This is why we need to support ShaleTest.
Today, members of ShaleTest took some videos with a ThermaCAM® GasFindIR™ HSX camera (pdf).
This video was shot with a ThermaCAM® GasFindIR™ HSX camera, that is designed to detect VOCs, So what you are seeing is not steam, but is chemicals. This is a produced water tank that is located at a Chesapeake Energy natural gas compressor station along the Trinity River near downtown Fort Worth, TX. The odor from these emissions were horrible, and unfortunately is located next to a city park and playground, as well as a large community.
This facility is right next to a park. We cannot trust this industry. We can never turn our backs on them or relax for even a moment. We must insist on state of the art monitoring equipment and setbacks that are protective of public health.
We need to move away from fossil fuel use ASAP. Spread the word about clean energy.
I will post more disturbing video tomorrow night. Support ShaleTest!
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you for posting this video. Unfortunately, as you well know, this site and subesequent massive emissions is not an isolated incident, it’s an Industry Standard. City Councils and Mayors of every town and city on every shale need to see these videos. Then tell me it’s perfectly safe to drill in residential areas and parks.
Sadly, I’d bet CHK bought the playground equipment this site is next to.
I can’t wait to send our City Council this FLIR cause this is the third year that I have asked them to budget for a FLIR camera.
Last night an Arlington city representative presented yet another public/park owned “sub”surface money making scheme to access those minerals from an already established nearby drillsite in somebody’s neighborhood…..the presenter makes a big deal about how it is a NO SURFACE USE…yet we have no say over the impact of how this damages our air quality….here is Oct 16th’s “6 of 12 items” they “of course voted unanimously on”… what the hell ever happened to the enforcement of….
TEX LG. CODE ANN. A§ 253.005 : Texas Statutes – Section 253.005: LEASE OF OIL, GAS, OR MINERAL LAND
“(c) A well may not be drilled in the thickly settled part of the municipality..”
…………………………I’ll say it again…..our leaders need to rot in hell, but that is for God to judge.
VI.
APPROVAL OF ITEMS FROM EXECUTIVE SESSION
2.
Consent to Assignment and First Amendment to Oil and Gas Lease – Carrizo Oil & Gas, Inc.; Lease No. 08-033
A resolution approving a Consent to Assignment and First Amendment to Oil and Gas Lease between Carrizo Oil & Gas, Inc., ARP Barnett, LLC, and City of Arlington relative to a No Surface Use Oil and Gas Lease in approximately 9.872 acres of land being a portion of Gertie Barrett Road Tracts, City of Mansfield.
3.
Consent to Assignment and First Amendment to Oil and Gas Lease – Carrizo Oil & Gas, Inc.; Lease No. 10-057
A resolution approving a Consent to Assignment and First Amendment to Oil and Gas Lease between Carrizo Oil & Gas, Inc., ARP Barnett, LLC, and City of Arlington relative to a No Surface Use Oil and Gas Lease in approximately 1.17 acres of land being the Golden West Elevated Tank Site.
4.
Consent to Partial Assignment of Oil and Gas Lease – Carrizo Oil & Gas, Inc.; Lease No. 10-049
A resolution approving a Consent to Partial Assignment of Oil and Gas Lease between Carrizo Oil & Gas, Inc., ARP Barnett, LLC, and City of Arlington relative to approximately 9.1265 acres of land under a No Surface Use Oil and Gas Lease.
5.
Consent to Partial Assignment of Oil and Gas Lease – Chesapeake Exploration, L.L.C.; Lease No. 06-002
A resolution authorizing the City Manager or his designee to execute a Consent to Partial Assignment of Oil and Gas Lease between Chesapeake Exploration, L.L.C., Total E&P USA, Inc., and the City of Arlington relative to a Restricted Surface Use Oil and Gas Lease in approximately 115.16 acres of land being a portion of Village Creek Linear Park, City of Arlington, Tarrant County, Texas.
6.
Consent to Partial Assignment of Oil and Gas Lease – Chesapeake Exploration, L.L.C.; Lease No. 06-003
A resolution authorizing the City Manager or his designee to execute a Consent to Partial Assignment of Oil and Gas Lease between Chesapeake Exploration Limited Partnership, now also known as Chesapeake Exploration, L.L.C., TOTAL E&P USA, INC., and City of Arlington relative to a No Surface Use Oil and Gas Lease in approximately 143.25 acres of land being a portion of Bowman Branch Linear Park, City of Arlington, Tarrant County, Texas.
7.
Consent to Partial Assignment of Oil and Gas Lease – Chesapeake Exploration, L.L.C.; Total E&P USA, Inc., Lease No. 06-008
A resolution authorizing the City Manager or his designee to execute a Consent to Partial Assignment of Oil and Gas Lease between Chesapeake Exploration, L.L.C., Total E&P USA, Inc., and the City of Arlington relative to the exploration and production of natural gas under approximately 13.14 acres of land being Martha Walker Park, City of Arlington, Tarrant County, Texas.
Currently, a gas-gathering pipeline is being laid through a south Grand Prairie neighborhood which is to connect to the valve yard located in southeast Arlington a just a short jog southwest from the Fulson Drill Site (Hwy. 360 South near Sublett Rd.) Many pipelines are converging to this valve yard which is nestled alongside residential homes. Take a look at the rather large vent stack in the photo on this blog post:
http://fishcreekmonitor.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-valve-yard.html
We wonder how many emmissions will be flowing out of there once all these pipelines are connected. Would love for ShaleTest to visit that site with their FLIR camera in the near future. My property was smelling a faintly ‘skunky’ this morning. I recognize this odor from the valve yard when snapping that photo for the blog.
Impressive pictures, but do you have a sample that confirms your claim of massive emissions? Have you contacted the operator and informed them of a potential problem? How did they respond? If there is truly a problem that goes unfixed, then there is an issue. I find that generally companies when presented with a real problem, solve it when given the opportunity.
Chuck, your first question can be answered by reading about the camera.
The operator knows about this because they saw my tweets. A better question for you to ask: Why isn’t the operator doing a better job of monitoring their facilities?
ALL gas wells leak at every stage of production. There are some technologies that can eliminate most of the leaks but industry refuses to use them. As far as we can tell, this is standard operating procedure. There are additional videos of facilities in Fort Worth that are operated by Chesapeake. They also show massive leaks. I will be posting those as soon as I can.
Our experience is quite different from yours. We have found that operators try to coverup problems, make excuses and hurl ad hominem attacks at those who discover the problems
Chuck: This isn’t our first rodeo, nor CHK’s. The Gasholes cannot claim they have been safely doing this since Harry Truman was president, and then have to be informed of their colossal failure by ordinary people. Maybe you’ve seen some of the commercials on TV by Industry’s fans clubs stating that they use the ‘Newest technologies’ and ‘leak proof valves, reduce pad sites to the size of a coat closet, and ‘carefully monitor’ their sites to better protect the environment.
Maybe if they spent a little bit more money on actually fixing their crap than on BS tv commercials, we wouldn’t have this video to post.
This is no ordinary camera. It’s an $80,000 GASFINDER Infrared camera. The black ‘smoke’ you see if 100% toxic emissions.
We also took a Summa canister air sample, and it has been sent off to the EPA CERTIFIED LAB. Once we get the results back from the lab, we will post those results as well as send both the report and the video to the TCEQ and demand immediate action be taken.
It is not my job to notify Aubrey McClendon or any other of these gasholes of their problems that they are already well aware of. That said, when CHK has been notified of the exact same issue in the past, Julie Wilson, their Vice President of Spin, declared the toxic emissions to be “Just steam”. If you find that hard to believe, search this blog and see for yourself.
I see that thermal infared cameras can be rented inexpensively at http://www.thermalcamerarentals.com/flir-e40.html We should all rent cameras and document as much as we can.
In addition to taking the FLIR videos, you need SUMMA canisters to quantify the VOC emissions. Otherwise, industry will discount the video and say it’s only methane.
Methane is the most powerful Greenhouse Gas (hello Sandy) and is a surrogate gas that brings with it many toxics and impurities from the formation.
Another way to determine what is leaking in your neighborhood is to support ShaleTest.org.
Chuck by sample do you mean “air sample”…like the one that TCEQ will deploy via suma canister that takes 4 months to come back? …that doesn’t even measure methane?… that doesn’t even measure formaldehyde or carbon disulfide?… the same state entitiy that claims Effect Screening Levels based on “dose makes the poison” that is old school science? http://www.downwindersatrisk.org/2012/10/the-dose-no-longer-makes-the-poison-but-we-regulate-it-as-if-it-does/
….
“From the journal Nature comes a case study in why no self-respecting thinking person would trust the current regulatory system to give them the final word on whether any given chemical exposure is “safe” or not.
A citizen can’t underestimate the kind of threat this research presents to the Environmental Industrial and Legal Complex. Every permit ever written and awarded. Every environmental law every passed. They all depend on a Paracelsusian view of the world. Prove a different world exists and it turns everything upside down.”
We demand new age science…my eyes have seen what I needed to see in this video. I don’t need to put my finger in the palm of Jesus to feel where the nails were.
How can I get a more specific location of this site? Were other sites in FW recently filmed? May I assume that ALL of them leak to some extent?
Several sites in FW were filmed yesterday and there were horrendous leaks from them. While this one was not necessarily leaking more than the others, it is disturbing because you can see the play equipment and homes.
I will get more information soon and also post more video.
Natural gas production leaks at every stage. Technology, developed by industry, is available to prevent much, but not all, of the leaks. Industry refuses to use that technology unless they are forced.
Don, the location is 1099 Nixon, and yes we have several other videos from different sites, but this facility had some of the worst detected emissions.
I forget the exact amount;
They do all leak,
Sites have air permits to leak with the TCEQ I don’t want to misinform people, I’m sure Sharon remembers how many 10’s of thousands of of VOC’s each site is able to leak per day, or per year.
I would assume, that if it was only one site, then, the amount of VOC’s permitted to leak/vent wouldn’t be such a horrendous life changer.
However, we are talking about 10’s of thousands of sites.
In my town, I did the math, and we were permitted to leak about 900,000 annually.
Seeing how Chesapeake is broke http://seekingalpha.com/article/957771-haynesville-shale-production-2013-will-be-the-year-it-finally-starts-dropping maybe they should try capture that gas to sell instead of poisoning the neighbors.
This shows they were never interested in the gas, only flipping the leases and inflating their stock.
This isn’t a leak. It is a vent – it’s the way the tank is designed. With temp changes between night and day – the gas expands and contracts and the vent prevents the tank from rupturing. All of their tanks of this design “leak” like this. The round ball shaped tanks that have a sort of expanding lid are the kind that don’t leak and are required in more sophisticated countries – but they are pricey and it’s cheaper to just vent the gas. Of course, they aren’t “breaking any laws” because they are exempt from the law. Any tank you film will vent like this if you catch it at the right time of day. If it isn’t venting than it is contracting and sucking in air from the atmosphere to stop the tank from collapsing on itself.
Well yeah. Technically it is a vent on the condensate tank. In municipalities they have ordinances that say things like “shall not vent gasses” but they don’t enforce them because it’s impossible to not vent.
They can use vapor recovery units but they don’t because no one in Texas makes them.
@Kim – Carrizo fails to cross their t’s & dot their i’s. Research their P-12s,W-1s plats, acreage, lease dates, confirm that those who leased had legal right to the minerals. This can help if it is a new drill. If they have even picked up rock and thrown it on the site, the will try to say the site had construction underway. If their paperwork is questioned, they will shoot for force majeure. Just some fyi, been there and done that with them. Remember, it was mentioned that they set a TRRC record for most amended applications at one time.
Thank you and congratulations to all involved.
Please keep posting this type of definitive imagery.
What if everybody did?
I live down in Fairfield Texas about 90 miles south of the metroplex and we are have the same problems, but the well is within 325 feet of my house and when it is producing you can smell the H2S that it is producing. XTO has informed me that it is there right to release some gas and that the odors will not harm us, and even at 2700 ppm the well is not harmful anywhere other than on the pad. It would really be nice for someone to hold these people accountable for their actions. Their employees are only allowed to be around it for 8 hours a day per OSHA, put yet they can expose us to it 24/7? Looking for any help possible to protect my family!!!
I work all day every day trying to hold them accountable. If you have Netflix (you can use it free for 1 month) watch the documentary about Wiebo Ludwig. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiebo_Ludwig Read the book about him. They know H2S is causing great harm but they are the most powerful corporation on the planet.
Does your family have any health issues?