Injection Well Lawsuit Ruling

I'm just now getting word of this trickling in and I'm still trying to wrap my brain around it, but what appears to be a significant ruling on injection wells was just issued from the Texas Third Court of Appeals in Austin in the case of Texas Citizens for a Safe Future and Clean Water and James G. Popp v. Railroad Commission of Texas and Pioneer Exploration, Ltd.

Texas Citizens for a Safe Future and Clean Water and Popp appealed a district court judgment affirming the Texas Railroad Commission's decision to grant a permit to Pioneer Exploration, Ltd. to operate a commercial injection well in Wise County for the disposal of oil and gas waste. Texas Citizens argued in their appeal that the Commission, in granting the permit, denied Texas Citizens due process and failed to adequately consider the public interest.

Although the court found that the RRC did not deny Texas Citizens due process in granting the permit, the Commission did interpret "the public interest" too narrowly and therefore failed to adequately consider additional factors that may affect the public interest. The court remanded this case to the Commission for a reconsideration of the permit under a broader interpretation of "the public interest."

This story is still developing. I will post more as it becomes available, but this could have some interesting ramifications on the injection well fight here in Fort Worth.

Moratorium on Injection Wells Extended

The City Council voted this morning to extend the moratorium against issuing new injection well permits in the Fort Worth, District 9 representative Wendy Davis confirmed by e-mail this afternoon.

Although I applaud the City Council for this move, I would urge them to make the moratorium permanent. City Environmental Director Brian Boerner told the Star-Telegram this morning that he opposes any new disposal wells in the city, saying they are too difficult to operate safely.

However, what I fear is that this moratorium is only buying time for the gas drillers to make their case. The industry is pressing for injection well and they appear to be gaining traction at the policy level in City Hall. Stay tuned. This fight is only getting started.

Make The Injection Well Ban Permanent

When the Fort Worth City Council meets tomorrow night, it is expected to extend its moratorium on injection wells until April 30, 2008. Although I applaud the extension of this moratorium, it is not enough. The citizens of Fort Worth do not need or want these wells in Fort Worth. I strongly urge the City Council to make this ban permanent. Contact your City Council representative and make your feelings known.

Natural Gas Safety Roundup

Breckenridge Benzene Leak? A Texas Railroad Commission investigation into a possible benzene leak from a natural gas pipeline near Breckenridge was closed last month after a field inspector said he did not detect benzene. But did the Railroad Commission get it right?

According to a report in the Breckenridge American last month, the investigation began earlier this year after the landowner, Jay Marcom, detected a large bare spot after planting a crop. Marcom said “yellowish liquid” began to ooze out of the ground.

Commission spokesperson Ramona Nye said low levels of benzene were detected during the initial investigation and that the levels were not high enough to be a risk through direct contact by humans or livestock.

However, Dennis Yavorsky, a chemist who has been working with analytical chemical instruments who works for PID Analyzers in Ohio, tested a soil sample taken from the site in September and found there were 4,000 to 5,000 times the legal limit of benzene in the sample.

“It would be nearly impossible not to smell it,” Yavorsky told the American. “You have soil that is essentially saturated with benzene.”

Injection Well Fire near Keene: The Startlegram reports that firefighters are battling a blaze at a gas well injection site between Keene and Cleburne this afternoon.

Injection Wells in Fort Worth: Some Facts

The League of Women Voters has been busy this week. I attended the voter's forum the other night, but on Monday, the League's Environmental Committee had a meeting with Brian Boerner, the Director of Environmental Management for the City of Fort Worth. A friend sent me the minutes of this meeting. It's quite an eye-opener. The words are from the meeting minutes, not my own. Emphasis and smart-ass comments are mine though:

"The purpose of the meeting was to share concerns about the potential for additional water disposal injection wells within the City of Fort Worth. Chesapeake Energy already has a permit to drill one such well in East Fort Worth. They would like to drill at least 15 more wells.

"According to Mr. Boerner, they have already received permission from DFW Airport to drill two wells on airport property, one on the north end and one on the south. Walsh Ranch, a large planned development on the far west side of Fort Worth, already has some water injection wells. The City has no control of these wells in its extra-territorial-jurisdiction (ETJ).

"According to Mr. Boerner, the water injection wells create environmental risk in an urban environment. The waste water from the fracing process is saturated with salt and contains some chemicals. [Editor's Note: Really?!?!?] The salt derives from the salt in the Barnett Shale itself.

"There appears to be some question as to the degree of hazard that the fracing chemicals present. However, there is no doubt that the black-water mixture is corrosive and not only kills vegetation, but prevents its growth for an extended period. Injection wells are a dirty process.

"Transporting the water to the well must be done via air-polluting, road damaging trucks or pipelines [Editor's note: Apologies to Chris Turner. I'll buy you a Dr Pepper to make up for it. But still, it sounds like crazy-people talk.] that are subject to leaks. Drilling the well improperly can cause the ground water to be polluted. Leaks are difficult to track and much environmental harm can be done before the leak is found. Water well injection well operators have no incentive to prevent leaks. They are paid by the amount of water they take from the drillers, not the amount that is injected.

"As a result, the City of Fort Worth has a moratorium on the drilling of these wells, a moratorium that is proposed to be extended another six months until the City can develop adequate regulations. The City has what is called a grant of privilege for commercial trash collection which allows the City to license commercial trash haulers within the City and to levy a fee on the trucks to cover road wear. Such a fee could potentially be levied on salt water haulers within the City.

"Gas drillers have the power of eminent domain to lay gas pipes. However, they do not have such power to lay water pipes.

"The City can control the placement of gas and water wells through its land use powers. However, the portion of the gas or water well below the surface is controlled by the Railroad Commission. A recent audit of this agency found limited capacity to inspect the large number of oil and gas wells in the state. Numerous problems were discovered. According to the Railroad Commission’s web site, the Fort Worth basin alone has 7,499 operating gas wells with more being permitted each day, but as far as we know, the Railroad Commission was not given additional staffing authorization in the last Legislative session.

"Gas drilling has never been done in an urban setting on the magnitude planned for the Fort Worth area putting pressure on a system devised for rural areas where safety and environmental protection is not as critical as it is in an area with a population of almost 1.5 million.

"We talked briefly about the potential for recycling the production water from the gas wells. We were familiar with the evaporative and reverse osmosis processes, but not the flocculation method which Mr. Boerner says can recover a higher amount of water than the other two methods. The major impediment is that water injection wells are much cheaper for drillers even factoring in increased water and hauling costs. They may not, however, be cheaper for the community which has to deal with the externalities of the injection process. [Editor's Note: As I suspected: injection wells aren't the best way, just the cheapest way, to dispose of this toxic water. Chesapeake Energy contends they are doing Fort Worth a world of good. How does pumping toxic water into the earth good for Fort Worth? Really. I'm asking.]

Of particular concern to Mr. Boerner are the small areas within the confines of Fort Worth that for some reason have never been annexed into the City. These areas are under the jurisdiction of Tarrant County, which has no land use powers. As a result, this land could be used for water injection wells and do environmental harm to City residents with no City recourse.

"The League’s next step will be to prepare a letter for the Mayor and City Council supporting a six-month extension to the water injection well moratorium within the City. We also plan to begin to try to inform our respective City Council members about the environmental and safety issues surrounding gas drilling."

Absolutely shocking. I recommend you write the Mayor and your City Council representative and recommend that they do everything they can to keep injection wells out of Fort Worth.

Chesapeake Energy: Doing Fort Worth

If this is Chesapeake's idea of being good to the environment, I'd hate to see what they do if they ever got in touch with their dark side.

Tuesday's Startlegram reported that Chesapeake Energy got a permit from the state Railroad Commission to operate an injection well near East First Street and Oakland Boulevard.

What's an injection well?

Natural gas drilling in the Barnett Shale results in millions of gallons of production water, which contains salt, crude oil and other waste, sometimes including cancer-causing chemicals such as benzene. The gas industry prefers to dispose of production water by pumping it into the injection wells, also known as saltwater wells. The wells are more economical than recycling the water; they also avoid the problem of trucking the waste for disposal.

So rather than trucking this waste out of the city, they are just going to shoot it into the earth underneath our city. So just days after telling us about how much they love Fort Worth and love the environment, Fort Worth finds out about this injection well, which could potentially contaminate groundwater.

City officials have imposed a moratorium on new injection wells. The Fort Worth City Council is tentatively scheduled to discuss the moratorium in mid-October.