Archive for March 2017
Downwinders Participates in First Earth Day Texas Oil and Gas Symposium
Downwinders at Risk is proud to be taking part in the first annual Responsible Shale Energy Extraction (RSEE) Symposium & Exposition, happening over two days at this year’s at Fair Park in Dallas, Friday April 21st and Saturday, April 22nd.
Climate Change superstar Dr. Katherine Hayhoe, Fracking health-effects lecturer (and Downwinder friend) Dr. Anne Epstein, and the Texas Railroad Commission’s own Ryan Sitton will also be participating, along with lots of others.
UTA’s Collaborative Laboratories for Environmental Analysis and Remediation, or (CLEAR) is the event’s primary sponsor and organizer, with an assist from the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation in Houston. Some of you may know the late George Mitchell as the inventor of fracking, but even he had serious second thoughts about the way the technology was being used.
The Symposium is an attempt to round-up scientists, industry advocates, environmental groups, and technology developers to talk both about fracking’s very real problems, and possible solutions, in an open forum.
Since 2012 CLEAR has been out and about collecting samples throughout the Barnett Shale and other plays, identifying surface water and groundwater contamination issues that may or may not be directly linked to fracking itself. This is the first time in its history the group has taken on the task of sponsoring a two-day conference. Almost every aspect of unconventional shale mining, or hydraulic fracturing, will try to be addressed.
Everything is being run out of “The Westminster Abby of Texas,” Fair Park’s own Hall of State. A complete schedule is available here.
Downwinders’ Director Jim Schermbeck appears as part of a roundtable discussion on fracking in general, comparing the perspectives of landowners, gas operators, public health and environmental advocates and scientists. It includes water entrepreneurRichard Seline (AccelerateH20), TRRC Commissioner Ryan Sitton,Laura Buchanan, Executive Director of the Texas Land & Mineral Owners Association , and UTA’s own Kevin Schug.
Maybe you’ll want to come by The Hall of State Friday and mention to Commissioner Sitton how much you dislike the fact that BlueStone wants to put a new injection well on the shores of Lake Arlington. Or show-up on Saturday to see Dr. Hayhoe wow ’em again. But anytime you decide to visit Earth Day Texas, please make sure you come by and say hello to us at the Downwinders table over in the Centennial Building.
“This is the Black Side of Lake Arlington.” Why the BlueStone fracking waste injection well fight is also an Environmental Justice fight
By now you might have heard about the new fracking waste injection well being sought by BlueStone Corporation on the shores of Lake Arlington, the source of drinking water to hundreds of thousands of Arlington residents as well as the cities of Bedford, Colleyville, Euless, Grapevine, and North Richland Hills.
You may know it’s being proposed with a straight face near the Lake Arlington dam, and presents a direct challenge to the municipal bans on such wells that both Fort Worth and Arlington have passed.
But did you know there’s a lakeside public park that’s a longtime social and recreational hot spot for Fort Worth’s Black community just hundreds of feet away? Did you know there are Stop Six residents living adjacent to the proposed well site?
You’d never guess it from the view most of us get out of our cars buzzing by the East Berry exit on Loop 820. Nor can you find it on any of your Internet navigation maps. That’s right, it’s a park and neighborhood so unknown, even Google can’t find it.
But drop by Eugene McCray Park any given weekend and you’ll see a large slice of older Fort Worth black culture, with lots of fishing rods, lawn chairs, and baking brisket. “This is the Black Side of Lake Arlington” says an older gentleman sitting on his tailgate, and a panoramic look around confirms his judgement.
Smaller children energetically utilize the top-o-the-hill playground, older kids and their parents fish from the shoreline, others out in all varieties of boats come and go from the park’s ramp, birthday and anniversary parties roar with laughter from the covered pavilions, customized grills and recipes are carefully tended, dominos are slapped down hard on the cement tables, all surrounded by fresh spring greenery and the lapping waters of the lake. You can watch a heron swallowing a snack, or florescent-necked ducks swimming the small bay that shoulders the park. It’s one giant African-American Norman Rockwall painting. On this March spring day, it’s as though Stop Six has its own miniature all-black Eden in the middle of DFW that no white person can even guess is here.
But less than a quarter-mile mile south along this idyllic lake shore is where the BlueStone corporation wants to start disposing of a million and a half gallons of fracking waste a day – in direct violation of a Fort Worth ordinance that says you can’t do that. It’s also the first real challenge to the stalemate frozen in place by 2015’s state law HB40, reining-in the power of cities to regulate oil and gas facilities within their own city limits.
On either side of the well site, neighborhoods are squeezed between 820 and the lake with a mix of low and middle-income renters and homeowners, small lots with gardens, and older ranchettes with horse stalls and chicken coops. McCray Park is their backyard.
Last year BlueStone inherited thousands of local gas wells from belly-up Quicksilver Energy. Right now, the wastes from those wells goes outside the city limits to injection waste wells in other parts of North Texas – places that have had their own problems with their continued operation (like earthquakes, which makes putting a new one by a large dam seem like a bad idea, but we digress….)
But if it had to have a new well – and there’s no proof it did – BlueStone had the pick of any area in Tarrant County or Fort Worth to site this new facility. Nothing in the quotes from the company so far indicate this Stop Six site is an especially strategic or convenient location to ship the wastes from those Quicksilver wells.
But something about this Stop Six neighborhood does make it a desirable target for a company like BlueStone: It’s predominantly minority and doesn’t have a lot of money to fight back.
Does anyone who already has experience in these matters believe it was only coincidence that drove BlueStone to pick this Stop Six site, instead of say, somewhere on the tonier west side? That’s what makes this fight an environmental justice fight along with everything else.
BlueStone has said that its well will only be used for its “nearby” operations. But those operations only produce about half a million gallons of waste a day. Why do they need a permit that allows for disposing of three times that amount? It’s not unusual for a waste well to get a permit under the guise of exclusive use, only to amend the permit a short time later to allow all comers – and charge a nice profit. It also makes it a lot easier to flip in hard times. Unless there’s a deed restriction on this operation, this Lake Arlington site could end up the same way, and the industrial use will overwhelm everything else. The inner-city Black Eden will be gone.
When Downwinders’ staff visited this last weekend, not a lot of the park users were aware of what was taking place just on the other side of the tree line. Given the history and stature of the park – it’s named after a black former city council member and is due to headline new bike and hike trails along the Lake’s west shore – there’s potential for a lot of good organizing in Fort Worth’s black community, and Stop Six in particular, by well opponents. This is as blatant and combustible a combination of race and pollution as recent Barnett Shale Gas Wars have produced.
The area is represented by Fort Worth City Council Member Gyna Bivens, who’s already voted to fight the Bluestone permit, State Representative Nicole Collier, who voted against HB 40 in 2015, and State Senator Konni Burton, a Republican who voted for HB40 while praising Fort Worth’s gas ordinance as a model to be duplicated. That would be the same ordinance now under attack from Bluestone’s pursuit of the well site by Eugene McCray Park.
If you haven’t already, you can write in to officially register your opposition to BlueStone’s permit address via our Click N’Send feature. A hearing in Austin at the Railroad Commission offices has been set for May 25th and 26th…..
Raising the potential for earthquakes within distance of a large, important dam,
Potentially poisoning drinking water for a large chunk of the Metroplex,
Spills and accidents causing fish kills and other wildlife harms
Larger and larger emissions threatening breathers downwind,
Ignoring local ordinances and the rule of law,
There were already plenty of good reasons to oppose the BlueStone injection well. Now there’s another.
The First Step to Opposing a new Disposal Well on the Shores of Lake Arlington is Just a Click Away
Today, we officially announced our hiring of Anthony Gonzales as a second Downwinders staffer. One of the reasons we need additional personnel is to help fight off the kinds of new challenges that a Trump presidency will encourage. Exhibit A: The Bluestone Natural Resources Corporation permit to open a disposal well for their fracking wastes on the shores of Lake Arlington, the major source of drinking water for the city of approximately 350,000 people.
Since the passage of the notorious HB 40 in 2015 by the State legislature that substituted state control over local zoning in regulating oil and gas operations within city limits, no Texas municipality or gas industry operator has challenged the uneasy status quo that was in place when the law was signed…until now.
In 2012, after rounds of concern about earthquakes and industrial contamination Fort Worth banned the siting of disposal wells within their city limits – a bold move for a municipality that openly embraced the fracking boom.
But when HB40 was passed by the State Legislature in 2015, local regulations like Cowtown’s disposal well ban had to have been in place for five years to be commercially acceptable. Bluestone applied for its permit less than six months before that five year period was up.
Last year Bluestone bought out Quicksilver and all of its Barnett Shale wells. Instead of continuing to use existing wells outside the city limits, Bluestone wants the convenience of dumping in town. Its permit requests permission to inject up to 1,250,000 gallons of fracking waste PER DAY into the well. Here’s a Channel 11 report on the controversy.
Both the cities of Fort Worth and Arlington have filed formal protests to the permit request. We need EVERY local, state, and federal elected official representing the area to do the same.
Meanwhile, you can join the chorus of opponents by simply sending an email down to Austin.
Use our Featured Citizen Action Click N’ Send System to let Austin Know You Oppose This Permit
A simple letter like the one below is ready to go once your contact information is plugged in….All you have to do is click
….or send your own comments opposing the well
to the Texas Railroad Commission at this address:
Juanita.jimenez@rrc.state.tx.us
Here’s a sample letter.
Dear Ms. Jimenez,
I am writing to protest the permitting of Bluestone Natural Resources wastewater disposal well
with Tracking Number 46045 in Newark, East Field for Cravens Lease, Well Number1.
Your Full name
Your complete Address
______________________________________________________
Don’t Delay. Make Sure They Feel the Push Back in Austin.
To keep track of developments about this disposal well permit, please check out the FaceBook page of local environmental group Liveable Arlington.
Meet Anthony Gonzales, the First New Staffer at Downwinders in a Decade. Now Help Us Keep Him.
There's a slew of changes coming as a result of decisions made at the Downwinders' board retreat with Lois Gibbs last month. Among them:
New redesigned website
New updated logo
New presence on social media
New year-round events calendar for supporters
New campaigns and projects
New board members
As a commitment to this make-over, Downwinders is pleased to announce its first new staff hiring in ten years: Anthony Gonzalez is a Mansfield resident and UTA Junior in History. He ran for Mansfield City Council when he was 18…and lost. He's currently enrolled in Downwinders' College of Constructive Hell-Raising and works part-time for the City of Arlington Department of Environmental Services. Anthony has been hired as our very first Program Assistant to help Downwinders' Director Jim Schermbeck in modernizing our data base, assist in communications work, and coordinate new volunteer outreach and events.
This means for the first time since it's founding, Downwinders has two people on staff at the same time to help us fight for your lungs.
With this new growth comes new responsibilities. We have donations to cover Anthony's part-time job until the beginning of summer. We need your help to keep him employed year round from now on.
In its decision to hire Anthony, the all-volunteer Downwnders' board made a down payment on our future. Can you show your good faith and return the favor?