Barnett Shale

Trinity East's Fracking Plans Might Be Screwed with the New Dallas City Council

Even with two seats in limbo, the complexion of the new Dallas City Council looks decidedly unfavorable for Trinity East, the would-be fracker from Fort Worth that paid the city millions for the rights to its natural gas. Because the Plan Commission voted against the company's drilling permits, four ... More >>

Trinity East's Vapor Chase

Drilling thousands of feet into the earth is a cakewalk compared with dealing with City Hall.

Angela Hunt and Scott Griggs Want a Vote On Trinity East Drillsites in 30 Days

Before term limits and elections change the complexion of the Dallas City Council in unknowable ways, Scott Griggs and Angela Hunt want an up-or-down vote on proposed natural gas wells along the Trinity River. Last month, the Dallas Plan Commission voted down the permits for drilling outfit Trinity ... More >>

They're Going to Be Fracking the Barnett Shale for a Long Time to Come

Last week, the number of drilling rigs operating in the Barnett Shale, the massive natural gas reservoir that underlies much of North Texas, dropped to 27, the lowest figure in a decade. But the boom's not over quite yet. There may be less drilling going on at the moment, but that's more a function ... More >>

Dallas' City Plan Commission Just Got a Very Special Workshop on How Safe Gas Drilling Is

When we last left the beleaguered members of the City Plan Commission, they were opting to once again delay a vote on energy company Trinity East's application to drill for natural gas in the floodplain along the Trinity River. This morning, the CPC was subjected to a four-hour workshop on gas drill ... More >>

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 >>

Boom or Doom?

America’s fracking gold rush portends the greatest environmental disaster of a generation.

Johnson County Landowners Accuse Chesapeake Energy of Skimming Shale Gas Royalties

A family of Johnson County landowners is suing Chesapeake, the country's second-largest natural gas company, for allegedly cheating them out of royalties. Their lawyer, Dallas-based attorney James Holmes, says they can thank endlessly indulgent Texas laws and a taxing authority more inclined to look ... More >>

Politics of Misdirection: Dallas-based Luminant and Coalition of Utilities Blame the EPA for Coal's Creeping Demise

Dallas-based Luminant, the electricity generation arm of Energy Future Holdings, and a number of other utilities that own coal-fired fleets are attempting to head off an EPA rule that would curb the amount of nervous system-disrupting mercury, cancer-causing dioxin, arsenic and lead emitted from the ... More >>

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 >>

Q&A with Trinity East Manager: Leases, Floodplains, and the Money Beneath Dallas

Four years have passed since Trinity East signed on as the largest gas lease-holder with the city of Dallas, and the company still doesn't know when it will be allowed to drill its first well -- if ever. As the company's name suggests, Trinity East wants to drill for natural gas along the east side ... More >>

What the Pro-Drillers in Southlake Don't Get About the Shale Gas Market

Back in November, we wrote about Southlake, the well-heeled 'burb at whose city limits sign the fracking boom was knocking. In many ways, Southlake was emblematic of the difficulties gas producers faced as they followed the shale formation -- a mile underground -- out of the pastures and into densel ... More >>

City Council Set to Approve Settlement Between DFW Airport and Chesapeake Over Fracking

More than two years since the cities of Dallas, Fort Worth and the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport Board sued Chesapeake for allegedly shorting them on millions in royalties and leaving wells undrilled, the airport and the energy company have reached an agreement. As the price of natural ga ... More >>

So There's a Good Chance Energy Future, Texas' Largest Power Generator, Goes Broke

A major credit-rating agency is expressing grave doubts about the ability of the state's largest nonregulated power generator to pay off its debt. Energy Future Holdings, the Dallas-based parent company of power generator Luminant, transmission company Oncor and retail electricity provider TXU Ener ... More >>

Economides: Texas Lost $7.7 Billion By Not Using Natural Gas To Keep Lights On

Dr. Michael Economides, author, CNBC regular and University of Houston professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, says Texas lost out on some $7.7 billion between 2005 and 2011 primarily because we didn't use natural gas for electricity. Economides, it should be noted, is a vocal industry ... More >>

Texas' Biggest Power Supplier Wants to Blame the EPA for Future Blackouts

Rockwall's Rep. Ralph Hall Blasts EPA and Science at Fracking Hearing

Allow us to re-introduce you to the octogenarian congressman who's currently perched atop the catbird seat in the oversight hearings every fracker in America is watching with bated breath. His name is Ralph Hall. He's the chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. One of its s ... More >>

Dallas Area's Much Closer to Rebounding From Recession Than Most of the Country

From the graphic titled "Return to Peak Employment for Metro Areas" in the report issued this morning by the U.S. Conference of Mayors​Had a lengthy talk with Mayor Mike this morning about yesterday's doings at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in D.C. Long story short, said the co-chair of its Work a ... More >>

Dueling Research: Fracked Shale Gas Worse For Climate Change Than Coal! Or, The Opposite!

In the rarefied halls of Cornell, the atmospheric-science equivalent of the gauntlet has been thrown. At stake is nothing less than the suitability of one of the most plentiful, domestically producible forms of energy in North America to replace a fuel speeding climate change and emitting tons of kn ... More >>

Shippin' Shale, or: What's That You Say About Our Energy Independence?

​The days of lease-bearing landmen making it rain on the Barnett Shale are over. The industry became so proficient at fracturing the rock thousands of feet beneath the surface and extracting the gas trapped within that they glutted the market. Gas prices took a swan dive and have stagnated eve ... More >>

EPA Report Ties Fracking To Groundwater Contamination in Wyoming. But What Does That Mean For Texas?

Photo by Taryn Walker A gas well in Arlington​For folks in Dallas, where the council-appointed gas drilling task force is running to stand still, or in Southlake, the subject of a recent cover story on towns grappling with urban drilling, this EPA report released today tying fracking to ground ... More >>

There's Another Gas Drilling Public Hearing Tomorrow. So Where Is City Heading, Anyway?

Photo by Taryn WalkerDrill, maybe, drill.​As chair of the city's gas drilling task force, Lois Finkelman has a pretty tough job, directing task force meetings, guiding discussions, fielding calls and emails from concerned citizens. (Did we mentioned she doesn't get paid? Strictly voluntary.). ... More >>

After Talking Water Supply, Cause of Quakes, Drilling Task Force Gets Down to Business

Photo by Leslie MinoraPhilip Dellinger, Regional Ground Water/Underground Injection Control Chief for the EPA, presents a fracking overview.​Water, water, everywhere -- more than ample supply to frack, according to Jody Puckett, the director of Dallas Water Utilities, who spoke at yesterday's ... More >>

Gas Drilling Task Force Absorbs More Info as It Inches Closer to Making Reg Recommendations

Photo by Leslie MinoraReal estate expert, Dan Wright, talks to the task force about drilling's effect (or lack thereof) on property values.​Yesterday afternoon, the city's gas drilling task force heard presentations (slideshows here) from three experts who explained the impact of drilling on n ... More >>

Dallas Gas Drilling Task Force's Field Trip Was Practical, Educational and Quite Hot

Photos by Taryn WalkerThe crowd at yesterday's Arlington trip sizes up an actively drilling Chesapeake site.Tuesday, Dallas gas drilling task force members -- and city council members Angela Hunt, Linda Koop and, but of course, Sheffie Kadane -- poured out of two white 15-passenger vans and into the ... More >>

Before Gas Drilling Task Force's Field Trip Today, We Take a Little Look Around Ourselves

Photos by Leslie MinoraA from-the-street view of the proposed Camp Wisdom XTO drilling site, pending SUP approval​This afternoon, the Dallas City Council-approved gas drilling task force will take a field trip out to where gas wells are more abundant than Tex-Mex joints and compressor stations ... More >>

At Arlington City Hall, Locals Hammer TCEQ Panel for Stricter Gas Drilling Regulations

Photos by Leslie MinoraA panel of TCEQ reps maintained their poker faces for about two hours as citizens took the mic, almost all demanding tighter fracking regulations.​Shortly after the release of that Fort Worth air study, three reps from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality took a ... More >>

Scott Griggs's Request for Change in Drilling Task Force Make-Up Falls on Deaf Ears

Photos by Leslie MinoraMayor Mike Rawlings and city council members pose for a photo op after their first meeting.​The post-inauguration celebration didn't last long, as Mayor Mike Rawlings and city council members new and old got straight to work at a 2 p.m. meeting. After a few housekeeping ... More >>

UT-Arlington Researchers Plan Study On Gas Drilling Operations' Affect on Water Quality

​Last month, we mentioned a far-reaching University of Texas at Austin study of complaints about gas drilling operations that's just now getting underway. Meant to connect the dots between air, soil and water quality complaints from the Barnett to the Marcellus Shale, the nine-month project from t ... More >>

This Morning, Council Members Took First Look at Gas Drilling Task Force Hopefuls

Linda Koop​Last Friday, Robert offered a first look at some of the big names that had applied to sit on the city's gas drilling task force: Margaret Keliher, Royce West II, Betty Culbreath, the train-bedeviled Chico Grimes and more. This morning, Linda Koop and the handful of other members on the ... More >>

Environmentalists, NAACP Unite To Ask Council For Strong Gas Drilling Task Force

Photos by Patrick MichelsRaymond Crawford unfurls a 21-foot scroll of signatures from folks concerned with gas drilling in Dallas during this morning's press conference..​It's The Big Day today for gas drilling activists here at City Hall, and as Robert mentioned yesterday, the environmentalist se ... More >>

How Texas Got Fracked Over By Gas Drillers

​We added insult to injury a long time ago in this whole business of fracking in Dallas -- you know, the kind of natural gas drilling where they blow up underground rocks in a geological formation called the Barnett Shale, releasing trapped gas. Now, if you don't mind, I need to add injury to insu ... More >>

Once More Into the Frack: Council Considers Changes for Disposal Well at DFW Airport

Chesapeake EnergyA diagram from "Ask Chesapeake" shows a disposal well for spent fracking fluid, down into the Ellenburger Formation underneath the Barnett Shale.​If you thought you'd heard the last from the City Council on gas drilling for a while, well, think again.Originally, the council was go ... More >>

A Month After EPA's Emergency Order Against Barnett Shale Gas Driller, a Federal Suit

​A little more than a month ago -- and before the Environmental Protection Agency assumed control of Texas's greenhouse gas permitting -- the EPA looked to be drawing a line in the sand over water contamination from gas drilling in the Barnett Shale, with an emergency order for Fort Worth-based Ra ... More >>

Do the Rangers' New Owners Have the Money and Will to Build on a Winning Formula?

Read the Extra Safeguards Plan Commission Is Considering for Dallas's First Gas Drilling Site

Hensley Field, where XTO hopes to begin Dallas' first gas drilling operation.​After hearing from the public and discussing the issue at great length last Thursday, the City Plan Commission stopped short of recommending an SUP for XTO Energy to drill for gas at Hensley Field. It would be the first ... More >>

Downwinders at Risk Hails SMU Engineering Prof's Appointment as EPA Administrator

Al Armendariz​Al Armendariz, a research associate professor in SMU's Department of Environmental and Civil Engineering, was on National Public Radio earlier this week discussing health issues suffered by folks living near the Barnett Shale; said Armendariz of airborne toxins discovered by res ... More >>

A Coffee-Table Tribute to Those Who Built This City (Not on Rock and Roll)

Tracy Rowlett's New Boss at ShaleTV Makes Confusing Case for Advertorials

Sambuca is Dallas' epicenter for Mediterranean jazz and—who knew?—Geritol jump-shooters

Wormhole