This is how it starts.
It always starts with the fracking industry making a mess and harming people. Those people contact me. I received a letter from the Eagle Ford Shale (Karnes City) and it told of rashes, nosebleeds and misery.
I received more letters and phone calls and sometimes I received pictures.
Then I visited and took my own pictures.
When people contact me, I teach them how to get evidence of harm. Unfortunately it can take a while.
Eventually the media shows up and starts working on a story.
Because I have Earthworks’ Oil & Gas Accountability Project backing me, I can get other people involved, scientists and people with IR video cameras. Earthworks covered expenses and paid for some SUMMA canisters but we can’t do that without your help.
We met with the reporter and finally his story is published.
Fire in the Sky: The sour side of life in South Texas’ Eagle Ford Shale
By Michael Barajas
Published: March 27, 2013
“I am right in the middle of this stuff,” he told a Marathon worker. “I get three or four migraines a day now. … I never had migraines before in my life.” The headaches grew so persistent in recent months, Mike told the worker, that he shelled out $2,000 for a CT scan. About a year ago, to their surprise, the Cernys became a family of asthmatics, regularly sucking down albuterol inhalers just to breathe. Myra and Mike began to spot mysterious rashes on their arms and legs. Their teenage son suffered unexplained, gushing nosebleeds.
Now it’s started and more people will contact me with their stories. People can’t live in this kind of mess.
“It’s disconcerting to say the least,” said Wilma Subra, a Louisiana-based environmental scientist and MacArthur Genius Grant recipient who reviewed the TCEQ records.
Subra was troubled that when Marathon finally reported the problems — at TCEQ’s prodding — the company only did so as two isolated 12-hour events. “It’s hard to believe this was only happening the two days that TCEQ just happened to go out and investigate,” Subra said.
“For some of these compounds, it’s a huge quantity that got reported,” Subra insisted. For the August incident, benzene was at levels you’d expect to find near an oil refinery, she said.
“When, say, an oil refinery releases more than 10 pounds of benzene within that period, it’s a big deal,” Subra said. “Here we had 42 pounds of benzene released. It’s enormous.”
Prolonged exposure to benzene, Subra says, is known to cause leukemia and blood cell damage. In addition, TCEQ reports from the facility showed elevated levels of toluene, ethyl benzene, and xylene, compounds that may cause liver and kidney damage over long exposure periods, Subra says. In the short-term, “you’d expect to see nose, throat, eye and skin irritation,” Subra said.
Marathon should have bought the family’s home and let them move to safety. It would have been the smart and kind thing to do. But, that’s not how this industry works.
Now the gate is open. It won’t stop because I know there are others.
UPDATE: Also see “What makes an entire family all of a sudden need asthma medications?”
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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I fail to understand why Eathworks continues to rely on SUMMA canisters for air monitoring projects near these facilities. The shortcomings of this antiqated technology are widely known.
The SUMMA method is not appropriate for detection and measurement of sulfur species. To rely on this method is to set up “don’t ask don’t tell” scenario – relative to sulfur.
If Earthworks won’t adopt more modern and appropriate methologies, how can we expect our regulators to do the same? It’s almost as if Earthworks believes that these headaches, asthma, and gushing nosebleeds are being caused by exposure to benzene. I just don’t get it.
We brought the Picarro state-of-the-art instrument to the Barnett Shale. There are fantastic technologies such as the ones offered by HARC. But the last time I checked, they were not available for free.
I’m not sure what you expect, but it takes funding to get the latest technologies of which you speak. Got money?
Not going to argue with you, Andy. I know that no matter what we do it will never be enough. That’s a given.
Doing the best we can with what we have…
Hi Andy,
“If Earthworks won’t adopt more modern and appropriate methologies, how can we expect our regulators to do the same?”
Here in Alberta, where modern innovation and appropriate methologies are king, we lead the pack with companies’ corporate sniff tests.
“Baytex’s Chief Operating Officer Marty Proctor, who has visited the area himself, says the air quality there is better than what he experiences in Calgary”
And in the event a COO’s sniffer fails, we are fortunate enough to have a “world class” regulator (Energy Resources Conservation Board – ERCB) bringing up the rear.
“… Residents are encouraged to seek medical treatment and get medical testing for their ailments, says ERCB’s Barter.”
Who could ask for anything more?
http://www.prrecordgazette.com/2012/06/06/oil-company-within-regulation-but-people-leaving-homes-due-to-illness
This is how it starts. At least this is how it started for me.
I know all about being poisoned in my home, and regulators with nothing but excuses. Accurate information is what we didn’t get.
What I’m questioning here is the reliance on SUMMA cans. There is nothing inexpensive about the SUMMA method. Tedlar bags are not more expensive, in my experience. Piccaro only measures methane for goodness’ sake.
Here’s whar I am suggesting: If Earthworks, or any community group were to actually deploy appropriate instrumentation – in the Eagle Ford for example – this would likely force the hand of TCEQ to modernize their own act. If you have access to better information than they have, they will simply need to step up their game. This is how it starts.
A SUMMA costs between $250 and $300. It’s evidence.
Picarro measures methane, H2S, CO2, at least. EDF has a Picarro but they don’t share.
Yes, a TCEQ guy came out when I called, and said he didn’t see any emissions.
With the naked eye. From a mile away. And the tanks were behind the compressor station.
I feel so much better now. He said he’d call the drillers next time he came out, so they would open the gate for him to get in. Yes, what a great idea, let them know you’re coming to inspect. So brilliant, so fair.
Insist they bring the IR video camera and a SUMMA.
What do you expect of the TCEQ? After all, the TCEQ considers the polluters as their customers! Does that tell you anything?
This is going to sound really bad but… when a company starts drilling and puts tanks next to your residence and you start feeling sick, you have to move. you lose. They win. If you stay, you will continue getting sick until you just die. Our system is so corrupted by the money of the companies, the public officials aren’t going to help you. It’s not worth sacrificing the life of your family to stay there. Doesn’t it make you kind of understand why the Middle East hates America? They associate the oil companies with Americans because our government is basically their puppet. The companies have done it all over the world and now they are doing it right in your yard.
So what does that look like? If you have a mortgage and you are living paycheck to paycheck, where do you get the money to even pay the deposit and first months’ rent on an apartment? Do you just take your kids and go live under a bridge somewhere?
I used to say the same thing. But, I’ve been through this with way too many people now. Sometimes it’s not possible.
Exactly. I can’t afford to give my home back to the bank, and move. And we’ve already had a death: my husband, age 48. Leukemia, from benzene exposure, except the doctors won’t speak up about *how* and * where* he was exposed, just what caused it.
If I could, don’t you think I’d leave here yesterday?! I have a teenage daughter, living in my car is not an option.
This is the HELL I live in. Day and night.
I know it seems impossible but if you stay you will be sicker and sicker. It’s not right. I’m not defending the system. Your health is important. When you get sick, you can’t work and even pay your mortgage and then you end up sick and broke – as opposed to just broke. I am not being flippant – so I hope people don’t read it like that. It’s just so wrong on so many levels.
I have a friend who is sick, her whole neighborhood is sick. 5 kids on the block have some sort of undefined “autism”. She’s saying, “I think there is some problem here.” but she doesn’t move because she has a mortgage. She thinks that if something was really bad there the government would come and take care of it. She knows but she doesn’t want to admit it because then it would be up to her to take action.
I am sorry. I really am. I wasn’t trying to be a jerk by saying move. It’s just that I see it as the only thing people can do.
Please don’t apologize elizabeth. This is all tremendously sad.
When the enemy is a plume of toxic gas; I’m with you: Turn-and-Run beats Stand-and-Fight, no matter how distasteful or regrettable the situation.
I feel for your friends in the neighborhood with the autism cluster. Will these folks ever get any help / answers? Exposure to CS2 is associated with mental retardation, violent behavior, personality effects, and a wide range of neurologic disorders including Parkinson’s disease. We need to get a handle on community exposures to this chemical – no matter what it takes.
Elizabeth, I don’t think you were being a jerk at all! I always get too emotional discusding this….lost many FB friends over it.
We’re all on the same side. 🙂
I often wonder why some jews left Germany while others stayed. They believed bad things would happen if they stayed. Other people had confidence and faith in the government and mankind. They stayed and got shipped off to concentration camps.
I never would have imagined the corruption would be this bad. Then, I just came to the conclusion that it is.
I made my donation to Earthworks to help fund a spotlight on dirty industry.
You’ve always done more than your share, Don.
You can be like me, move,
and still be sick…
I will be sick forever.
Not in the way that I was when I was on the Shale.
My sulfur allergy has not gone away: 2 years passed, although, I don’t give up hope.
I feel dizzy when I drive by cement factories, refineries, swamps, sulfur springs and the like.
I still get lesions when I eat onion and garlic because they are high in sulfur.
You do what you can, with what you have.
But never, never give up hope on anything:
Your home, your health, your medical system, your government, or even on oil and gas to one day do the right thing.