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What is the Eagle Ford Shale? The Eagle Ford Shale is a South Texas geological formation with a large amount of oil and natural gas. It’s about 50 miles wide, 400 miles long, on average 250 feet thick and buried between 4,000 and 12,000 feet below the surface of the Earth, reaching from the Mexican […]
The Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) is the state agency that regulates the oil and gas industry, natural gas utilities, pipeline safety, the natural gas and hazardous liquid pipeline industry and surface coal and uranium mining in Texas. The commission is also responsible for research and education to promote the use of liquefied petroleum gas […]
What is a Disposal Injection Well? Injection wells are vertical pipes drilled into deep layers of rock. Drilling companies use the wells to dispose of wastewater produced as a result of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” The wells utilize the earth’s soil and bedrock to filter and treat the contaminated water, which is then spread across […]
Does Fracking Cause Earthquakes? Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” (a drilling process that injects millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals under high pressure into a well, cracking the rock and to release natural gas and oil) has only been known to rarely cause earthquakes. But the disposal of drilling wastewater used in fracking has now […]
Want to learn more and get updates on this story? Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” is a drilling process by which natural gas and oil are mined from the earth. Manufacturers use hydraulic fracturing to stimulate wells and recover gas from sources such as coal beds and shale gas formations underground. The process requires […]
Stories
An inquiry by the agency that regulates the oil and gas industry in Texas has found that oil and gas activity did not likely cause a swarm of earthquakes around the north Texas towns of Azle and Reno starting in 2013. The finding, however, flies in the face of a peer-reviewed scientific study of the […]
Last year at a farm in outside of Beaumont, Dick O’Keefe sat at the kitchen table and talked about how a pipeline had come to his land. The company had claimed eminent domain powers. O’Keefe was not convinced. “The pipeline companies should have to demonstrate that they have the right of eminent domain before they […]
The agency that regulates the Texas oil and gas industry announced new rules this week aimed at curbing manmade earthquakes tied to oil and gas drilling operations. Texas has had hundreds of small and medium quakes over the last few years as drilling has boomed thanks to fracking and horizontal drilling. But for years the […]
Tuesday night’s runoff elections exhibited a clear pattern: the candidate who most convincingly wore the mantel of Tea Party conservatism won the night on the Republican side. But in the race for a seat on the Railroad Commission, the agency that regulates the oil and gas industry, the outcome was not so simple. Wayne Christian, a former […]
When former State Rep. Wayne Christian entered the GOP primary runoff for Railroad Commission 12 points ahead of his opponent, he had the backing of numerous Tea Party groups and Republican clubs. He looked very much like the favorite in his race against relative political newcomer Ryan Sitton. Tuesday GOP voters upended those expectations, nominating Sitton to run in the general […]
It’s a down-ballot race that many Texans know nothing about, but that hasn’t stopped the race from getting increasingly negative.
A four-way primary race has narrowed to two. Former State Representative Wayne Christian will face off against Ryan Sitton to become the Republican nominee for an open seat on the Railroad Commission of Texas, the agency that regulates Texas oil and gas industry. Christian and Sitton, an engineer who owns a consulting firm that works with oil and […]
Photos by Landov Tomorrow is primary day in Texas, and in the race for the open seat on the Railroad Commission, the state’s oil and gas regulator, you might be curious to know where exactly the candidates stand on the issues. Those issues include swarms of earthquakes linked to oil and gas drilling activity; property […]
Eminent domain. It’s been a political hot potato at the Railroad Commission of Texas for years. As regulators of the state’s oil and gas industry, commissioners give pipeline companies the right to take private property for their projects. That pits one of Texas most important industries — oil and gas — against one of Texas’ most cherished […]
Texas has seen the number of recorded earthquakes increase tenfold since 2007, the same time a drilling boom spurred by hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” took off. Scientific studies of those quakes has linked many of them to oil and gas drilling activity. In North and East Texas, peer-reviewed studies have pointed the finger at oil […]