If you know what the water in your wells was like before drilling started on your land, you have a better understanding of whether drilling has changed the water. That’s the basic idea behind “baseline testing” of groundwater before drilling starts. That’s also one reason why some states, like Wyoming, have enacted rules based on recommendations […]
Questioning the Candidates for Texas’ Oil and Gas Regulator The Republican race for a seat opening up on the Railroad Commission of Texas has focused on issues that have little or nothing to do with the commission: abortion, gun rights, and even Obamacare. That’s because — and we’re writing this now for what seems like […]
While fracking and other drilling techniques have opened up large reserves of oil and natural gas in Texas, they’ve also caused literal headaches, traffic jams and fatal accidents, and strains on water supplies. As a result, some Texas communities are pushing back: Dallas has passed strict limits on drilling; citizens in Denton are working a ban on drilling […]
Fracking The Eagle Ford Shale: Big Oil And Bad Air On The Texas Prairie from Weather Films on Vimeo. A new joint investigation out this week on air quality in the Eagle Ford Shale has brought up troubling questions about the effect fracking in South Texas is having on the health of residents. Inside Climate […]
The fracking boom that has brought jobs and money to rural parts of South Texas has also brought potentially life-threatening air pollution. That’s according to a joint investigation out today from the Center for Public Integrity, the Weather Channel and Inside Climate News. The report found that toxic chemicals like benzene and hydrogen sulfide are being […]
The North Texas towns of Reno and Azle have seen over thirty earthquakes since November, sometimes more than one a day. It’s been unsettling for residents like Barbara Brown. “Damage to my home, sinkholes on my property. Nerves! And a lot of angst,” she said. “Because you just don’t know when they’re going to happen […]
Read about the history of oil drilling in Texas and you’ll find references to how wildcatters would pour barrels of hydrochloric acid into their wells. The acid would eat through underground rock formations and allow more oil to flow up the well. That was decades ago. While a lot has changed in the drilling industry […]
Another earthquake swarm has been shaking towns in the Dallas-Fort Worth area over the last few months, with over thirty quakes measured since the beginning of November. Residents are shaken up, regulators have no answers, and no one is sure what comes next. The likely culprit behind the quakes isn’t fracking, but rather a byproduct […]
A Very Different Oil and Gas ‘Boom’ Comes to Texas “You might think you were in Iraq or Afghanistan,” Greg Morrison told a panel of state officials in Azle, Texas recently. “It feels like a semi truck hitting your house with a bomb going off.” He was describing the experience of a 3.6 magnitude earthquake […]
The mayor of one of the small towns at the center of Texas’ latest earthquake swarm traveled to Austin last week to speak to oil and gas regulators. While Lynda Stokes, the mayor of Reno, Texas, didn’t get any answers from the Railroad Commission of Texas (which oversees drilling in the state), she did get […]
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