In our attempt to reach out to the City of Denton to express our concerns about the current state of our oil and gas well ordinances, the City Manager expressed concerns to Denton’s Drilling Awareness Group (DAG) Board Chairman Ed Soph that in making any necessary changes by the City would produce “substantial financial and legal risks” if we attempted to establish 1000 ft. setbacks. Added to this was the belief that any efforts to performing our “own study that might surpass a 600’ setback that Fort Worth adopted and whether that study would be recognized, which is critical to its long term success and the City’s legal exposure, would likely be rejected by the TCEQ and the Railroad Commission based on their methodology for studies to determine safe setbacks distances.”
This is the legal quagmire we face and yet one has to ask our elected officials if they are willing to fight for their citizens over state agencies that are clearly under the thumb of the very people they are supposed to regulate. To paraphrase an old quote, “Better to have fought and lost than not to have fought at all”. The fact that rules and laws have been written that tie our hands doesn’t mean they arose in the best interests of the public.
With oil and gas industry interests controlling the TCEQ, The Railroad Commission and many of our state legislators and Senators, the common working class citizen whose health and safety are threatened by drilling cannot fund and sustain a battle with these giants. They are often characterized as anti-drilling naysayers by the likes of Steve Everley, who works in Washington, D.C., for Energy in Depth, a research, education and public-relations arm of the Independent Petroleum Association of America.
Now there are those of you who may feel it is an unfair assessment to depict the state regulators for the oil and gas industry as puppets for a source of revenue that has a long tradition of influencing legislation that favors them over every day people. So let me offer you a sample of the information that may change your mind
An eight-month study by the Center for Public Integrity, InsideClimate News and The Weather Channel using records obtained from Texas regulatory agencies revealed a system that does more to protect the industry than the public. Though this study was focused on conditions in and around the Eagle Ford Shale, it none the less reflects similarities in other shale deposits in the state, including the Barnett Shale that we sit atop of. Some of the findings are as follows
- Texas' air monitoring system is so flawed that the state knows almost nothing about the extent of the pollution in the Eagle Ford. There were only five permanent air monitors installed in the 20,000-square-mile region, and all are at the fringes of the shale play, far from the heavy drilling areas where emissions are highest.
- Thousands of oil and gas facilities are allowed to self-audit their emissions without reporting them to the state. The TCEQ, which regulates most air emissions, doesn't even know some of these facilities exist. An internal agency document acknowledges that the rule allowing this practice "[c]annot be proven to be protective."
- Companies that break the law are rarely fined. Of the 284 oil and gas industry-related complaints filed with the TCEQ by Eagle Ford residents in a 3-year period, only two resulted in fines despite 164 documented violations. The largest was just $14,250.
- The Texas legislature has cut the TCEQ's budget by a third since the Eagle Ford boom began, from $555 million in 2008 to $372 million in 2014. At the same time, the amount allocated for air monitoring equipment dropped from $1.2 million to $579,000.
- There’s been a 100 percent statewide increase in unplanned, toxic air releases associated with oil and gas production since 2009. Known as emission events, these releases are usually caused by human error or faulty equipment.
Who are the people in those state agencies that essentially determine life and death issues for our citizens?
The TCEQ is led by three commissioners appointed by former Gov. Rick Perry and our current governor, Greg Abbot. Both have voiced deep skepticism about climate change and whether humans are responsible. They insist that even if the science were true, Texas can do nothing meaningful to reverse climate change without hurting its economy. All current appointees have been drawn mostly from within the ranks of state government, including their own staff members, rather than someone willing to hold corporate polluters accountable, like former Commissioner Larry Soward whose term recently expired.
The TCEQ is unique among state environmental agencies. It is the only one whose mandate to protect public health and natural resources is qualified by a requirement that its actions be “consistent with sustainable economic development.”
“Sustainable economic development” in this context actually means “the private interests of oil and gas companies.” It’s no secret that the TCEQ operates in service of industry, especially the petrochemical companies. How else can we explain the fact that the commission penalizes companies for only 3% of self-reported violations of clean air laws?
Meanwhile, a recent Indiana University study found that unauthorized releases of air pollution in Texas account for more than $150 million in health costs annually.
As for the Texas Railroad Commission, they too represent more the industry of gas and oil well producers over the health and safety of Texas citizens. As flaring gas at well
sites now exceeds more than residential gas demand for the whole of Texas. the TRRC has never turned down a request to burn excess gas. Flaring is not only wasteful but contributes to the carbon-dioxide emissions in our atmosphere that are raising global temperatures faster than natural events.
According to David Prindle, a professor of political science at UT-Austin and author of Petroleum, Politics and the Texas Railroad Commission, “the homegrown producers finance Railroad Commission elections through campaign contributions, [making them] essentially … the constituency of commissioners,” he says.
In fact, most people who serve on or run for the commission are pretty up-front about their view that the oil and gas business is not just an industry to be regulated, but a constituency to be served.
A Center for Public Integrity analysis of personal financial disclosure forms showed that State legislators who enact the laws that regulate the industry are often tied to it. Nearly one in four state legislators, or his or her spouse, has a financial interest in at least one energy company active in the Eagle Ford,
Despite an interoffice memorandum obtained through the Texas Public Information Act that indicated the TCEQ knows its statewide air monitoring system is flawed, the agency told the authors of this study that air pollutants in the Eagle Ford Shale area “have not been a concern either from a long-term or short-term perspective. Therefore, we would not expect adverse health effects, adverse vegetative effects, or nuisance odors in this area."
"The executive director has extensive records of underestimated or previously undetected emissions from oil and gas sites”, according to Richard A. Hyde, then deputy director of the TCEQ's Office of Permitting and Registration, who wrote in the Jan. 7, 2011, memo.
The health issues faced by people who live in drilling areas simply don't carry enough weight to counterbalance the financial benefits derived from oil and gas development, says Robert Forbis Jr., an assistant professor of political science at Texas Tech University who has studied this issue.
In the summer of 2013 the TCEQ used infrared cameras during two flyovers to capture hundreds of images of the Eagle Ford. A contractor then surveyed over 16,000 oil and gas storage tanks and found 800 with leaks. When asked how the agency dealt with the polluters, TCEQ spokesman Terry Clawson did not respond.
Scientists say that while these spot checks are important, they are no substitute for strategically placed, stationary monitors that continuously measure how air quality changes over time.
Even the EPA doesn't know much about methane emissions or the other pollutants from oil and gas production. A 2013 EPA Inspector general’s report concluded that the agency's air emissions database is incomplete and "likely underestimates" those emissions. The lack of reliable data, the report said, "hampers EPA's ability to accurately assess risks and air quality impacts from oil and gas production activities."
The Railroad Commission's enforcement record, like the TCEQ's, has come under criticism. In fiscal year 2012, it referred for enforcement action only 2 percent of the 55,000 violations its field staff found statewide, according to the state Sunset Advisory Commission, whose mission is to eliminate "waste, duplication, and inefficiency in government agencies." Of the 217 fines levied, the average was less than $9,000.
What’s truly sad here for the Eagle Ford residents is that many of the conditions allowed by our gas and oil regulators were conditions noted earlier in the Barnett shale
A 2012 agency memo shows the TCEQ was fully aware that drilling companies needed more oversight. Titled "Findings and Lessons Learned from Barnett Shale Oil and Gas Activities," it said "nearly all of the issues documented [in the Barnett] arose from human or mechanical failure that were quickly remedied and could have been avoided through increased diligence on the part of the operator.
Proving a causal relationship between the emissions from natural gas facilities, and negative health effects is a challenge. But one solution is simply to provide the means to establish emission level data that detects the thousands of small leaks dispersed over several thousand square miles. Sadly this is not the case in the Barnett or other shale plays in Texas where some of the facilities — called “super-emitters” — are erratic.
“If one well was a super-emitter the day we measured them, it could change the next day,” said Daniel Zavala-Araiza, lead researcher of a 2015 Environmental Defense Fund study of methane emissions in the Barnett Shale. “It’s not just about finding a handful of sites. You need to be looking continuously to keep finding the ones that are malfunctioning.”
The study found that about 2 percent of the oil and gas equipment there is responsible for half of the total methane emissions at any given time.
Malfunctions are one of the major causes of high methane emissions, Zavala-Araiza said. A valve that is periodically supposed to open and vent gas might get stuck and continuously emit methane. Such events are unpredictable.
“If you don’t have frequent monitoring, there’s no way you’re going to know when one of these super-emitters begins spewing,” said Zavala-Araiza.
OTHER SOURCES
California Capped a Massive Methane Leak, but Another is Brewing — Right Here in Texas
Reconciling divergent estimates of oil and gas methane emissions
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