When I was in the Eagle Ford Shale a few months ago, a landowner told me sinkholes appeared on her land shortly after fracking took place adjacent to her. She wasn’t blaming the sinkholes on fracking and I’m not either. But it is the most curious thing I have ever seen.
There are dozens of these sinkholes. The largest one is about four feet long and three or four feet deep (some fresh dirt had just caved into this sink which filled it in quite a bit). The others are a foot to 18 inches in diameter and two to three feet deep.
Here’s the freaky part: Most of the holes don’t have sides. You can reach your hand or a stick way into one hole and it might interconnect with the holes nearest to it and those nearest holes might interconnect to the holes nearest them and so on. It was unsettling walking around and I found myself wishing I had lost some weight. My Denton friend comforted me by suggesting that my falling into a sinkhole would make a good Jenny Craig commercial.
The holes seem to follow a line. Wilma Subra gave the landowners some instructions and we will be in touch.
Right across the fence, they were drilling another water well.
For more information on sinkholes, click HERE.
To learn about subsidence, click HERE or see the FAQs.
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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Sink holes can be caused by pipeline leaks miles away. This could any kind of liquid pipe – water, condensate, sewage, etc. product leaks and then rides the pipes along because the soil right around the pipes is less compacted because of the backfill. Year after year, it can cause sink holes far from the pipe. It can travel down pipes until it hits a crevice and then on and on and on.
It’s in the middle of their farm/ranch though and there is no known pipeline anywhere around. Still, I will pass on that information.
There are 2 main areas where the sinkholes are. It’s interesting.
for 2 or 3 years since they started fracking around my land I have had these in abundance….it’s back breaking work to fill them up. I want to contact them and have them send a crew to do the job. I’m sick of it. My farm is in Floresville TX and the more wells they drill the worse it gets. Is there a commission on this that I can contact. I have not leased my land and if I ever were to I would have something in the contract to cover me on this but since I am not getting royalties why should I pay to do this myself?
Any suggestions would be welcome.
I’ve seen this at two different places in the Eagle Ford Shale area. I will let you know if I figure out what to do.