What killed this grass?
Two or three weeks ago on the way to work at 2:30 AM, my neighbor’s wife drove by a drilling waste truck parked on the shoulder of FM 755 just across from the Mesquite SWD class II commercial injection/disposal well. It seemed suspicious that the waste hauler would be parked there at that hour so she called her husband. He drove by and saw that the driver was dumping his load of drilling waste into the field beside the road.
A few of the chemicals likely to be found in drilling waste:
• guar gum derivative
• diesel fuel
• fumaric acid
• adipic acid
• benzene
• ethylbenzine
• methyl tert-butyl ether
• naphthalene
• tolulene
• zylene
• sodium hydroxide
• poly aromatic hydrocarbons
• boric acid
• ethylene glycol
• monoethanolamine
• isoprophanol
• diethanolamine
• hydrochloric acid
• diammonnium peroxidisulfate
• 2-bromo-2nitrol,3-propanediol
• polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons
• methanol
• propargyl alcohol
My neighbor said the truck was a yellow one like the one in the picture but there was no license tag.
The spill flowed downhill into a small creekbed that runs under the road and into a pond.
About Sharon Wilson
Sharon Wilson is considered a leading citizen expert on the impacts of shale oil and gas extraction. She is the go-to person whether it’s top EPA officials from D.C., national and international news networks, or residents facing the shock of eminent domain and the devastating environmental effects of natural gas development in their backyards.
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Holy Camoly, Sharon! I’ll bet that list of chemicals played hell with your spell-check.
Not to mention the microorganisms, various flora and fauna, groundwater, grazing animals and potentially a people or twelve.
Whoa! I just realized I live downstream from Wise County!!!
I hope someone hunts down and applies appropriate punishment to the CEO of the company that did this.
Scary thing is that there is NO punishment for this crime. The EPA, who are supposed to PREVENT this type of blatant pollution, have no authority. Beyond frightening.
In certain instances, the EPA does have authority over illegal dumping. They set up a hotline to report illegal dumping. Follow this link http://www.texassharon.com/shale-survival/ and click on “Who to call when things go wrong.”
Call the National Response Center, the EPA Hotline. the Texas Railroad Commission and your local sheriff department.
Also, counties can take enforcement action against illegal dumping. They can even put the offenders in jail. If you need more info, contact me.
Damn, I wish some a-hole would try to do that when I’m around.
We need some sort of public education campaign to get people to call the police immediately when this happens.
We can do nothing about this kind of arrogant blatant violation of regulations. We are dealing with a criminal industry. What good will it do now to impose a fine–assuming that we could prove who was responsible? The laws assume that everything can be made right with money.
Disgusting!
Sounds like Booger County–same there. The RRC just calls it Landfarming! All’s OK with them.
The operator probably has the permission of the landowner to dump it there, then the landowner lets it run off into the creeks and on to water stratas. This way the operator gets off “free”.