Barnett Shale Land Farm

Drilling companies are spreading toxic waste on farmland

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• fracking
• frac
• fracing
• hydraulic fracturing
• Halliburton
• EPA
• Eagle Ford Shale
• Marcellus Shale
• Haynesville Shale
• Fayetteville Shale
• air pollution
• gas wells
• drilling
• fugitive emissions
• methane
• GHG
• climate

[TXsharon]

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]

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]

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.

[ccarpenter87]

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.

[TXsharon]

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.

[ccarpenter87]

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.

[TXsharon]

Did you say your are in Johnson County?

[aldenbuzz]

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.

[ccarpenter87]

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.

[TXsharon]

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.