors submitted the Wright 7H and 8H wells for enforcement, making the site the first Barnett Shale well head to receive a notice of violation since the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality ended its “Find and Fix” initiative, according to agency spokesman Terry Clawson. Read full story>>>

Landowner's Fears Surface

This is part one in a two-part series about the Ruggiero family and their ordeal with Aruba Petroleum in Wise County Texas.

Gas drilling abruptly upends family’s lives

09:22 AM CDT on Sunday, March 28, 2010
By Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe / Staff Writer

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first in a two-part series examining the effects of oil and natural gas drilling in eastern Wise and western Denton counties.

WISE COUNTY — A bit of yellow tape dangled from a short wooden stake in front of Christine Ruggiero’s house on Star Shell Road that September morning, less than a year ago.

The subtle signal meant something to someone.

On her 20-minute drive to work, Ruggiero hoped that what she saw wouldn’t become what she feared.

DRC/David Minton
Christine and Tim Ruggiero, shown on their property in Wise County in February, were surprised when an Aruba Petroleum crew came onto their land in September, taking down their horse fence and bulldozing their pasture.
View larger More photos Photo store Aruba Petroleum had already dug up several acres of land on the neighboring 38-acre homestead, drilling a new gas well on Pat and Jim Headen’s front lawn.

Angry and upset, her husband, Tim Ruggiero, had painted two protest signs and hung them by the road. A few days later, someone made an addition to one of the signs. Between a crude depiction of male and female genitalia, the vandal scrawled “you’re next.”

Christine Ruggiero, 43, dropped off her 9-year-old daughter at school in Denton and, after arriving at the employee benefits consulting group where she works in Highland Village, she took a minute to call up the permits section of the Texas Railroad Commission Web site.

Ruggiero called her husband.

Sept. 16: Still no permit, she told him.

Then her phone rang. Her neighbor, Pat Headen, had just returned home for lunch and seen pieces of the Ruggieros’ horse fence in a pile. Near a crew and a bulldozer, she saw one of Ruggiero’s horses.

“Christine, did you know they’ve got a bulldozer out there?” Headen said.

“No,” Ruggiero said. “I’ll be right home.”

She returned to find several acres of their 10-acre parcel stripped bare. At the center of the chaos sat a white pickup, Ruggiero recalls. In her sweater, high heels and dress pants, she worked her way to the foreman’s truck. He would only roll down his window at first.

“You’re trespassing,” she told him. “You don’t have a permit.”

“I don’t need a permit,” he told her. “I have the lease.”

Aruba officials said they told the Ruggiero family on Sept. 2 that they would be drilling on their property.

Ruggiero realized the horses — Nina, a Palomino paint; Sweetheart, a thoroughbred; and little Willow, a mini she’d given to her daughter — were staring at her. She began to cry.

She was gathering the horses to move them when her husband arrived about 10 minutes later. Read full story>>>

Study: Quakes linked to post-gas drilling process

© 2010 The Associated Press
March 10, 2010, 2:43PMFORT WORTH, Texas — A study released Wednesday says there's a plausible connection between a series of North Texas earthquakes and a disposal process that's done after natural gas drilling.

The dozen minor quakes were reported in a few Dallas suburbs from the fall of 2008 through last spring -- and another dozen too small to be felt were detected by equipment. The largest was a 3.3-magnitude quake, and no major injuries or damage were reported.

The Southern Methodist University and University of Texas study says the quakes occurred during the time wastewater from the gas extraction process was injected into a deep disposal well near the quake sites.

The study does not include information about last summer's series of quakes in Cleburne, about 50 miles southwest of Dallas.

EARTHWORKS Press Release

'Stealth' Measurements of Air Quality Contradict Shale Gas Industry Claims of Safe Air
New technology finds huge methane plumes around shale gas drilling and processing facilities

Technology is new arrow in quiver of shale gas impacted communities nationwide

DISH, TX, 3/4 Yesterday a team of environmental scientists presented findings from a novel two day emissions gas detection project showing methane levels as much as 20 times above normal background levels in the air around several counties in the greater Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

"These findings raise troubling questions about shale gas industry pollution not only in Texas but for states nationwide where shale gas drilling and production is planned or underway," said Wilma Subra, EARTHWORKS board member, environmental chemist and MacArthur grant recipient.

The results were collected over the past two days by an undercover team driving an unmarked white van around the metroplex to test a new measurement technology that enables drive-by emissions testing on shale gas drilling and pumping facilities -- without leaving the vehicle or slowing down from normal driving speeds.

Methane is a surrogate gas for benzene, xylene and other toxic and carcinogenic volatile organic compounds (VOCs). As a greenhouse gas that is roughly four-times more potent than CO2, methane is also a significant contributor to the ongoing climate crisis.

The results were presented to an overflow crowd at the DISH town hall where Mayor Calvin Tilman had called a special meeting to discuss the findings. DISH and other metroplex residents are concerned shale gas industry pollution are behind serious health problems in the area. More>>>