Aruba Petroleum--remember them--is going to trial today. They are saying this is the first fracking trial in the U.S. and I was there, up close and personal, the whole time.
Bob and Lisa Parr were neighbors to Tim and Christine Ruggiero in Wise County. I was there, in the Ruggiero kitchen, the day Lisa discovered that her timeline of doctor's visits matched--exactly--Christine's timeline of releases from the Aruba gas wells on her property.
Tim and Christine Ruggiero gave me full access to their property so I was there often and I often visited their neighbors, the Parrs’. I witnessed the suffering of both families and experienced my own health impacts when I visited. Their properties where a must see when I gave tours to journalists, government officials, environmentalists and others who wanted to witness for themselves the impacts of fracking. When 60 Minutes was researching for their story "Meet the Shaleionaires," I took them there. The people on the tours often got headaches and sore throats.
November 14, 2010, 4:16 PM| "Gas Drilling Horror Story"With no prior notice a drilling company cut the Ruggieros' fence and began bulldozing their property to build a pad site for two wells.
Tim and Christine Ruggiero explain how their dream home turned into a nightmare when drillers arrived and began digging up their land. It turns out the Ruggieros owned the land, but not the rights to the minerals beneath it.
The Ruggiero and Parr case studies were included in Flowback: How the Texas Natural Gas Boom Affects Health and Safety and I presented these case studies to the EPA at Research Triangle Park and in DC.
This is Bob, Lisa and Emma Parr on their wedding day on the 40 acres where Bob built a beautiful custom home.
Lisa was treated by eight different doctors over the course of a year. A source of the sickness was never determined. In June 2009, after exhausting everything he knew medically, her internal specialist suggested that something in the environment might be causing her various ailments.When the chemicals in your body match the chemicals found in state testing outside your home, it's time to take fracking health impacts seriously. But this happened a long time ago and the impacts are still not taken seriously.In early fall 2009, she visited an environmental doctor who confirmed the presence of neurotoxins in her blood that matched chemicals used in natural gas production.
I didn't realize that this is the first time a fracking case has gone to trial. I guess that's because the rest of the lawsuits get buried here:
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