This presentation was given during an ELEEP Virtual Discussion on "Citizen Monitoring of Fracking Activities" on July 26, 2016. A video recording of the event is available on the ELEEP Network YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isbVs2rDYTU

1. eleep presentation
July 26, 2016
Sr. Elizabeth Riebschlaeger, ccvi
from the Eagle Ford Shale
Environmental and Public Health Threats to
Workers, Families and Communities

2. Content: Impacts of
A. Drilling, Fracking Activities
B. Production, Midstream and Storage Facilities
(including flares)
C. Transport: Roads and Pipelines
D. Waste Disposal: Liquid Injection Wells and Solid
Waste Processing Facilities

3. Stories of Workers, Families and Communities
A. Workers at Frack Sites: Chemicals, Frack Sand, Explosions, Fires, Falls, etc.
B. Flaring and Venting practices
C. The Lara Family and their neighbors
D. Pipelines: Lindenau explosion; Big Bend Conservation Alliance, Mexico Protest
E. Gillette Injection Well Explosion
F. Altair Solid Waste Disposal (in operation)
G. Nordheim Protest of Pyote 200 acre site
H. . . .and for the generations to come??

4. Workers at risk:
• Explosives
• Frack sand
• Chemicals

5. Flaring not in
compliance:
Unburned VOC’s . . .
• pass through heat of flame,
• molecules break down
• then rearrange themselves into
• even more toxic chemicals
• escape into the environment
• appear as black smoke trail
• become part of surrounding air
• are absorbed into the soil Phillips-Conoco site, 2010, outside Kenedy,
Karnes County, Texas

6. Same site during the day. This continued 24/7 for months until the plant
was completed and pipelines laid. Flares are now extinguished. Note
paint peeling off metal sign, probably due to air contamination.

7. FLIR Infra Red Camera picture taken by Texas Commission on
Environmental Quality (TCEQ) during their flyover. Black smoke
contains toxic cmissions being vented, invisible to the human eye.

8. Families and
Communities
at Risk

9. Family of Longino and Raquel Lara of Kenedy. They have had to leave their
home outside Kenedy to escape the emissions and flaring from an Encana
facility behind their home (Patton Trust South). FLIR videos of emissions
taken by Sharon Wilson and posted on U-tube can be seen there.)

10. View of Encana facility with flare circled in red. Next to flame, the Lara home can be seen on
the horizon on the hill. Distance is approximately 100 yards between the home and the
facility. Toxic odors are often noted at the homesite. Family members have had eye irritation,
nosebleeds, nausea and headaches—all symptoms of exposure to toxic chemicals common to
these sites. At a doctor’s advice, they have moved to a rented trailer.

11. Picture of flare taken at night from front yard of Lara home. Note billowing black
smoke from flare—all more toxic than regular VOCs that come to the surface from
the well. The wind sometimes blows the smoke to the property, where odors fill the
home.

12. A large compressor station on CR 211 south of Falls City, TX (Karnes County). Purpose is to repressurize
the product being sent by pipeline to keep it flowing to its destination. This location has a history of
being problematic. The couple living near the compressor were told to move by his doctor or they
would be “dead in a year”. A lawsuit followed, was settled out of court, and improvements made to
the facility. It is destined to eventually be shut down. Note emergency breathing equipment in yellow
box.

13. Picture taken by
Greenpeace 1
day after Encana
blowout, April
2015. Dead
vegetation is the
brown areas.
Lara home is at
far top right
hand corner.
Families were
told to evacuate
and remained
out of their
homes for over a
week. Some
received buy
outs;
others were
compensated for
dead livestock.

14. TRANSPORT:
PIPELINE RUPTURES, SPILLS AND EXPLOSIONS
Energy Transfer’s 42’
pipeline ruptured, exploded
and burned in the tiny
community of Lindenau last
year around 8:30 PM.
Cattle broke through the
fence to escape the fire,
which melted the pavement.
This picture was taken by a
woman in Gonzales County,
who was 40 miles away.
Energy Transfer is the
pipeline company seeking a
permit to build another 42”
pipeline in the Big Bend area
of Texas.

15. Environmental cleanup of hydrocarbons that fell on a pasture near Nordheim after
a newly laid pipeline ruptured and spewed the product 50 feet into the air. This
location is near the permitted solid waste treatment facility, which will straddle a
similar pipeline.

16. Venting and fugitive emissions
from pipelines, storage
facilities and compressors
allow tons of methane into the
environment. Many emissions
are invisible to the human eye,
but often have a perceptible
impact on human health and
the environment.
In this picture, workers are
seen venting pipelines, which
is permitted.

17. The use or abuse of
Eminent Domain??
West Texas ranchers and citizens
have organized the Big Bend
Conservation Alliance to oppose the
permitting of a 42” pipeline from
West Texas, through the Alpine area.
The pipeline will be joined to a
similar pipeline being built in Mexico
at the Rio Grande. Terminus will be
on Topolobampo Bay at Baja
California, where an Liquification
Natural Gas (LNG) plant is to be built
for export of fossil fuel products on
the global market, especially natural
gas. The Eagle Ford Shale region
extends into Coahuila, MX from
South Texas.

18. • Drilling and Flowback (a mixture
of drilling mud, lubricants,
fracking chemicals and salt
water) produce tons of liquid and
solid waste. Waste that is less
than 30% solids is considered
liquid and disposed of in liquid
disposal wells (seen here). The
depth of a well is required to be
below any water well or aquifer,
but there is no requirement for
tracking the lateral movement of
the waste underground. This
particular site exploded and
burned, and had just been
rebuilt at the time of the picture.
Waste that is 30% or more solid
undergoes a different treatment
process.

20. Solid waste processing facility in
Altair, Colorado County. The red
area is the site of Rice Consolidated
Independent School District’s
facilities. This industry is exempted
from many regulations that bind
other industries that handle this
hazardous material transported
from drilling and fracking sites
because of the pressure to move
into unconventional production
quickly. A hazmat carrier is
required for highway transport to
the site. From the point of entry to
the site, it is treated as “non-
hazardous”. Workers are told that
the waste is non-hazardous, so no
personal protective equipment is
required.

21. Heavy equipment is seen being used to
aerate the solid waste, allowing any
VOC’s to be removed into the
environment.
The school administration and the
neighbors living around this site in East
Texas, west of Houston, have filed
several complaints of odors coming off
the site and trespassing on their
properties. Operators have been fined
several times by the TRC for storing tons
more waste than their permit allows.
The facility has changed operators a few
times.

23. Skull Creek, swollen by recent heavy rains, runs through the waste
facility, through a rancher’s land and eventually into the Colorado
River.

24. Area in red outlines
the 200 acre site. It
is almost as large as
the town of
Nordheim, see at left
of the site. It would
be ¼ mile from the
city limits and ½ mile
from the school.
Residents of Nordheim and nearby ranchers organized Concerned About Pollution (CAP) to file a
formal protest against the permit. They have succeeded in delaying the permit for three years.
Although it was recently permitted by the Texas Railroad Commission (TRC), they have now filed
to sue the Railroad Commission for not giving them due process.