eleep presentation July 26, 2016Sr. Elizabeth Riebschlaeger, ccvifrom the Eagle Ford Shale

Environmental and Public Health Threats to Workers, Families and Communities

Content: Impacts of

A. Drilling, Fracking Activities

B. Production, Midstream and Storage Facilities

(including flares)

C. Transport: Roads and Pipelines

D. Waste Disposal: Liquid Injection Wells and Solid

Waste Processing Facilities

Stories of Workers, Families and Communities

A. Workers at Frack Sites: Chemicals, Frack Sand, Explosions, Fires, Falls, etc.

B. Flaring and Venting practices

C. The Lara Family and their neighbors

D. Pipelines: Lindenau explosion; Big Bend Conservation Alliance, Mexico Protest

E. Gillette Injection Well Explosion

F. Altair Solid Waste Disposal (in operation)

G. Nordheim Protest of Pyote 200 acre site

H. . . .and for the generations to come??

Workers at risk:

• Explosives

• Frack sand

• Chemicals

Flaring not in compliance:

Unburned VOC’s . . .

• pass through heat of flame,

• molecules break down

• then rearrange themselves into

• even more toxic chemicals

• escape into the environment

• appear as black smoke trail

• become part of surrounding air

• are absorbed into the soil Phillips-Conoco site, 2010, outside Kenedy, Karnes County, Texas

Same site during the day. This continued 24/7 for months until the plant was completed and pipelines laid. Flares are now extinguished. Note paint peeling off metal sign, probably due to air contamination.

FLIR Infra Red Camera picture taken by Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) during their flyover. Black smoke contains toxic cmissions being vented, invisible to the human eye.

Families and Communitiesat Risk

Family of Longino and Raquel Lara of Kenedy. They have had to leave their home outside Kenedy to escape the emissions and flaring from an Encana facility behind their home (Patton Trust South). FLIR videos of emissions taken by Sharon Wilson and posted on U-tube can be seen there.)

View of Encana facility with flare circled in red. Next to flame, the Lara home can be seen on the horizon on the hill. Distance is approximately 100 yards between the home and the facility. Toxic odors are often noted at the homesite. Family members have had eye irritation, nosebleeds, nausea and headaches—all symptoms of exposure to toxic chemicals common to these sites. At a doctor’s advice, they have moved to a rented trailer.

Picture of flare taken at night from front yard of Lara home. Note billowing black smoke from flare—all more toxic than regular VOCs that come to the surface from the well. The wind sometimes blows the smoke to the property, where odors fill the home.

A large compressor station on CR 211 south of Falls City, TX (Karnes County). Purpose is to repressurizethe product being sent by pipeline to keep it flowing to its destination. This location has a history of being problematic. The couple living near the compressor were told to move by his doctor or they would be “dead in a year”. A lawsuit followed, was settled out of court, and improvements made to the facility. It is destined to eventually be shut down. Note emergency breathing equipment in yellow box.

Picture taken by Greenpeace 1

day after Encana blowout, April

2015. Dead vegetation is the

brown areas. Lara home is at

far top right hand corner.

Families were told to evacuate

and remained out of their

homes for over a week. Some received buy

outs; others were

compensated for dead livestock.

TRANSPORT: PIPELINE RUPTURES, SPILLS AND EXPLOSIONS

Energy Transfer’s 42’pipeline ruptured, explodedand burned in the tinycommunity of Lindenau lastyear around 8:30 PM.Cattle broke through thefence to escape the fire,which melted the pavement.This picture was taken by awoman in Gonzales County,who was 40 miles away.Energy Transfer is thepipeline company seeking apermit to build another 42”pipeline in the Big Bend areaof Texas.

Environmental cleanup of hydrocarbons that fell on a pasture near Nordheim after a newly laid pipeline ruptured and spewed the product 50 feet into the air. This location is near the permitted solid waste treatment facility, which will straddle a similar pipeline.

Venting and fugitive emissions from pipelines, storage facilities and compressors allow tons of methane into the environment. Many emissions are invisible to the human eye, but often have a perceptible impact on human health and the environment.

In this picture, workers are seen venting pipelines, which is permitted.

The use or abuse of Eminent Domain??

West Texas ranchers and citizenshave organized the Big BendConservation Alliance to oppose thepermitting of a 42” pipeline fromWest Texas, through the Alpine area.The pipeline will be joined to asimilar pipeline being built in Mexicoat the Rio Grande. Terminus will beon Topolobampo Bay at BajaCalifornia, where an LiquificationNatural Gas (LNG) plant is to be builtfor export of fossil fuel products onthe global market, especially naturalgas. The Eagle Ford Shale regionextends into Coahuila, MX fromSouth Texas.

• Drilling and Flowback (a mixtureof drilling mud, lubricants,fracking chemicals and saltwater) produce tons of liquid andsolid waste. Waste that is lessthan 30% solids is consideredliquid and disposed of in liquiddisposal wells (seen here). Thedepth of a well is required to bebelow any water well or aquifer,but there is no requirement fortracking the lateral movement ofthe waste underground. Thisparticular site exploded andburned, and had just beenrebuilt at the time of the picture.Waste that is 30% or more solidundergoes a different treatmentprocess.

Solid waste processing facility inAltair, Colorado County. The redarea is the site of Rice ConsolidatedIndependent School District’sfacilities. This industry is exemptedfrom many regulations that bindother industries that handle thishazardous material transportedfrom drilling and fracking sitesbecause of the pressure to moveinto unconventional productionquickly. A hazmat carrier isrequired for highway transport tothe site. From the point of entry tothe site, it is treated as “non-hazardous”. Workers are told thatthe waste is non-hazardous, so nopersonal protective equipment isrequired.

Heavy equipment is seen being used toaerate the solid waste, allowing anyVOC’s to be removed into theenvironment.

The school administration and theneighbors living around this site in EastTexas, west of Houston, have filedseveral complaints of odors coming offthe site and trespassing on theirproperties. Operators have been finedseveral times by the TRC for storing tonsmore waste than their permit allows.

The facility has changed operators a fewtimes.

Skull Creek, swollen by recent heavy rains, runs through the waste facility, through a rancher’s land and eventually into the Colorado River.

Area in red outlines the 200 acre site. It is almost as large as the town of Nordheim, see at left of the site. It would be ¼ mile from the city limits and ½ mile from the school.

Residents of Nordheim and nearby ranchers organized Concerned About Pollution (CAP) to file a formal protest against the permit. They have succeeded in delaying the permit for three years. Although it was recently permitted by the Texas Railroad Commission (TRC), they have now filed to sue the Railroad Commission for not giving them due process.