Barnett Shale

TCEQ adds air monitors, posting data online

Like data? Concerned about the air in the Barnett Shale?

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has just launched your new favorite website.

The state agency installed new air monitors in the town of DISH and at Eagle Mountain Lake Thursday and began instantly posting the data online.

TCEQ plans to continuously stream hourly reports on its website of data from the monitors on the levels of 46 volatile organic compounds including benzene, a chemical that has raised the most health concerns related to drilling in the Barnett Shale.

“It’s pretty much real-time data,” TCEQ spokesman Terry Clawson said.

Along with the two new monitors, the agency also began posting online the latest data from two previously-installed air monitors – one in northwest Fort Worth and the other in Dallas.

Clawson said TCEQ hopes to install two more air monitors in the Barnett Shale region by the fall. The agency is currently trying to determine the best locations.

For each air monitor, the site provides the hourly level of each compound in the air measured in parts per billion.

The site does not currently say if any of the levels are high enough to be considered unhealthy. Various government websites, including in the TCEQ’s own toxicology section of its website, feature lists of known air contaminants and the screening levels which would normally warrant further review.

The monitors use gas chromatography to analyze the air. It costs $250,000 to purchase each monitor and pay for the installation and first year of operation, and $100,000 for every year after that. The money for the monitors is coming out of the TCEQ budget, Clawson said.

DISH Mayor Calvin Tillman, a longtime critic of how TCEQ and other state agencies have addressed the environmental impact of natural gas drilling, said the air monitors would do a lot of good.

“I would expect there would be at least hundreds of people who will look at this pretty regularly,” Tillman said. “The operators are going to have to know people are looking now.”

-Aman Batheja

Tillman gets noticed in Philadelphia

DISH Mayor Calvin Tillman, an outspoken critic of current drilling practices in the Barnett Shale, was the subject of a story in the Philadelphia Inquirer last week.

Tillman was in Pennsylvania as part of a northeast speaking tour as gas drilling picks up in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale.

The story by reporter Andrew Maykuth reviews Tillman's recent online spat with an industry publication over air pollution and the recent early results of state testing of DISH residents' blood and urine.

The story ends with a peek into Tillman's latest worry: 

Though Tillman's blood and urine came in below levels expected for the general population, he is still worried. "I'm not sure I'm going to be able to live here," he said earlier this week.

His newest concern is the water.

The health department's tests found some contaminants in residents' well water, Lowery said, but none at unsafe levels. The source of the contaminants is not known, she said.

Tillman's water tested positive for traces of three contaminants, all below federal legal limits for public water: styrene was 3,700 times below the limit; ethylbenzene was 28,000 times below the limit, and xylenes were 47,393 times below the legal limit.

"The most disturbing is the toxins found in our water," Tillman said in an e-mail. "They should not be there at all. Not sure what to do about that."

-Aman Batheja

Texas Supremes hear arguments about allowing injection wells near homes

The argument between a group of Wise County residents and the Texas Railroad Commission about where injection wells can be drilled has reached the Texas Supreme Court.

The Wise County residents argue that the Railroad Commission shouldn't have allowed an injection well near their rural homes. They sued, and an appeals court ruled that the permit for the well was improperly granted because the Railroad Commission misinterpreted a key provision: State law says the commission is supposed to take "the public interest" into account when it grants a permit for an injection well.

The Railroad Commission historically has held that "public interest" only means the production of oil and gas. It also said it didn't have the expertise to deal with the residents' complaints, such as noise and truck traffic.  

Read more at the Supreme Court website: http://www.supreme.courts.state.tx.us/ebriefs/files/20080497.htm

City committee skirmishes over air tests

Back in February, Fort Worth set up a committee to get to the bottom of conflicting reports about air pollution at natural gas drilling sites.

The committee held its second meeting this week, and our colleague Mike Norman summarizes the debate in his column.

Environmtental groups and neighborhood types say they want raw data on what's being released at Fort Worth's 1,200 gas wells, so that the city and state can write righter rules on those emissions.

The gas companies say they want to put the information in context: Fort Worth already has a significant air pollution problem and they don't want to be singled out as the bad guys.

Norman opines: "That's good spin, just enough truth in it to throw the gullible off guard."

Read the jump for Norman's full column.

Test results show toxins in residents of Dish

Our colleagues Alex Branch and Aman Batheja have the story after the jump, (with a hat-tip to the Denton Record-Chronicle for breaking the news)

Wedgwood well site permit approved

The Fort Worth city council on Tuesday approved a permit for a natural gas well site in the Wedgwood neighborhood that will be within 600 feet of more than 100 houses, with the closest home about 160 feet from the edge of the site. The city's drilling ordinance doesn't allow drilling sites within 600 feet of homes unless the property owners agree or the council grants a waiver.

Chesapeake Energy wants to put 16 wells on the site at 6720 McCart Ave. It would access gas beneath 1,200 acres in south Fort Worth. A Chesapeake spokesman said more than 81 percent of owners close to the well had signed waivers. Representatives from three neighborhood associations said Chesapeake had agreed to conditions that would reduce the impact, such as using an electric drilling rig and restrictions on truck traffic during rush hour.

Other residents opposed the site because of concerns about pollution and said Chesapeake had used deceptive tactics to get permission waivers from homeowners.

The council approved the permit 7-0. Councilman Jungus Jordan recused himself and Councilwoman Kathleen Hicks left before the vote.

-- Mike Lee

Second air testing meeting next week

 

See our previous posts on air pollution for the back story.

Posted April 7, 2010

The Air Quality Study Committee will meet 4-7 p.m. April 14 at East Regional Library, 6301 Bridge St.

The City Council convened the Air Quality Study Committee to address recent air-quality studies regarding the short- and long-term health effects of emissions from gas facilities.

The committee is charged with ensuring that air-quality data is comprehensive, specific to Fort Worth and sufficient to answer residents’ questions. The committee will evaluate and make a recommendation to the City Council on the qualifications of proposed companies and a scope of work for an air-emissions study.