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Blogs
June 9, 2014
More Evidence Shows Flaming Faucet Anti-Fracking Guy Has a Point, But the State Is Sticking With the Industry
If an angry homeowner-turned-environmental-activist keeps getting vindicated by research, but all the important government people just ignore it, does the research make a sound? Probably not. Steve Lipsky, the homeowner in Parker County who became famous for being able to set his water on fire afte ... More >>
Blogs
February 6, 2014
Political Theater at Congressional Hearing on EPA's "Overreach" in Texas
The fact that the EPA wasn't invited to testify at a hearing titled "Examining the Science of EPA Overreach: A Case Study in Texas" tells you just about everything you need to know. It served no discernible purpose apart from allowing GOP legislators to get their licks in and accuse the agency of ki ... More >>
Blogs
January 17, 2014
Dangerously Explosive Quantities of Gas Found in Parker County Water at Center of Fracking Controversy
As we reported last summer, the Texas Railroad Commission has agreed to take another look at a case of potential water contamination due to fracking in Parker County. It has been nearly three years since the agency, notoriously chummy with the oil and gas companies it is supposed to regulate, exoner ... More >>
Blogs
January 10, 2014
Inspector General May Have Cleared EPA in Flaming Water Case, But Parker County Man Says It Caved to Politics
The EPA inspector general dumped it right before Christmas, when the media had checked out on holiday auto-pilot. Because of this curious timing, the report didn't get nearly the play it should have. But it can be summed up like this -- given the EPA's statutory authority under the Safe Drinking Wat ... More >>
Blogs
December 26, 2013
The EPA Says It Was Right About Its Range Resources Investigation After All
When a natural gas company is accused of making an oopsie during fracking, the EPA's response has typically been to come down hard on the company at first but then back away. That was one of the the major plot points of the "Gasland" documentaries. Environmentalists and homeowners accuse the agency ... More >>
Blogs
November 21, 2013
Two Texas Congressmen Are Pushing to Strip the Feds of the Power to Regulate Fracking
According to the natural gas industry, states are doing a really, really great job of keeping a tough eye on the natural gas industry. "State regulators have done an awfully good job," says the CEO of one energy company. "States are doing a good job of regulating hydraulic fracturing," adds the ma ... More >>
Blogs
October 7, 2013
Even Range Resources' Investors Say the Fracking Company Isn't Being Forthright about Methane Leaks
Not long after UT-Austin published an "unprecedented" study (funded by the gas industry, whoops) claiming that fracking wells are safe from methane leaks, a bunch of investors are now accusing one gas company of being dishonest about its methane problem. The natural gas industry has aggressively fo ... More >>
Blogs
September 23, 2013
In Parker County, Regulators Forced to Revisit Allegations that Drilling Caused Contaminated Water
Last year, we brought you the story of Steve Lipsky, whose little slice of paradise in Parker County became a proxy in the war between the EPA and state regulators. It wasn't long after Range Resources began stimulating a nearby natural gas well by hydraulic fracturing that Lipsky noticed his water ... More >>
Blogs
July 29, 2013
In the Fracking Debate, Residents and Politicians Are Turning Up the Heat on the EPA
We wrote last week about how the Environmental Protection Agency is catching heat from both sides of the fracking debate, for its continued backing away from research suggesting that drilling for natural gas can contaminate drinking water. It's happened in Parker County, Texas, as well as in the P ... More >>
Blogs
July 24, 2013
Congress Wants to Know Why the EPA Keeps Backing Off its Own Fracking Research
The Environmental Protection Agency has a tendency to walk away from its own research suggesting that fracking pollutes drinking water. A Congressional hearing scheduled for today will look into why that is. The hearing, called "Lessons Learned: EPA's Investigations of Hydraulic Fracturing," will b ... More >>
Blogs
July 12, 2013
Report: Documents Show Gas Driller Violated State Regs After Parker County Water Well Became Flammable
A few years ago, in a case fracking opponents believed was the smoking gun they'd been waiting for, the Texas Railroad Commission sided with the industry. It said that Parker County homeowner Steve Lipsky's gaseous and incredibly flammable water well was a product of naturally occurring, biogenic me ... More >>
Blogs
February 12, 2013
Environmental Groups Wants EPA Investigated Over Dropped Parker County Case
Greenpeace, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Public Citizen -- along with more than 80 other groups from across the country -- are calling on the EPA Inspector General to investigate the agency's withdrawal from legal action against a company accused of contaminating a water well through its ... More >>
Blogs
January 16, 2013
The EPA Cut a Deal To Drop Lawsuit Against Fracker in Parker County Case of Flaming Water
We've long wondered why EPA backed off of a lawsuit against Range Resources, the driller accused of contaminating a Parker County man's water well with natural gas and levels of benzene, a carcinogen, above safe drinking water standards. It issued an endangerment order against the company in Decembe ... More >>
Blogs
October 30, 2012
Former EPA Chief Al Armendariz Said Frackers Lit a Well on Fire, So the Frackers Lawyered Up
Range Resources, a company that fracks shale formations across America, wants controversial former EPA regional chief Al Armendariz to shut up about what happened in Parker County. The company's lawyer sent him a letter recently insisting that "(he) cease from making further false and disparaging co ... More >>
Blogs
September 28, 2012
FrackNation Creator Phelim McAleer Fibs About Parker County's Flaming Hose Case
Fracking is finally getting the Hollywood treatment. Promised Land, an anti-fracking film conceptualized by The Office's John Krasinski, co-written by Dave Eggers, starring Matt Damon and Hal Holbrook, and directed by Gus Van Sant (Milk, Good Will Hunting), is set in a hard-luck Pennsylvania farming ... More >>
Blogs
August 27, 2012
Fight Over Fracking and Flaming Water in Parker County Hits Snag in Appeals Court
A Parker County man who can ignite a 2-foot flame with gas siphoned from his well water won't get relief in a state appeals court under a law intended to stifle abusive litigation. Steve Lipsky says natural-gas producer Range Resources contaminated his water well with its nearby fracking operations. ... More >>
Blogs
June 26, 2012
Texas Senators Demand EPA Review of Fracking Endangerment Order in Parker County
Six Republican members of the U.S. Senate -- including Texas' Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn -- have requested an investigation of the EPA's decision to accuse a natural gas producer of contaminating a North Texas water well. In a letter sent last week, the senators asked the EPA inspector ge ... More >>
Blogs
June 13, 2012
EPA-Bashing Judge in Fracking Case Recuses Himself, Predictably Blames the Media
It must be codified somewhere in the Conservative's Guide to Crisis Management: Ensnared in scandal? Come across like an uninformed buffoon? Or are you a judge whose campaign fliers dispelled any appearance of impartiality in a really important case? Just blame it on the media. Sarah Palin became ... More >>
Blogs
June 7, 2012
Al Armendariz, Ousted EPA Chief, Stood Up Congress Yesterday, But the Show Went On
Former EPA Regional Administrator Al Armendariz was the designated whipping boy at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing this week, though it proceeded in absentia. Armendariz totally blew it off, to the supreme indignation of Chairman Ed Whitfield, a Kentucky Republican, and the assemble ... More >>
Blogs
June 1, 2012
EPA Nut-Kicking Braggadocio Doesn't Save Judge in High-Profile Fracking Case From Republican Primary Opponent
Voters up in Parker County must not have thought much of district Judge Trey Loftin's campaign mailers bragging about how his "decision regarding deceptive actions by environmental extremists made the EPA reevaluate its national policy." That's pretty grandiose, and it sounded like he was referring ... More >>
Blogs
May 24, 2012
In Fight Over Flammable Parker County Water Well, Judge Decides Who Is, Isn't A Journalist
Tricky work deciding who gets the protections of a journalist in court. In the case of a natural gas production company suing a Parker County man who blames it for contaminating his water well, state district Judge Trey Loftin attempted to suss it out in a recent order compelling fracking blogger Sh ... More >>
Blogs
May 24, 2012
Trey Loftin, the Judge in a High-Profile Fracking Case, is Bragging in Campaign Mailers About His EPA Nut-Kicking
Politics is politics, and incumbents running for re-election in conservative Parker County, Texas, where the local economy is fueled entirely by shale-gas production, want to look like champions of the industry. But what if you're a judge? And what if, at the very moment you put up fliers of Rush Li ... More >>
News
April 26, 2012
How One Man's Flaming Water Fired Up a Battle Between Texas and the EPA
Steve Lipsky's epic battle and what it means for the future of fracking.
Blogs
April 26, 2012
EPA Regional Chief Al Armendariz is Accused of "Crucifying" the Energy Industry in Texas
When President Obama appointed SMU prof Al Armendariz to the EPA regional post in Dallas back in 2009, it was to the sound of collective groaning from the energy industry and Republican politicos. Only months before, he'd authored a study citing oil and gas production as a major source of air pollut ... More >>