A new study is making headlines this week for linking increased earthquake activity to wells used to dispose of wastewater from the drilling practice known as “fracking.” Today seismologists William Ellsworth and Stephen Horton (who published the study) are doing a live chat with the journal Science. You can read along (and chime in with your own questions) below.
Photo by Jae C. Hong/AP
Texas has one of its hottest summers on record last year, exacerbating the drought. Ranch owner Myron Calley stands next a drying pond at his ranch near Snyder
The latest drought monitor is out today (which isn’t surprising, it comes out every Thursday) and again, the numbers show improvement. The great drought that began in the fall of 2010 shows continued signs of receding, with over 18 percent of the state now completely drought-free, and a little less than ten percent of the state in the worst stage of drought, ‘exceptional.’ (To put that in perspective, at the peak of the drought in the fall of 2011, 88 percent of Texas was in that worst stage.)
As before, the eastern half of the state is faring best, while western parts of the state are still extremely dry, but improving. Earlier this week we reported on how farmers and ranchers in the rural west are still suffering, while most of the cities in Texas are now drought-free (or close to it). And even in some parts of the state that are in lighter levels of drought, lake and reservoir levels haven’t fully recovered.
You can read more at our new interactive page, Dried Out: Confronting the Texas Drought.
Photo by Terrence Henry/StateImpact Texas
Julia Trigg Crawford has several hundred acres of land in northeast Texas. And the Keystone XL pipeline may have to go through it.
High on that list is David Daniel, a carpenter in Winnsboro, north of Tyler. He bought twenty acres of land here about six years ago and moved out with his wife and daughter. Their land is lush with hundred-year-old hardwoods, and lots of fresh water that bubbles up in springs and seeps.
But pretty soon a liquid of a very different type could be making its way through his property: Heavy oil harvested from sand pits in Canada, carried by the Keystone XL pipeline. And part of what makes Daniel bitter is how he found out about it. Continue Reading
Courtesy of KQED Radio via Flickr Creative Commons
An injection well in Northern California, one of the most seismologically active regions in the country.
At a meeting of the Seismological Society of America today, scientists for the U.S. Geological Survey presented their much-anticipated findings linking the oil and gas industry with an increase in earthquakes in parts of the United States. (You can find NPR’s report on the findings here.)
The abstract released this week, which is still the only publicly available part of the study, says that “the acceleration in activity that began in 2009 appears to involve a combination of source regions of oil and gas production… to deep waste water injection wells.”
The report indicates that disposal wells, where liquid by-products from oil and gas excavation are stored, are linked to an uptick in earthquakes in states like Arkansas and Oklahoma. But what about here in Texas? Continue Reading
Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images
Watering in Dallas will now be limited to twice a week. Permanently.
If you live in Dallas, you may want to reconsider that thirsty St. Augustine grass on your lawn, because starting Monday, you’ll only be able to water your lawn twice a week. Permanently.
Today the Dallas City Council voted in permanent water restrictions for the city, in a move that Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings (as well as the mayors of Fort Worth, Arlington and Irving) asked for recently. Any hose-end sprinklers or automatic systems can only be used twice a week, regardless of drought conditions. The city says you can still water at any time by hand or with a soaker hose to protect home foundations.
You can read the full details of the proposal passed today here.
Previously: Texas Mayors Want Permanent Water Restrictions
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Lisa Jackson, the head of the EPA, says the new rules will "an important step toward tapping future energy supplies without exposing American families and children to dangerous health threats in the air they breathe.”
Well, the time has come for federal regulation of fracking, a drilling practice in widespread use across Texas. Up until now it’s been a practice regulated by states, but in new rules announced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)Â today, the federal government will now have oversight over emissions from fracking.
The EPA says the standards are required by the Clean Air Act, and will “reduce 95 percent of the harmful emissions from these wells that contribute to smog and lead to health impacts.” It argues that the standards, which focus on preventing gas leaks from fracking wells that can cause health impacts and greenhouse gas emissions, “will also enable companies to collect additional natural gas that can be sold.”
The EPA says half of fracking wells are already capturing such leaks, and whatever costs are associated with complying with the new rules can be offset by selling the gas trapped. The agency calls the technology used for this “green completions.”
The rules will be phased in over the next few years. By 2015, all new wells must utilize the “green completion” technology. You can read more at the EPA’s website.
And we’ll have reaction from Texas as it comes in.
Pipeline corridor near Baytown, Texas
The United States loves crude from Canada. No other single foreign country is now providing more imported oil to the U.S. But with the proposed Keystone XL pipeline has come the claim that the crude from north of the border is uniquely risky.
Last June in Washington, the House Energy and Power Subcommittee questioned a federal regulator about whether pipelines in the United States were built to handle the kind of crude coming from Canada, diluted bitumen.
“Were your regulations developed with the properties of diluted bitumen in mind?” asked Rep. Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California. Continue Reading
Joe Wertz / StateImpact Oklahoma
President Barack Obama visited an Oklahoma pipe yard in March and pledged his support for the Cushing-to-Texas Keystone Gulf pipeline.
All this week we’re running stories on the Keystone XL pipeline in collaboration with our neighbors to the north, StateImpact Oklahoma. We’re looking closely at the southern leg of the pipeline which would run from Cushing, Oklahoma to refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas.
In the first story, you can read (and hear) from StateImpact Oklahoma about the current glut of oil waiting to be freed from a bottleneck in Oklahoma, and what the economic impact would be of getting it to Texas refineries. And in the second story, ‘Will Canadian Crude Make the Keystone Pipeline Leak?’, you can read about some of the safety concerns about the pipeline. In our third story, we look at how the company behind the pipeline is using eminent domain to route it through private property in a piece titled ‘Life on the Line: Landowners Fight Keystone XL and Eminent Domain.’
While the original Keystone XL pipeline was denied a permit by the President in January, Obama said the company was welcome to reapply if they found a new route through environmentally-sensitive regions of Nebraska (which they’re currently working on). And after the company also announced it intended to go ahead and begin construction on the southern leg, that got the endorsement of the president.
How do you feel about the pipeline? Share your thoughts and opinions in the comments below. And you can learn more on our topic page, What is the Keystone XL Pipeline?
Photo by Flickr user Eric Constantineau/Creative Commons
A state representative says a new radioactive waste dump in West Texas is part of a cover-up.
There are some hot documents that may show a cover-up in the approval of a controversial radioactive waste dump in West Texas. Problem is, you can’t seem them.
Democratic State Representative Lon Burnam said at a press conference Monday at the state capitol that he’s obtained top-secret internal documents from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). They reportedly show that the commission approved the low-level radioactive waste dump, owned and operated by Waste Control Specialists, despite environmental risks. But he says he can’t show the documents to anyone because he signed a confidentiality agreement. The storage facility is owned by Harold Simmons, a Dallas billionaire and major financial backer to Texas politicians. He’s given money to Governor Rick Perry and Attorney General Gregg Abbott, who’s received $495,000 from Simmons over the past five years.
The problem, Rep. Burnam says, is that groundwater exists too close to the radioactive storage area and the company building it downplayed the risks associated with contamination. Now he’s officially asking the attorney general’s office to release him from confidentiality so the public can see the documents.
“I don’t think that [it] should be top secret,” said Rep. Burnam. “I think the public has a right to know. I think public health and safety is involved in this right now.” The dump is due to begin receiving radioactive waste as soon as next Monday. Continue Reading
Joe Wertz / StateImpact Oklahoma
A worker sprays paint on a oil storage tank in the Enbridge Energy lot at the Cushing tank farm.
This is the first of a four-part collaborative series by StateImpact Texas and Oklahoma on the economic and environmental impact of the Keystone XL pipeline.
Oklahoma is in an unlikely economic predicament: It has too much oil.
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