The Railroad Commission of Texas inspected our sinkhole at Barnett Junior High. They sent Mr. Smith, Engineering Technician III, from their Kilgore office. It's a shame they do not have a local office in our area. They really need one.
His inspection report included a brief conversation with Javier, an Arlington Independent School District crew worker. We think Javier was the one carrying the shovel. After Mr. Smith witnessed Javier patching up this ground collapse at the school's driveway entrance, he popped over to the West Wing Unit of the Fulson Drill Site where he noted that nothing unusual was taking place. Wait... looks like he forgot to mention all that drilling, fracking, and perfing under homes and under that sinkhole in 2009.
His inspection report included a brief conversation with Javier, an Arlington Independent School District crew worker. We think Javier was the one carrying the shovel. After Mr. Smith witnessed Javier patching up this ground collapse at the school's driveway entrance, he popped over to the West Wing Unit of the Fulson Drill Site where he noted that nothing unusual was taking place. Wait... looks like he forgot to mention all that drilling, fracking, and perfing under homes and under that sinkhole in 2009.
We would like to know why the Railroad Commission does not have any ethical or moral obligation to make sure that Javier was remediating this sinkhole correctly. We are pretty sure there is a certain way this must be done or else it could collapse again and be even larger next time. Much Larger.
We called a sinkhole remediation expert, and they DO NOT recommend shoveling dirt in the void and patching it with concrete because this, potentially, could happen:
Click Here for full story.
Is the Railroad Commission of Texas regulating the Oil & Gas industry or they enabling the industry to railroad us?
What can you do to change the status quo? Contact your Representative about how our State Regulators are failing to protect citizens living in Shale Gas Extraction zones. Click Here to see who represents you.
We encourage you to continue emailing us at Fishcreekneighbor@gmail.com if you have questions or if you have sustained property damage after drilling began in your community. Include location and photos, please.
Don't forget the meeting on December 10th where you can voice your concerns to Texas lawmakers.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.texassharon.com/2012/12/03/town-hall-express-your-opinion-to-tx-legislators-about-fracking-tar-sands-pipelines-eminent-domain-etc/
There aren't that many opportunities. But they always seem to be during the holidays. Ho! Ho! Ho!
ReplyDeleteCome Tell Your Stories to a Few Courageous TX Lawmakers
It's absurd that it required the attention and action of a local concerned citizen to contact the RRC about this. From this point on here in the Barnett Shale, when any sort of unusual event occurs, such as a sinkhole, especially anything close to drilled areas, everyone should calmly but logically consider that it "might" correlate in some way to drilling & fracking. In this instance, someone from the city and/or school district certainly should have considered such and made a call to the Commission immediately and before any action was taken to begin to fill the sinkhole. That said, once the RRC arrived, it seems they should have been prepared to thoroughly inspect the hole, by taking measurements, checking soil density and conditions, determine whether or not any emissions, chemicals, etc. are present. And it's my opinion that they should inspect the surrounding area, as well as conduct a walk and visual inspection of the land within a designated radius of the hole to verify there were no other compromised areas. Instead, it appears the RRC guy verified the sinkhole, saw they were filling it with dirt, went to the unit and noted nothing unusual was occurring, job complete, log it, move on.
ReplyDeleteIs this sinkhole related to gas drilling? Maybe, maybe not. But there must be practices put into place to address these events, because it's better to err on the side of caution.
By the way, if you look @ that inspection report, you will see it shows District 9, which is not Kilgore, but rather Wichita Falls. I was told that the RRC's computer mainframe program COBOL is what they've used for decades going back to the seventies, and they're having problems transferring much of their info, especially since most of their original programmers are no longer around. According to an RRC inspector, the original permits for wells here in the BS (no pun intended) were listed in District 9, but when the area became too large, Kilgore took over. But due to the antiquated record-keeping system, some documents used by Kilgore inspectors are still showing the Wichita Falls district.
Everyone is invited to join us Monday evening, Dec. 10th at the Sheridan Arlington Hotel. Your voice Does make a difference!!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fwweekly.com/2012/12/05/speak-now-or-forever-hold-your-nose/