The honor system is laughable. It sounds like the polluters just ran to your state
after they got heat where they were regulated. They have no honor. Running to keep ahead of the game is their strategy and they will do it till they're stopped by government regulation. "Land Farm" means toxic waste dump and honor system means dump all you can before you're caught.
We are talking about operators like XTO Energy, transporting drilling fluids over 50 miles to another county to dump and landfarm them. Doesn't this seem to be very expensive and questionable? Why don't they transport it to Cleburne to the only Permitted Commercial Pit?
They don't require monitors on MINOR PERMITS. Monitors are required on Commercial and Centralized landfarms and there is only one centralized in Hill County and one Commercial in Johnson County. The Railroad Commission is issuing 33 minor permits on 100 acre tracts to avoid issuing Commercial or Centralized permits. However, the original intent of Minor Permits were for landfarming at the site of the original well.
I live north of Decatur. You might want to take a look at my other videos and the slide show on my blog. I have yet to see ANY site in Wise County that was well maintained and the District 8 Railroad Commission office is PATHETIC! I have a sample from a sludge pit that was land farmed and it contained chromium and was over the limit on some of the other toxins. Yuck! Wise County is a wasteland.
Yes, Johnson and Tarrant and parts of Decatur, but none of our landfarms made it into your slide show, probably because they were daily disced and so properly taken care of that they never looked like more than a farmer preparing to put out crops. Very well maintained. Although i have to agree that the landfarms depicted in your video are poorly taken care of and quite an eye sore.
i feel personally attacked, considering for years it has been my job through my company to make sure that there is not one harmful chemical dumped on the land. We took extra precautions, we had our own landfarms tested weekly through independent labs. Our landfarms were twice the allotted distance from and water sources, we never dumped on sloped land and double bermed all permitters. There are people in every industry who break the rules, target them and not the industry as a whole.
You have to know that not everyone is as responsible as you. I can say with confidence that you are the exception so I MUST target the entire industry. We need consistent statewide regulation, not just one district that functions like it should. We need studies like the one in Arkansas.
In this district you are no longer alowd to have large landfarms. Any one land owner can only have mud from five wells dumped on his/her property a year. Also, the RRC came in and closed down close to half the landfarms here and are currently in the process of almost completely fazing them out. The new regulations are going to make it almost impossibly expensive to keep a landfarm operating. The RRC has definatly taken all complaints very seriously here in this district.
It is regulated, furthur north in texas they are required to have underground water well montoring systems on their landfarms to ensure that nothing gets in them and they are going to impliment the same regulations here in this district. For someone who has not worked inside the industry, it is easy for you to sit back and say it is too loosely regulated, but you have no idea how much things have changed in the last few months alone.
You said: "For someone who has not worked inside the industry..."
I worked inside the industry for 12 years!
I live in an area that is negatively impacted by gas drilling waste so I've made it my mission to be informed on these issues. I have made MANY complaints to the Texas Railroad Commission and I am very familiar with the workings.
If things have changed, I'm glad but I have not seen ANY evidence of change for the better.
Their is a such thing as a "mud engineer", that is on every rig. These engineers take tests DAILY of what is in the mud. Our landfarm would not accept a load of mud unless it had a report with it. Which means we can account for every chemical on the ground. If there was a slight bit of salt or petroleum in it, it would be sent to a specialized landfill, and would never touch the ground. The RRC audits companies and you have to account for every load brought in.
The "mud engineer" is employed by the operator. That is unacceptable to most citizens who want an outside regulatory agency with the responsibility for keeping toxins off our farmland.
Arkansas used the same method of regulation you describe--the honor system--and it didn't work out too well for them, They have polluted water are a result.
We have collected samples of drilling mud and it contained toxins. You can see at chart on Bluedaze: Drilling Reform for Texas. In Arkansas, they also used the honor system and now they have polluted water as a result.
I have an update this story on my blog. The land farm in question was shut down. Adjustments to statewide rule 8 have been made.
Well, i worked for a mudfarm in Johnson county and I will give you the adresses of all of them. NOT ONE TOXIC SAMPLE WOULD BE FOUND. Each district may run shit differently, but the RRC would show up in the middle of the night to test our plats,and make sure we had proper berms. Some landfarms were run porely and were shut down, that doesn't mean that every company and every district was so careless. My company even payed out of pocket to fix roads that may have been damaged by our trucks.
landfarming is not on an "honor" system. The RRC requires maps to every landfarm, and trust me, THEY CHECK UP. They are very strict and randomly show up and take soil samples. Land Farms are shut down daily for exceeding bbl per acre limits or chloride levels. The mud being drilled with IS NOT TOXIC, it is in fact the complete opposite, i worked for a landfarm for three years and people would call us wanting us to come dump mud on their land so their crops would grow back as beautifully.
RAILROAD COMMISSION, DISTRICT 5, HAS NEVER DONE ANY SOIL ANALYSIS TEST TO CONFRIM THAT OVER 15,000 SITES HAVE NOT CONTAMINATED THE SOIL IN TARRANT,JOHNSON OR HILL COUNTIES with their MUDFARMS.
We have this CONFIRMED in WRITING from the Texas Railroad Commission.
And you know 100% that they dont have the proper paperwork for this? Your the type that thinks that we all should live our life as a cookie cutter nation you socialist.. if you ever run for any kind of office i will do everything in my power to not help you get elected ... this land farm is under written consent this is not your land so it is not any of your business... you are like the nosey nabor noone wants to have.
what you dont understand is that this land owner or land owners has allowed this under contract and they signed the papers. you must be mad because your not getting a piece of the pie.
The honor system is laughable. It sounds like the polluters just ran to your state
after they got heat where they were regulated. They have no honor. Running to keep ahead of the game is their strategy and they will do it till they're stopped by government regulation. "Land Farm" means toxic waste dump and honor system means dump all you can before you're caught.
aldenbuzz 10 months ago
From: Dick Ross (neighbor to this land farm)
To: ccarpenter87
Part II
We are talking about operators like XTO Energy, transporting drilling fluids over 50 miles to another county to dump and landfarm them. Doesn't this seem to be very expensive and questionable? Why don't they transport it to Cleburne to the only Permitted Commercial Pit?
TXsharon 2 years ago
From: Dick Ross (neighbor to this land farm)
To: ccarpenter87
Part I
They don't require monitors on MINOR PERMITS. Monitors are required on Commercial and Centralized landfarms and there is only one centralized in Hill County and one Commercial in Johnson County. The Railroad Commission is issuing 33 minor permits on 100 acre tracts to avoid issuing Commercial or Centralized permits. However, the original intent of Minor Permits were for landfarming at the site of the original well.
TXsharon 2 years ago
I live north of Decatur. You might want to take a look at my other videos and the slide show on my blog. I have yet to see ANY site in Wise County that was well maintained and the District 8 Railroad Commission office is PATHETIC! I have a sample from a sludge pit that was land farmed and it contained chromium and was over the limit on some of the other toxins. Yuck! Wise County is a wasteland.
TXsharon 2 years ago
Yes, Johnson and Tarrant and parts of Decatur, but none of our landfarms made it into your slide show, probably because they were daily disced and so properly taken care of that they never looked like more than a farmer preparing to put out crops. Very well maintained. Although i have to agree that the landfarms depicted in your video are poorly taken care of and quite an eye sore.
ccarpenter87 2 years ago
i feel personally attacked, considering for years it has been my job through my company to make sure that there is not one harmful chemical dumped on the land. We took extra precautions, we had our own landfarms tested weekly through independent labs. Our landfarms were twice the allotted distance from and water sources, we never dumped on sloped land and double bermed all permitters. There are people in every industry who break the rules, target them and not the industry as a whole.
ccarpenter87 2 years ago
You have to know that not everyone is as responsible as you. I can say with confidence that you are the exception so I MUST target the entire industry. We need consistent statewide regulation, not just one district that functions like it should. We need studies like the one in Arkansas.
TXsharon 2 years ago
In this district you are no longer alowd to have large landfarms. Any one land owner can only have mud from five wells dumped on his/her property a year. Also, the RRC came in and closed down close to half the landfarms here and are currently in the process of almost completely fazing them out. The new regulations are going to make it almost impossibly expensive to keep a landfarm operating. The RRC has definatly taken all complaints very seriously here in this district.
ccarpenter87 2 years ago
Did you say your are in Johnson County?
TXsharon 2 years ago
It is regulated, furthur north in texas they are required to have underground water well montoring systems on their landfarms to ensure that nothing gets in them and they are going to impliment the same regulations here in this district. For someone who has not worked inside the industry, it is easy for you to sit back and say it is too loosely regulated, but you have no idea how much things have changed in the last few months alone.
ccarpenter87 2 years ago
You said: "For someone who has not worked inside the industry..."
I worked inside the industry for 12 years!
I live in an area that is negatively impacted by gas drilling waste so I've made it my mission to be informed on these issues. I have made MANY complaints to the Texas Railroad Commission and I am very familiar with the workings.
If things have changed, I'm glad but I have not seen ANY evidence of change for the better.
TXsharon 2 years ago
Their is a such thing as a "mud engineer", that is on every rig. These engineers take tests DAILY of what is in the mud. Our landfarm would not accept a load of mud unless it had a report with it. Which means we can account for every chemical on the ground. If there was a slight bit of salt or petroleum in it, it would be sent to a specialized landfill, and would never touch the ground. The RRC audits companies and you have to account for every load brought in.
ccarpenter87 2 years ago
The "mud engineer" is employed by the operator. That is unacceptable to most citizens who want an outside regulatory agency with the responsibility for keeping toxins off our farmland.
Arkansas used the same method of regulation you describe--the honor system--and it didn't work out too well for them, They have polluted water are a result.
TXsharon 2 years ago
We have collected samples of drilling mud and it contained toxins. You can see at chart on Bluedaze: Drilling Reform for Texas. In Arkansas, they also used the honor system and now they have polluted water as a result.
I have an update this story on my blog. The land farm in question was shut down. Adjustments to statewide rule 8 have been made.
TXsharon 2 years ago
Well, i worked for a mudfarm in Johnson county and I will give you the adresses of all of them. NOT ONE TOXIC SAMPLE WOULD BE FOUND. Each district may run shit differently, but the RRC would show up in the middle of the night to test our plats,and make sure we had proper berms. Some landfarms were run porely and were shut down, that doesn't mean that every company and every district was so careless. My company even payed out of pocket to fix roads that may have been damaged by our trucks.
ccarpenter87 2 years ago
landfarming is not on an "honor" system. The RRC requires maps to every landfarm, and trust me, THEY CHECK UP. They are very strict and randomly show up and take soil samples. Land Farms are shut down daily for exceeding bbl per acre limits or chloride levels. The mud being drilled with IS NOT TOXIC, it is in fact the complete opposite, i worked for a landfarm for three years and people would call us wanting us to come dump mud on their land so their crops would grow back as beautifully.
ccarpenter87 2 years ago
RAILROAD COMMISSION, DISTRICT 5, HAS NEVER DONE ANY SOIL ANALYSIS TEST TO CONFRIM THAT OVER 15,000 SITES HAVE NOT CONTAMINATED THE SOIL IN TARRANT,JOHNSON OR HILL COUNTIES with their MUDFARMS.
We have this CONFIRMED in WRITING from the Texas Railroad Commission.
TXsharon 2 years ago
"Trust me"
Seems we've been doing too much of that where this industry is concerned. We need better regulation. Once the water is polluted it's too late!
DR4TX 2 years ago
your dumb...
michael86986 2 years ago
It's you're, the contraction for you are.
FarmerRaydar 2 years ago
go blow a goat
michael86986 2 years ago
maturity, articulate and intelligence all rolled into one!
TXsharon 2 years ago
oh wow...you think your hot shit huh?
michael86986 2 years ago
No. You're dumb.
TXtab 2 years ago
you can also go blow a goat
michael86986 2 years ago
And you know 100% that they dont have the proper paperwork for this? Your the type that thinks that we all should live our life as a cookie cutter nation you socialist.. if you ever run for any kind of office i will do everything in my power to not help you get elected ... this land farm is under written consent this is not your land so it is not any of your business... you are like the nosey nabor noone wants to have.
cwbyinadiesel 2 years ago
Your comment cracks me up. Seriously.
TXsharon 2 years ago
what you dont understand is that this land owner or land owners has allowed this under contract and they signed the papers. you must be mad because your not getting a piece of the pie.
cwbyinadiesel 2 years ago
What you don't understand is the industry is cutting corners and they are unregulated. This landfarm should not be permitted under a minor permit.
Not everything comes down to money. If someone pointed a gun to your head and said: Your money or your life, I guess you would get shot.
TXsharon 2 years ago