Barnett Shale

EPA: Dallas-based Luminant Produces a Hell of A Lot of Greenhouse Gas, And So Does Fracking

The Environmental Protection Agency -- that scourge of freedom-loving Texans -- just released a nifty little interactive greenhouse-gas database that will almost certainly threaten your liberty, the free market and the Second Amendment, somehow. For starters, the data it compiled indicates Dallas- ... More >>

What Texas Drillers and Regulators Learned From the Barnett Shale

The development of North Texas' Barnett Shale did not go as smoothly as gas companies had hoped. The flaming water in Parker County, elevated levels of benzene in DISH, elevated rates of breast cancer in Flower Mound, and any number of other reports contributed to the perception among the general pu ... More >>

Meet the Dallasites Who Made Forbes' List of Wealthiest Americans

Every year, the wealth fetishists over at Forbes compile an exhaustive list of the 400 richest Americans. It's a rarefied club, whose admittance requires an aggregate worth in the billions. Not surprisingly, a number of Dallasites made the cut -- 16 in fact. They range from oldies-but-goodies like ... More >>

New Study Shows Fracking is Bad For Dallas' Air Quality. Environmentalists Want City Hall to Take Note

Much of the fracking debate has focused on if and how carcinogens like benzene and hexane find their way into the air and water supplies. Less attention has been paid to the impact of gas drilling on ozone levels, which is significant. Just how significant is hinted at in a new study published in th ... More >>

Connection Between Quakes and Underground Frack-water Disposal Looks Solid

There's a reason State Farm wants to insure Johnson County homes against earthquakes. Injecting millions of barrels of fracking waste water loosens faults the way whiskey loosens tongues. Cliff Frohlich of the Jackson School of Geosciences deployed seismographs throughout a 43-mile grid in the Bar ... More >>

The Frackers and the Environmentalists Will Square Off at Dallas City Hall This Week

This was all supposed to be wrapped up months ago. The City Council formed the Gas Drilling Task Force more than a year ago, which was initially scheduled to wrap things up and have a final recommendation by November. A handful of issues -- proper setbacks, whether to allow drilling in parks and flo ... More >>

Associated Press Says Fracking Debate Based on Bad Science. What Science?

The Associated Press has news for the people who live above the shale formations experts say have transformed America's energy terrain: Critics of the gas extraction process known as hydraulic fracturing are as guilty of hyperbole, or downright dishonesty, as the industry's most ardent defenders. T ... More >>

Southwest Airlines' Herb Kelleher: Energy Independence, As You Understand It, Is A Myth

Southwest Airlines co-founder Herb Kelleher and a gaggle of other titans, from former U.S. Spec Ops commanders to Sam Gilliland, chief executive officer of Dallas-based Sabre Holdings, reject outright the idea that we can drill our way to energy independence. In an Energy Security Leadership Council ... More >>

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.

GAO: Shale-Gas States Have No Idea Where Natural Gas Gathering Pipelines Are

Speaking of urban drilling and gas releases in populated areas like Mansfield, the Government Accountability Office says the gathering pipelines used to collect natural gas from drill sites are unregulated, and their locations are often unknown. The GAO conducted site visits in, among other places, ... More >>

Environmental Chemist Wilma Subra on the Barnett Shale Bonanza and Its Costs

By 2008, the high price of natural gas, coupled with the novel combination of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, touched off a modern-day gold rush in the Barnett Shale. Regulators were caught on their heels. "They moved forward very rapidly, and state regulatory programs had a difficult ... More >>

Fracking Boom a Ponzi-Inflated Bubble About To Pop? Rolling Stone Sure Thinks So.

Is the United States the "Saudi Arabia of natural gas?" as President Barack Obama has said. Or has the energy industry used fuzzy math to hype its estimated reserves to entice buyouts and Wall Street investment? Tough to say for sure, but last month the U.S. Energy Information Administration scaled ... More >>

Pursuit of Shale Gas May Contaminate Water, Says UT Study, But It's Not Due to Fracking

The University of Texas Energy Institute cast a skeptical eye on the likelihood that the actual act of fracking could result in groundwater contamination. Particularly in the Barnett Shale, where aquifers sit thousands of feet above the shale rock, head researcher Dr. Chip Groat reasoned that the da ... More >>

Fear and Fracking in Southlake

In one of America's wealthiest suburbs, an unlikely band of drilling opponents helped drive away the world's biggest energy companies. Did they save the town or ruin it?

As City's Gas Drilling Task Force Crawls to Finish Line, a Q&A With the Woman in Charge

The most recent Dallas gas drilling task force meeting ended with mutterings of how to speed up the process of drafting drilling ordinance recommendations. Several task force members voiced concerns that they were crawling toward the finish line -- even after the task force's schedule for deliberati ... More >>

University of Texas Fracking Study: No Evidence That It Contaminates Groundwater

​The University of Texas released the preliminary results today of that comprehensive study on the controversial natural gas producing process known as hydraulic fracturing (or fracking), drawing no link between it and claims of groundwater contamination. "While there have been casing/cement ... More >>

Dallas-Fort Worth's Air Now Dirtier Than Houston's? Yep, Air Quality Watchdogs Say.

​In Texas, Houston and filthy air have always been synonymous. But the Armpit of Texas has just been dethroned. For concentrated, ozone-laced air pollution, Dallas-Fort Worth has outstripped the country's petrochemical hub as the EPA's worst offender. According to watchdog group Downwinders a ... More >>

In Dallas and Forth Worth, the Ongoing Balancing Act by Gas-Drilling Task Forces

Photo by Taryn WalkerBarnett Shale cities: "No, really, where should we put this thing?"​On opposite sides of the legal teeter-totter over gas-drilling, citizen protection and drilling flexibility weigh heavily, with a city's gas drilling ordinance at the center -- trying, at least in theory, ... More >>

Sucking Up Water and Sand in the Quest for Natural Gas

For folks in the sandy hills northwest of Dallas, it's a devil's bargain for gas, water and jobs.

Dithering Inside an Addison Dealmaking Expo For Oilmen, Where It's a Shale of a Good Time

​Haven't you heard? There's gas in them thar shale formations. And if the parking lot outside of the Intercontinental Hotel in Addison was any indication this morning, a goodly number of the players are in town, looking to make fat deals. You could tell because parking was spilling out into th ... More >>

Angela Hunt Is "Pleased" With Make-Up of Council's Ad Hoc Gas Drilling Task Force

​Yesterday Leslie recounted the Dallas City Council's vote on the membership of the ad hoc gas drilling task force -- during which rookie Scott Griggs's attempt to add Mountain Creek resident Ed Meyer to the roster was met with a deafening silence. Angela Hunt has posted to her website her thought ... More >>

Fire In the Well: Weatherford Couple Sues Range Over Nearby Gas Drilling

​Maybe you've seen the ads: On Wednesday we're co-sponsoring a special screening of Gasland at the Texas Theatre, which isn't the only movie we're screening next week. More about that later. But Josh Fox's Oscar-nominated film, as you probably know, features that now-infamous scene of a Colorado m ... More >>

EPA to Study Whether Hydraulic Fracturing Taints Drinking Water in North Texas

Photo by Patrick MichelsAt the EPA's public hearing in Arlington in August of last year​All at once the in-box filled up with releases from the Environmental Protection Agency, both the national HQ and the regional offices. Long story short: After a series of public hearings held last year, includ ... More >>

Margaret Keliher, Royce West's Son Want To Be on Dallas's Gas Drilling Task Force

Margaret Keliher​Late last night the city posted the list of folks who'd like to be on the city's gas drilling task force. That's in advance of a 10 a.m. meeting scheduled for Thursday, at which time Linda Koop -- chair of the ad hoc gas drilling task force nominating committee, whew -- and her ho ... More >>

In Legislature's Final Days, Lawmakers Extend Court Protections for Polluters

Rep. Dennis Bonnen​Amid these "late nights and high feelings" of the tail end of the 82nd Texas Legislature, House lawmakers took a little time to pay the bills yesterday, tying up one last niggling loophole that was letting property owners sue polluters that were contaminating their land. As it ... More >>

UT Researcher Leading Fracking Study: "We're Gonna Look at Every Claim We Can Find."

UT-Austin geology professor Chip Groat​A week ago today, as you may recall, the University of Texas at Austin's Energy Institute announced they'd be joining the growing ranks of universities with major studies of hydraulic fracturing, with a $300,000, nine-month project of their own. Today, thank ... More >>

Fracking Chemical Disclosure Bill Blasts Through Texas House, Enviros Unimpressed

From the rapidly spreading "Fracking Song" from ProPublica and Studio 20 NYU.​In these final days of the 82nd Texas Legislature, lawmakers in Austin are throwing support behind Eastlake Rep. Jim Keffer's bill that'd require drillers to report the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing at each of t ... More >>

Activists Hail Dallas County Commissioners Court For Demanding State, Feds Clear the Air

​Anti-gas drilling activist Raymond Crawford sends word this morning: Moments ago the Dallas County Commissioners Court voted to adopt a resolution demanding the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency do something about cleaning up Dallas's air. Long ... More >>

Want to Be on Dallas's Gas Drilling Task Force?

​After council member Angela Hunt pushed the city council to form the gas drilling task force Dave Neumann only talked about, it's time to assemble the dream team: Moments ago, Dallas City Hall sent word that it's taking applications from those interested in serving on the task force. For those wh ... More >>

New Study From Gas Drilling Activists Gathers Decade of Industrial Woes in the Barnett Shale

​Natural gas activist and blogger Sharon Wilson was among the environmentalists out at Earth Day last weekend -- not far from the EPA's six-foot cardboard Al Armendariz -- and she was passing out copies of a new report she'd helped produce on gas drilling in the Barnett Shale. Produced by the Fort ... More >>

Liveblogging City Council's Look at Gas Drilling Task Force. Or: The Return of Lois Finkelman!

Welcome back to City Hall, where the council's settling back into their seats in the briefing room after a much-needed break for lunch. Word was that the council was going to treat us to its gas drilling update in the morning -- but after taking an extra-long executive session to work out just who' ... More >>

Toxic Avenger: In the War Between the Feds and Texas, EPA Chief Al Armendariz has Science on His Side. Is That Enough?

Oscar-Nominated Gasland Director Josh Fox On Gas Drilling in the Barnett Shale and the Backlash from Industry

Patrick MichelsGasland director Josh Fox answers questions at an October screening at the Magnolia, alongside DISH mayor Calvin Tillman and gas drilling activist Sharon Wilson.Almost as soon as Gasland nabbed one of this year's Academy Award nominations for best documentary, industry groups rushed o ... More >>

Gas Drilling Variances Denied Near Grapevine Lake, While A Pair of Federal Suits Allege Water Contamination from Barnett Shale Fracking

​Worries about groundwater contamination from hydraulic fracturing around the Barnett Shale got a fresh wave of attention yesterday -- first with a pair of federal suits filed in Dallas, and then with the Town of Flower Mound's denial of a request to drill near to Grapevine Lake. Keystone Energy w ... More >>

Liveblogging as the City Plan Commission Hears from the People on Gas Drilling and Food Trucks

This guy didn't make it to City Hall this afternoon, but plenty more folks have something to say about new gas drilling sites in Dallas.​We're down in the big room at City Hall, where the City Plan Commission's taken over the big boy chairs and taped their nametags over the City Council's placards ... More >>

Waiting on a Buyer, Dallas-Based Chief Oil Plans To Start Drilling in the City By Year's End

Last week around this time, the Wall Street Journal was telling us about three very private oil and gas companies -- two of them based in Dallas -- with designs on getting bigger in the gas drilling world. So, to help take their operations up a notch, both Talon Oil & Gas and Chief Oil & Gas ... More >>

As Natural Gas Drilling Spreads East Into Dallas, A New Activist Group Is Born

Patrick MichelsNo word yet on whether this guy'll turn up again at tonight's meeting.The natural gas industry's slow creep toward Dallas over the Barnett Shale has launched a small army of activists in Fort Worth's exurbs, from small-town mayors to goat fromagers -- a well-organized crew that's gott ... More >>

At EPA's Public Comment Session Over Gas Drilling Regulations, An Airing of Grievances

Patrick MichelsEPA representatives hear concerns over current air pollution regulations for the natural gas industry Monday night.​They came in striped ties and checkered ties, sport coats and shirtsleeves and the beard stubble of Washington operators on the road. The four white-collar grunts from ... More >>

SMU, UT Researchers Think They've Found Cause of North Texas Quakes

Courtesy SMUSeismologist Brian Stump installing equipment to find the cause of the quakes near DFW Airport​SMU just sent word: Its seismologists, Brian Stump and Chris Hayward, joined by researchers from the University of Texas, have found evidence that could very well link those North Texas earth ... More >>

Clean-Air Fund to Stop Funding Natural Gas Projects Till Industry Cleans Up Its Act

Click to expand this map provided last week by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality​Way back in '97, and again last June, we told you the story of Sue Pope -- a Midlothian rancher who became legendary for taking on pollution-spewing TXI -- and the genesis of the fund named in her honor, w ... More >>

At the Thin Line Doc Fest, Havin' a Gasland

TRAILER and INTRODUCTION from JOSHFOX on Vimeo.The folks at the Thin Line Film Fest in Denton, an annual affair devoted to documentaries, send word of a major premiere scheduled to open the festival on February 17: Gasland. Formerly known as Rage of Nature, as evidenced by the trailer above, this is ... More >>

Today's Important Advice Comes From ...

​... William "Tex" Moncrief Jr., the Fort Worth oilman and Internal Revenue Service fan who comes in at No. 366 on Forbes' latest list of the 400 Richest Americans. So, what does the man in possession of 20,000 acres of undeveloped Barnett Shale property have to say in the magazine's 22-question s ... More >>

Cheer Up, Tommy Lee Jones! You're Now in the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame!

Speaking of Fort Worth, the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame inducted its class of 2009 last night with a wingding on E. Exchange Ave., and among those taking their bows were Tommy Lee Jones and the great Barry Corbin, who actually has a place in Fort Worth. Said Jones, a St. Mark's grad, "This is the firs ... More >>

Wormhole

Artists protest gas drilling in Fort Worth

Scenes from the Drilling Gallery

Is there Natural Gas Beneath Dallas County?

Drillers—and cities—are betting Barnett Shale riches are headed Dallas' way.

Tracy Rowlett: "We're Not Chumps Jumping Into the PR Side."

A Lawsuit Over the Barnett Shale -- Look Out, Tommy Lee Jones!

Re: NPR Knows What's Buggin' Dallas