Fracking Up Texas

Since the City of Denton Banned Fracking, Texas GOP Moves to Pre-empt Local Control

Sunday, 08 March 2015By Candice Bernd, Truthout | Report 

Carol Soph, a board member of the Denton Drilling Awareness Group, the driving force behind Denton's fracking ban, speaks with Rep. Phil King about her concerns regarding a bill he introduced in response to the Denton ban that would gut cities' ability to introduce similar measures or regulations. King is this year's national chair of the American Legislative Exchange Council.
"I do feel very strongly that air-quality measures and the engineering and scientific issues of oil and gas should be regulated at the state level, where the expertise is," Texas Rep. Phil King (R-Weatherford) told a group of North Texans Monday, March 2, during a meeting in his Capitol office about a bill he introduced that would create barriers to a city's ability to regulate the oil and gas industry.

The room was largely filled with people from Denton, which passed Texas' first ban on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) within city limits. Since the ban passed last fall in a landslide victory, state lawmakers connected to the oil and gas industry and to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have introduced a number of bills aimed at undermining local democracy, ostensibly to prevent other cities from following Denton's lead.

Activists, however, says these bills would effectively kill local democracy so that citizens would lose the ability to introduce ballot referendums, and local governments would be unable to regulate industry to protect the health and safety of residents.

"The reason that we're here is because the state did a terrible job. That's why the opposition [to oil and gas drilling] is growing," said Sharon Wilson, a Gulf coast organizer with Earthworks, in response to King's assessment.

King continued to assert his confidence in state oil and gas regulators and told the group he plans to move forward with his bills. One of the bills would allow the state to reject a municipal ordinance and the other would require a city to assess the tax revenue cost of any attempt to regulate oil and gas.

At the March 2 meeting, about 40 residents from Denton, Dallas, Arlington, Mansfield, Grand Prairie and Pantego expressed concerns about the state-level regulatory lapses that brought Denton to the point of banning fracking. These lapses are driving many other cities across the state to make their local oil and gas regulations stronger.

As a resident of Denton myself, I watched the city struggle for more than five years to regulate the oil and gas industry's activities within city limits. Yet oil and gas companies refused to follow many of the rules the city adopted when it revised its gas drilling ordinance in 2013, claiming instead that their drilling activities were grandfathered under old rules. Finally, Denton was left with no other option but to ban fracking entirely in 2014, delivering a blow to the industry in a city on the same shale where the drilling technique was pioneered in the '90s.

Years earlier, Denton City Council members had instructed residents to take their concerns about gas drilling to Austin, telling many of my neighbors that their hands were simply tied at the local level. Residents took their advice and traveled to Austin multiple times, but rather than finding the help they were seeking, Austin lawmakers at the time sent representatives of the Denton Drilling Awareness Group (DAG) back to Denton, telling them explicitly that it was a local issue. Now, as it turns out, they seem to be changing their minds.

"We did work on [regulating drilling] at the state level, and Phil King and Myra Crownover and Tan Parker did everything they could to undermine getting anything passed at the state level," said former Fort Worth Rep. Lon Burnam, who now works for Public Citizen, referring to Denton County representatives. "So they've kind of reaped what they sowed."

King's bills are part of a wider strategy emerging in Republican-dominated state legislatures this year to curtail municipalities' regulatory authority, including their ability to pass local ordinances and citizen-led ballot referendums. The legislation often comes at the behest of industries that stand to lose money because of regulations initiated in the municipalities where they operate.

According to The New York Times, eight states led by Republicans have prohibited municipalities from passing paid sick day legislation in just the past two years. Other such pre-emption laws have barred cities from raising the minimum wage and regulating the activities of landlords. This year, Arkansas passed a law that blocks a city's ability to pass anti-discrimination laws that would protect LGBT people, and bills introduced in six states this session would follow Arkansas' lead.

Many industries, including, most prominently, the restaurant industry and oil and gas interests, are working together this year through ALEC, which generates "model" legislation that advances the interests of its corporate members throughout state legislatures. Rep. King is serving as ALEC's national chair this year and introduced his two pre-emption bills with Denton's fracking ban in mind.

King denied that his role in ALEC had anything to do with the introduction of his pre-emption bills and said the bills were not model legislation created by ALEC. The organization's corporate funders have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to King over the years.

Two other bills filed in Austin this session would go even further than King's in gutting local regulatory power: One would prevent any city or county in Texas from banning fracking, and another would effectively kill home rule authority (a city's ability to pass laws to govern itself) so that cities cannot pass local ordinances.

State lawmakers and the oil and gas industry isn't just responding to the blow delivered to fracking interests in Texas, but also hoping to beat back frack bans nationally. Bans on hydraulic fracturing passed in local municipalities across the nation during midterms elections. Those bans, and in particular, Denton's ban - have created a backlash from the oil and gas industry and conservative statehouses in the United States.

Last month, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that only the state - not cities or counties - has the authority to regulate oil and gas drilling, effectively killing a municipality's ability to ban the drilling practice. But in other states, judges have ruled exactly the opposite, such as in New York's Supreme Court, which in July decided that local governments did have the authority to ban fracking. In another case in Pennsylvania, a court ruled that cities have the authority to regulate fracking, but not to outlaw it.

"The reason all these [pre-emption] bills are being filed is [state legislators are] in a state of shock, because the people of Denton conducted an electoral revolution and passed this [fracking ban], and now they are reeling from it," Burnam said.

Dentonites and other North Texans living on top of the Barnett Shale formation are fighting a state and industry attack on their right to determine what's best for their communities. They point out the hypocrisy of conservative lawmakers in Austin who rail against so-called "Big Government" at the federal level while simultaneously attempting to strip small municipal governments of their power.

The grassroots activists have also been quick to point out conservative lawmakers' duplicity when it comes to property rights. They have largely framed their arguments at the state Capitol in those terms because state representatives often ignore other valuable environmental and health concerns.

"The whole ALEC team, led by Phil King, is more considerate of the property rights of corporations than they are the property rights of homeowners and individuals, and this is what this battle is really about, because in Texas, the overriding law is deferential treatment to the subsurface mineral right owners over the surface homeowners," Burnam said.

This contradiction was front-and-center during anti-fracking activists' meeting with Sen. Craig Estes about the bill he introduced, which mandates that cities compensate mineral owners if they pass regulations that cut into potential mineral profits.

The activist group argued that mineral owners' rights to extract minerals and earn profits from them conflicts with the property rights of homeowners, because the industrial process of fracking can create property damage and decrease property values, as well as prevent homeowners from enjoying their property due to light, noise and air pollution created by fracking.

Dentonites are also continuing efforts to defend their city's fracking ban at the local level. DAG members, with the help of Earthworks, are intervening in two court cases brought against the city by the Texas Oil and Gas Association and Texas' General Land Office, which argue the city's ban violates the Texas Constitution. The Denton groups asked that the cases be moved to Denton County from Travis County, and the court agreed.

Meanwhile, Dentonites continue to testify at City Council meetings as council members once again work to revise the city's drilling ordinance, which will become the last word on drilling regulations if the city's ban is overturned in court.

Texas Police Can Now Obtain Search Warrants Based On ‘Prediction Of A Future Crime’

Welcome to the brave new world of 'pre-crime' policing.
December 18, 2013 |

Last week, an appeals court in Texas ruled that police may obtain a search warrant based on the prediction of a future crime, heightening public fears that we may be heading toward a ‘predictive policing’ era in which we see police powers rapidly growing at the cost of our constitutional rights.

The decision arose from a 2010 incident where police officers took Michael Fred Wehrenberg and some associates into custody after watching his home for about a month because of a tip-off from a confidential informant that Wehrenberg and others were “fixing to” cook methamphetamine , Raw Story reported.

Hours later, without a search warrant, officers waltzed through Wehrenberg's front door and searched the house while he and his friends stood outside in handcuffs for an hour and half.

Before they seized the boxes of pseudoephedrine, stripped lithium batteries and materials used to make meth, the cops attempted to cover their tracks by obtaining a search warrant. However, they conveniently failed to mention the unlawful search in the warrant application and based their request entirely on the informant's tip.

Consequently, Wehrenberg’s attorney’s argued in court that the items should be excluded as evidence on the basis that they had been illegally obtained. However, the motion was denied citing the “independent source doctrine” which allows the use of illegally seized evidence if a third party identifies it beforehand, Dallas Observer reported.

Wehrenberg, who was sentenced to five years in prison, subsequently appealed. The Second Court of Appeals agreed with his defence and overturned the lower court’s decision, ruling that the evidence should have been excluded in what appeared to be a clear case of police misconduct.

But it is the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals who has the final say, and it agreed with the trial court. In overturning the decision, the majority held that the state’s ‘exclusionary rule’ bans illegally seized evidence from trial but allows it to be introduced if it was first confirmed by an independent source.

Lone dissenter, Justice Lawrence Meyers, condemned the decision lamenting that the confidential informant’s tip that Wehrenberg was “fixing to” cook meth wasn’t independent evidence but a prediction.

“…It is obvious to me that this search warrant was obtained based upon the officers' unlawful entry into [Wehrenberg]'s residence…Search warrants may now be based on predictions of future crimes,” Judge Meyers said.

The decision raises major civil rights concerns particularly in light of law enforcement agencies increasingly turning to pre-crime policing tools in recent times, directly infringing on our constitutional protections.

Earlier in the year, a report revealed that police departments across the nation from California to Tennesee were adopting “ predictive analytics” and computer software to predict where and when patterns of crime would occur and also who would commit them.

It now remains to be seen what effect this latest decision will have on the ground in terms of allowing evidence to be admitted in the face of clear police misconduct and the role of judicial activism in allowing illegal conduct in the pre-crime context. As Grits For Breakfast reported:

“Bottom line: In Texas, if citizens break the law, they go to jail. If police break the law, some activist judge will find or create a reason to excuse their misbehavior, which is precisely what happened in this case."

Dallas Police Rule Change Gives Officers 72 Hours To Get Their Stories Straight After Shooting Citizens

from the "Accountability-is-for-bullet-riddled-civilians dept"
Techdirt

The Dallas Police Department can't seem to get its officers' statements on shootings to agree with recordings of the incidents. So, it's doing what any forward thinking law enforcement agency would do -- changing the rules.

Any Dallas officer involved in a police shooting — whether the officer fired a weapon or witnessed the gunfire — will now have the right to remain silent for 72 hours under a new department policy.

And even before they give a statement about the shooting, the officers can watch any available video before they give a statement.

Very convenient. This policy change, which was ushered in under the cover of the Thanksgiving holiday, will help ensure that DPD officers don't find their statements directly contradicted by the inconveniently unblinking eye of the camera, as happened just recently.

On October 14th, Dallas police officer Cardan Spencer shot a mentally ill man four times in the stomach. According to Spencer's partner, Christopher Watson (who wrote the report), the man (Bobby Gerald Bennett) moved "in a threatening manner" towards him and the other officer. Watson's statement even went so far as to say Bennett "lunged" at them. A statement released by the DPD a few hours after the shooting claimed the situation "escalated."

A surveillance camera caught the entire confrontation on tape. Less than 20 seconds pass before Spencer opens fire. See if you can catch a glimpse of the "lunge" or the "escalation."

Bennett never lunges. He doesn't do anything more threatening than stand up from the chair he was sitting in. Four bullets later, Bennett is on the ground. Somehow, being shot four times by a DPD officer is "aggravated assault," a charge the DPD pressed (it was later dropped) while Bennett was still in critical condition.

As a result of this, Spencer was fired and Watson suspended for making false statements. But this was only after Bennett's mother took the video to the media. Before she did this, DPD Chief David Brown watched the video and claimed his own officer's statement trumped his lying eyes.

"The unfortunate thing here is that Officer Watson's statement really overrode what the video showed," Brown said. "We had not at that point determined if the video captured the entire incident, or if the video had not been altered in any way. We put a lot of credibility on officer's statements until we have other evidence to prove otherwise."

Not so much anymore. Former DPD officer Cardan Spencer may be facing assault charges for shooting Bennett. Perhaps the saddest aspect of this whole debacle is the fact that Bennett's mother called the police because she was afraid her son (who has mental issues and was off his medication) might hurt himself.

As this has caused the DPD considerable embarrassment (not the least of which is the chief claiming a recording of the shooting is less trustworthy than statements given by an officer later suspended for making false statements), the only solution was (apparently) to buy time for officers to fix their narratives should inconvenient recordings surface.

Supposedly, this 72-hour waiting period is better for memory. Chief Brown refers to research by Alexis Artwohl which indicates recall of traumatic events increases over time. Immediate statements may be less accurate. That may be, but this report has been available since 2002 and there hasn't been a large shift in policies regarding police shootings across the nation. This looks like nothing more than someone finding the justification they need to install an insular policy that will allow bad cops to be even worse. This gives shelter to liars by allowing them to craft a plausible narrative that can't be undone by a single surveillance video.

This also doesn't explain why police insist on questioning suspects and eyewitnesses immediately after a criminal incident. But Artwohl has an explanation.

Artwohl, the memory expert, said officers treat civilian witnesses differently because officers won’t always be able to find the person again. That usually isn’t true of officers, she said.

Unsurprisingly, attorneys for the Dallas Police Association "applauded" Chief Brown's application of an additional layer of paint to the thin blue line. Anything that makes it easier to defend cops who are threatened by people standing motionless is a win for the PD's lawyers.

Defense attorney Mark Bennett flips the scenario to show just how outrageous this policy would be if it was applied to anyone else.

As a result of this incident, the Dallas Police Department changed its policy regarding gang-related shootings. Instead of pressing gang members for statements immediately after shootings, police officers will advise them that they have seventy-two hours to get together and make up a story, and will provide them, during that time, with any video the police can find, so that they can conform their stories to the video.

It makes no sense, does it, that police policy should not just permit but encourage members of a criminal street gang who witness a gang-related shooting to take three days to talk to each other and their lawyers and review the facts that are beyond dispute before making a statement?

It makes sense only if the police want the perpetrators of such shootings to walk free. The idea would be farcical if the criminal street gang were anything other than the police.

It's a farce, alright. The DPD has just ensured no one will trust the narratives constructed by its officers. And every citizen who's been paying attention will know to hang onto their recordings for at least 72 hours, rather than see it twisted into "evidence" that keeps bad cops employed.

North Texas Drivers Stopped at Roadblock Asked for Saliva, Blood

Fort Worth police apologize for its role in federal survey
By Scott Gordon | Tuesday, Nov 19, 2013


Some drivers along a busy Fort Worth street on Friday were stopped at a police roadblock and directed into a parking lot, where they were asked by federal contractors for samples of their breath, saliva and even blood.

It was part of a government research study aimed at determining the number of drunken or drug-impaired drivers.

"It just doesn't seem right that you can be forced off the road when you're not doing anything wrong," said Kim Cope, who said she was on her lunch break when she was forced to pull over at the roadblock on Beach Street in North Fort Worth.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is spending $7.9 million on the survey over three years, said participation was "100 percent voluntary" and anonymous.

But Cope said it didn't feel voluntary to her -- despite signs saying it was.

"I gestured to the guy in front that I just wanted to go straight, but he wouldn't let me and forced me into a parking spot," she said.

Once parked, she couldn't believe what she was asked next.

"They were asking for cheek swabs," she said. "They would give $10 for that. Also, if you let them take your blood, they would pay you $50 for that."

At the very least, she said, they wanted to test her breath for alcohol.

She said she felt trapped.

"I finally did the Breathalyzer test just because I thought that would be the easiest way to leave," she said, adding she received no money.

Fort Worth police earlier said they could not immediately find any record of officer involvement but police spokesman Sgt. Kelly Peel said Tuesday that the department's Traffic Division coordinated with the NHTSA on the use of off-duty officers after the agency asked for help with the survey.

"We are reviewing the actions of all police personnel involved to ensure that FWPD policies and procedures were followed," he said. "We apologize if any of our drivers and citizens were offended or inconvenienced by the NHTSA National Roadside Survey."

NBC DFW confirmed that the survey was done by a government contractor, the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, which is based in Calverton, Md.

A company spokeswoman referred questions to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

An agency spokeswoman sent an email confirming the government is conducting the surveys in 30 cities across the country in an effort to reduce impaired-driving accidents.

She did not respond to another email from NBC DFW asking specific questions about the program..

But a Fort Worth attorney who is an expert in civil liberties law questioned whether such stops are constitutional.

"You can't just be pulled over randomly or for no reason," said attorney Frank Colosi.

He also noted the fine print on a form given to drivers informs them their breath was tested by "passive alcohol sensor readings before the consent process has been completed."

"They're essentially lying to you when they say it's completely voluntary, because they're testing you at that moment," Colosi said.

He also questioned the results of the "voluntary" survey -- speculating that drivers who had been drinking or using drugs would be more inclined to simply decline to participate.

Cope said she is troubled by what happened.

"It just doesn't seem right that they should be able to do any of it," she said. "If it's voluntary, it's voluntary, and none of it felt voluntary."

Asked Tuesday if she accepted the police department's apology, Cope said she would wait to see what the review showed.

"They need to make sure this doesn't happen again," she said.

****

RT also reported the story:

Texas drivers pulled over at random, told to turn over blood, saliva samples

Texas' Next Lieutenant Governor Thinks You Shouldn't Be Trusted to Elect Senators

By Eric Nicholson, Mon., Oct. 7 2013 
Dallas Observer


It's not yet clear who will become Texas' next lieutenant governor. David Dewhurst, though tarnished by his defeat at the hands of Wendy Davis and her "unruly mob," could hang onto the seat. Or he could be out-flanked to the right in the Republican primary by a trio of challengers: Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson and state Senator and talk radio show host Dan Patrick.

All are deeply conservative men who wear their patriotism on their sleeve. None seem particularly keen to tinker with the Constitution, the bedrock upon which the greatest country in history was built -- except for one thing.

The 17th Amendment was ratified a century ago to allow for the direct election of Senators. Repealing it would shift the power to choose members of Congress' upper house from voters back to state legislatures, which was what the framers had originally intended.

The Tea Party has been tilting at this particular windmill since its inception, which is counterintuitive given the movement's full-throated embrace of direct democracy in other forms. The reasoning goes that the legislatures would be more vigilant about protecting their state's interest -- and thus the federalist system as a whole -- than would individual voters.

For the challengers, this seems a straightforward appeal to their Tea Party base. For Dewhurst it just so happens to dovetail perfectly with his own self-interest, as Burnt Orange Report notes. He would, after all, probably be a sitting U.S. Senator now if not for the populist tidal wave that swept Ted Cruz into office last year.

A movement based on the idea that voters can't be trusted to pick their Congressional representatives is unlikely to gain much traction. Then again, Ted Cruz is a Senator. Maybe they're onto something.

Corporate Terrorism in West, Texas

The Full Weight of Justice
by RUSSELL MOKHIBER


In his first statement in response to the Boston bombings, President Obama said that “Michelle and I send our deepest thoughts and prayers to the families of the victims in the wake of this senseless loss.”

In the his first statement in response to the explosion outside Waco, Texas, President Obama said that “our prayers go out to the people of West, Texas in the aftermath of last night’s deadly explosion at a fertilizer plant.”

In his statement on Boston, President Obama said that “any responsible individuals, any responsible groups will feel the full weight of justice.”

But when it came to the explosion in Texas, President Obama said nothing about responsible individuals, responsible groups or the full weight of justice.

Why not?

Because when it comes to street crime, President Obama is the top cop.

When it comes to apparent corporate crime and violence, he’s the enabler in chief.

Make no mistake, if it becomes clear that the Texas explosion was triggered by a terrorist attack, a la the Oklahoma City bombing, then Obama will begin talking about “the full weight of justice.”

But if the focus is corporate crime and violence, corporate recklessness, workplace safety, “full weight of justice” rhetoric won’t see the light of day.

After all, it was Obama’s Justice Department that in December 2011 settled the case of the April 2010 Massey Energy Upper Big Branch explosion, which killed 29 miners, with a “non prosecution agreement.”

Outrageously, the Justice Department said it would not criminally prosecute Massey even though the Labor Department concluded that Massey’s “unlawful policies and practices” were the “root cause of this tragedy.”

Massey had a track record of skirting the law and even kept two sets of books for at Upper Big Branch — one for internal use, which kept track of workplace hazards — and one for law enforcement, which did not.

David Uhlmann, the former head of the Department of Justice’s Environmental Crimes Section, and now a Professor at the University of Michigan Law School, says had he been in charge of the Massey Energy case, he would have criminally prosecuted Massey.

In his tenure at the Justice Department, he criminally prosecuted many major corporations for wrongdoing arguably less serious than one that results in the deaths of 29 workers.

And he says that the Massey non prosecution agreement is just part of a disturbing trend, one that has accelerated under the Obama administration, toward settling major corporate crime cases with deferred and non prosecution agreements.

Dallas Suburb Rattled by 3.4-Magnitude Quake

Another fracking quake hits the Dallas area...


Irving September 30, 2012 (AP)

Damage from a small earthquake and a subsequent aftershock in a suburb west of Dallas was mostly limited to cracked walls and knocked-down pictures, authorities said.

The unscathed Dallas-Fort Worth airport, near the epicenter of Saturday's late-night temblor, kept up with normal flight operations. And emergency officials said there were no indications of any injuries.

The initial earthquake, measured at a preliminary magnitude of 3.4, struck at 11:05 p.m. CDT Saturday and was centered about 2 miles north of the Dallas suburb of Irving, the US Geological Survey's national earthquake monitoring center in Golden, Colo., reported.

USGS geophysicist Randy Baldwin told The Associated Press from Colorado that the initial quake lasted several seconds and appeared strong enough to be felt up to 15 or 20 miles away. He said the smaller aftershock with an estimated 3.1 magnitude occurred four minutes later and just a few miles away in another area west of Dallas.

Irving's emergency operators were flooded with more than 400 calls after the initial quake, with people reporting minor damage, such as cracks in some walls and a ceiling, pictures that had been knocked down and a report of a possible gas leak, according to emergency official Pat McMacken.

"We have had no infrastructure impact at all," McMacken said Sunday morning.

The Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport continued routine operations even though the shaking was felt at the airport, which is partly located in Irving's city limits, airport public affairs officer David Magana said. He told AP that the airport, which has 1,800 daily departures and arrivals, had little air traffic late Saturday night.

He said the quake caught the attention of those at the airport, but didn't prompt wider alarm.

"I wouldn't call it panic. I would call it surprise," Magana said by phone.

He said members of the airport operations team went out afterward and inspected landing strips, buildings and other airport installations and found no damage.

"There were no impacts or outages and no disruptions to flights," Magana said. "I felt it at my house. It shook it a little bit but it wasn't enough of a jolt to shake anything loose like you have in California. I've been in California and this was nothing like that."

Baldwin said more aftershocks are possible Sunday, noting the region has been periodically rattled by small quakes, including a cluster of minor ones in 2008.

"There are parts of Texas that certainly have more quakes than others," USGS geophysicist Don Blakeman said Sunday, specifically mentioning West Texas. But, he said, naturally occurring quakes can happen anywhere.

About 1,200 reports by people who felt the quake were recorded with the Colorado earthquake monitoring center soon after it hit.

Federal court rejects Texas' voter ID law

by MATT GOODMAN & BRAD WATSON 
wfaa.com
Posted on August 30, 2012

DALLAS – A federal court has swatted down Texas’ voter ID law, saying it would likely disenfranchise poor and minority voters.  

Although the state hoped the law –– passed by the Republican controlled legislature last year and signed by Governor Perry –– would be in effect for the November election, the likelihood is now remote since Texas said it needed a ruling by Aug. 31 to proceed.

The 56 page opinion, issued Thursday morning by a three-judge panel in Washington D.C., said the ID law would be “the most stringent in the country” and “would almost certainly have retrogressive effect.” 

Quoting from the opinion:

“It imposes strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor, and racial minorities in Texas are disproportionately likely to live in poverty.” 

Presented during the last legislative session by state Sen. Troy Fraser (R –– Horseshoe Bay), Texas Senate Bill 14 would require voters to present a driver’s license or state ID, a passport or a Texas concealed weapon license before voting at a polling booth. 

The law triggered a bitter divide along party lines, sparking controversy among state and federal politicians. Supporters maintain it's needed to stop voter fraud.

Critics, which include the Obama Administration, have said the law would keep poor and elderly voters from the polls because 81 of the state’s 254 Texas counties lack DMV offices, making it difficult for them to obtain necessary identification. 

 

In July, Attorney General Eric Holder veered from his prepared comments at an NAACP conference in Houston, equating the bill to a modern-day poll tax.

“Under the proposed law, concealed handgun licenses would be acceptable forms of photo ID but student IDs would not,” Holder said, in a video of the speech posted by the Talking Points Memo. “Many of those without IDs would have to travel great distances to get them and many of them would struggle to pay for the documents they might need to obtain them. We call those poll taxes.” 

The Department of Justice cited the difficulty in acquiring identification when it initially blocked the legislation. In the most recent opinion, the three-judge panel elaborated further by comparing Senate Bill 14 to Georgia’s voter ID law. 

In order to gain preclearance from the attorney general, as required by the federal Voting Rights Act,  the state must prove that “all prospective voters can easily obtain free photo ID” and “that any underlying documents required to obtain that ID are truly free of charge. 

Quoting again from the opinion: 

“Unlike SB 14, the Georgia law requires each county to provide free election IDs and further allows voters to present a wide range of documents to obtain those IDs. The contrast with Senate Bill 14 could hardly be more stark.” 

In a statement, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott promised an appeal to the Supreme Court, saying:

“Today's decision is wrong on the law and improperly prevents Texas from implementing the same type of ballot integrity safeguards that are employed by Georgia and Indiana - and were upheld by the Supreme Court. The State will appeal this decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, where we are confident we will prevail."

But the Mexican American Legislative Caucus hailed the ruling as victory for all Texans. 

“It would have muffled the voice of those that need government’s ear the most - Latinos, African Americans, the poor, and the elderly,"  said Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer (D-San Antonio), Chairman of MALC.

DOJ argues in court Texas Voter ID law could disenfranchise 1 in 10 voters

By Chris McGreal, The Guardian
Friday, July 13, 2012

The US department of justice has defended its ban of a Texas voter ID law by telling a federal court that the legislation is an attempt by the state’s largely white Republican party to resist the political impact of changing racial demographics.

A five-day hearing in Washington over whether the Obama administration has the power to block Texas from requiring voters to produce photo identification wrapped up on Friday with justice department lawyers strongly challenging the motives behind the legislation.

Texas says it is intended to combat a rising tide of voter fraud by requiring people to show specified forms of identification, such as a driving or gun licence, at the ballot box.

The justice department said the law was racially motivated because it was constructed by the Republican-controlled Texas legislature to disadvantage the growing Latino and black communities in the state which heavily favour the Democratic party.

The outcome of the case, expected in August, is likely to have an impact in other states where the justice department is challenging similar laws, including South Carolina, Mississippi, and Florida.

The issue is expected to end up before the supreme court.

An administration lawyer, Matthew Colangelo, told the court on Friday that as many as one in ten voters in Texas could be disenfranchised under the law because of the difficulties poor people face in getting the necessary identification, such as having to travel long distances or pay for copies of birth certificates. He said that was the intent of the law.

“Four million new people moved into Texas between 2000 and 2010. Ninety percent of those were minorities. Texas acted to take away that voting strength on the brink of that minority exercising it,” he said. “It was enacted against the backdrop of a huge explosive growth in the Hispanic population.”

The administration also contends that the costs involved in obtaining identification amount to a poll tax forbidden by the constitution.

A member of the Texas legislature, Trey Martinez Fischer, told the court that the voter ID bill was rushed through without proper debate using measures such as declaring it emergency legislation.

“There was a determined effort to pass this bill in record time,” said Martinez, who chairs the Mexican American Legislative Caucus.

Another Democratic legislator, Wendy Davis, said her attempts to introduce amendments to the legislation that would help voters obtain identification, such as making it available at every county courthouse so that voters did not have to make roundtrip journeys of up to 250 miles to special offices, were blocked by Republicans.

“The voter ID bill, we all believed, was a racially motivated bill,” she said.

Henry Flores, dean of St Mary’s University graduate school in San Antonio, said in evidence that the voter ID law was only the latest of scores of pieces of legislation in response to significant demographic changes over the past 40 years.

“It seemed to me that [the ID law] had been turned into an anti-immigration bill,” he told the court. “Race was at the heart of the whole thing.”

A California Institute of Technology professor, J. Morgan Kousser, told the court that Texas Republicans had been trying to push through a voter ID law since 2005 and that politics in the state is “very racially polarised”, with the state’s Democratic party now dominated by Latinos.

“In 2011, the vast majority of Democratic legislators are minorities. So a bill that has partisan effects would have racial effects,” he said.

The Obama administration blocked the law using a central piece of civil rights legislation, the 1965 voting rights act, which requires 16 states with a history of racially discriminatory laws and practices to clear all or some changes in voting laws and constituency boundaries with the justice department.

Texas brought this week’s legal challenge in federal court on the grounds that the justice department has no authority to apply the voting rights act because the voter ID law was motivated solely by an attempt to prevent fraud.

The state said up to 50,000 dead people remain on the electoral roll. But the justice department said there is little evidence of significant illegal voting and that the state has only prosecuted one case in recent times.

John Hughes, acting for Texas, derided the administration’s claim that as many as 1.5 million people who are registered to vote may not be able to.

“If that were remotely true the courtroom would be filled with people [without photo ID to vote],” he said. “It’s hard to find people who don’t have photo ID. Certainly the defendants didn’t find anyone.”

The justice department called only one witness who claimed to be directly affected by the law.
Victoria Rodriguez, 18, told the court that while her birth certificate and student ID were enough to permit her to board a plane, they wouldn’t be sufficient voter identification under the new law. Lawyers for the state told the court Rodriguez could obtain the necessary ID using her birth certificate.

Texas constructed part of its case around social science studies that he said show voter ID laws have no effect on voting, he said.

“Common sense is people who want to vote already have ID or can get one,” he said. “The evidence is that it is easy to get one in Texas and that’s why it won’t have a turnout impact.”
Daron Shaw, a University of Texas professor of political science, said his research in states that already have voter ID laws suggests few people are kept from the polls by the requirement.

“I think the weight of the evidence is that it will not have an impact on turnout,” he said.

The justice department challenged Shaw’s objectivity on the issue, eliciting from him that he worked as a political strategist on both of President George W Bush’s presidential campaigns.
Shaw’s research also came under scrutiny from other witnesses who challenged the methodology of the study including that only 2% of those asked whether the law would affect them had responded.

As the case was heard, the political confrontation continued in Texas where the attorney general, Eric Holder, told a conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) that the justice department “will not allow political pretexts to disenfranchise American citizens of their most precious right”.

Holder said that about one in four African Americans lacks government-issued photo identification of the kind required to vote in several states while fewer than one in ten white people do.

He said he opposed the Texas law because many people would have to travel too far to obtain the IDs, or would struggle to meet the cost of the necessary documentation.

The US supreme court in 2008 upheld the right of states to require voters to produce identification, but that case, involving Indiana, did not touch on the voting rights act.

Since then, 15 other states have passed laws requiring voters to show photo identification, although some of them offer alternatives. Texas has the most restrictive law.

When Dallas Rocked

Court sets July 9 trial date in Texas voter ID case

Court sets July 9 trial date in Texas voter ID case
The D.C. district court has set trial in Texas’ voter ID suit for July 9-13.

That’s nearly three weeks earlier than requested by the Justice Department and intervenors.

However, the court also directed that issues related to the constitutionality of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act be bifurcated from the main trial and said that those issues would “not be addressed unless the Court denies judicial preclearance of Senate Bill [14].”

Since that means that hearings on constitutional issues would take place only after a ruling on the preclearance claims (by definition some time after the July 13 end of trial), that would seem to make it less likely that the constitutional issues could be teed up in time to get them to the Supreme Court before the November elections.
The court’s scheduling order set a discovery cutoff of June 15 for both fact and expert testimony and directed that any dispositive motions (such as a motion for summary judgment) be filed by June 18.

Texas Law Requiring Voter IDs Is Blocked

By DANIEL GILBERT March 12, 2012 - Wall Street Journal

HOUSTON—The U.S. Justice Department on Monday blocked Texas from enforcing a law that requires voters to show state-issued photo identification at the polls, saying it would disproportionately affect Hispanics.

The agency's move is likely to fan the flames around the issue nationally, as state legislatures consider toughening voter-ID laws in an election year. Republicans argue that requiring voters to show IDs will help combat fraud; Democrats claim the measures are designed to make it harder to vote for minorities, the elderly and other groups who tend to back Democrats.

Texas is one many jurisdictions, mostly in the South, required to get permission from the Justice Department or judges in the District of Columbia federal court before making changes to voting laws. This requirement applies to states that were found by the U.S. to have restricted the opportunity to vote.

See a state-by-state breakdown of
voter-identification requirements.

The Justice Department said that Hispanics registered to vote in Texas are considerably less likely to have drivers licenses or state-issued IDs than other voters, citing data supplied by Texas in its bid to win clearance for the law passed last May. Under the Voting Rights Act, states must prove that voting legislation does not make it harder for racial or ethnic minorities to vote.

"I cannot conclude that the state has sustained its burden," wrote Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general, in a letter to Texas's director of elections on Monday. He added, "The state has failed to demonstrate why it could not meet its stated goals of ensuring electoral integrity and deterring ineligible voters from voting" without the new law.

Also Monday, a county judge in Wisconsin blocked part of a voter-ID law passed last year, ruling the Wisconsin legislature and GOP Gov. Scott Walker "exceeded their constitutional authority" by requiring citizens to show a photo ID to vote.

In the ruling, Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess agreed with a local voter group that the law violated the state Constitution by disenfranchising citizens without a photo ID. Judge Niess also questioned the effort to prevent voter fraud with voter-ID laws. Voter "fraud is no more poisonous to our democracy than voter suppression," he wrote. "Indeed, they are two heads on the same monster."

Another Wisconsin judge last week temporarily suspended the law until a hearing next month. The law, which drew four lawsuits, is now blocked pending a successful appeal of Judge Niess's ruling. Wisconsin holds local elections and the Republican presidential primary on April 3.

Mr. Walker's office said, "Requiring photo identification to vote is common sense—we require it to get a library card, cold medicine and public assistance.… We are confident the state will prevail in its plan to implement photo ID."

The Texas decision marks the second time in recent months the Justice Department has blocked a state from requiring voters to show a state-issued photo ID. In December, it objected that such a law in South Carolina would disproportionately affect minority voters. The state has sued the agency in federal court in Washington to get judicial approval of its law.

Texas, anticipating the agency's rejection, also sued, arguing its law should be approved because of similar laws in effect in other states. State Attorney General Greg Abbott said Texas "should not be treated differently and must have the same authority as other states to protect the integrity of our elections."

The spat is likely to ripple across the nation: Voter-ID legislation is pending in 32 state legislatures, and 10 of them are considering proposals to tighten requirements, said the National Council of State Legislatures.

Attorney General Eric Holder, in recent speeches and congressional testimony, has said instances of voter fraud are rare, and that he views voter-ID laws as a "solution in search of a problem."

In a speech last month at Tulane University, Mr. Holder said that while voter fraud wouldn't be tolerated by the Justice Department, "new state rules requiring photo identification to cast a vote too often appear to make a mockery of the promise of real participation in our electoral system."

Revisiting My Cheaters Episode and Its Infamy...

In Feb. 2006, my wife and I and our friend, Corena, appeared on the "reality" TV show, Cheaters. Here's the clip from the bust:

Cheaters got a ton of mileage off our episode: it's currently on Cheaters' Top 10 All Time Episodes list (and they rerun it all the time, more than any other episode from that season)--at one point it was the #3 episode on that list. Also, our episode was featured on E! Wildest Dating Show Moments 2 (with Loni Love and other comedians commenting on the clips they watch--transcript below), we were on the Maury Povich Show on Feb. 28, 2006, and the clip from the Povich show wound up on E!'s TV clip show, The Soup that same week. It is hosted by Joel McHale from NBC's sitcom, Community. I bring this up, because every time our episode airs, someone from the past gets hold of us and contacts us very concerned about what they saw on TV. And we have to explain the situation. It's very funny, if you haven't seen it, check it out...


Transcript from our clip on E! Wildest Dating Show Moments 2:

00:05:07 So far, the dating scene sure looks like a lot of fun, doesn't it?
00:05:10 I'd hold your opinions until you've seen the televised " in this clip, toni's husband learns a valuable lesson-- when
you're caught with your pants down, go find some new pants.
00:05:23 >> Man: Lights, lights, lights.
00:05:31 >> Jeff?
00:05:34 Jeff.
00:05:35 >> Hey, I am not here.
00:05:37 >> Jeff!
00:05:38 What the hell are you doing?
00:05:39 >> I think he thought he was david blaine really quick.
00:05:42 " >> hey, this is an emergency.
00:05:53 (Loni Love) >> Did he just steal someone's underpants?
00:05:56 >> What are you doing?
00:05:58 >> Can you speak with us for a second?
00:06:00 Jeff.
00:06:02 >> Who's this [bleep] running off with my clothes?
00:06:08 >> Oh, did I get caught [bleep] on a guy in a car?
00:06:11 >> I'm not doing this.
00:06:12 I'm not doing this.
00:06:13 I'm not doing this.
00:06:14 I'm not doing this.
00:06:15 >> I wanna know why.
00:06:16 >> When these people go away, I'll tell you.
00:06:18 >> Tell her what, that you got a wedgie?
00:06:21 >> Announcer: Creative problem-solving-- nice.

Don’t Drink the Water

(So, fracking was invented in the town where I live. Great...--jef)


Drillers are furious about reports backing up claims of poisoned groundwater.
FW WEEKLY - WEDNESDAY, 25 JANUARY 2012
PETER GORMAN


When Jeff Locker looks out over his 1,500 acres of land just outside Pavillion, Wyo., he remembers what it used to look like: three horses in the corral, fields of barley and alfalfa bending in the breeze. These days the view from every window looks out over nearby shale gas wells, his own contaminated water wells, and an empty pasture: He stopped keeping horses after two of them died from nerve damage after drinking from a large plastic stock tank fed by his well. His wife is suffering from extreme neuropathy — he describes it a shooting nerve pain that radiates from the base of her spine or up her shins — that also came on after she drank the well water.


Locker is not alone in his problems. Louis Meeks lost cattle, horses, and sheep after they drank from contaminated stock tanks.


And there are others. The sparsely populated gas field northeast of Pavillion has become a national focal point in the battle raging between the natural gas industry and those who say they’ve suffered severe damage due to that industry, from illnesses to contaminated groundwater to loss of property value.


Until now, the gas industry has been able to deflect much of the hue and cry over its alleged poisoning of groundwater sources. Drillers have claimed that there was never any proof that hydraulic fracturing — blasting millions of gallons of water mixed with sand and dangerous chemicals thousands of feet underground to blow open shale deposits to free trapped natural gas — has ever contaminated a single well. In those cases where it’s been apparent that the industry’s actions absolutely did contaminate water supplies — including several cases in North Texas — gas companies have simply bought the properties and had the former owners sign nondisclosure agreements, meaning they can’t say they’ve been bought out because of contamination.


But the argument began to change in 2009, when the Environmental Protection Agency decided to investigate the Pavillion gas field. The EPA action came at the urging of the Earthworks’ Oil and Gas Accountability project, people like Locker and Meeks, and the Powder River Basin Resource Council, an organization devoted to protecting Wyoming’s environment from irresponsible development.


The area was quickly designated an EPA Superfund site, meaning that it has been found to be contaminated with hazardous chemicals and that the EPA will try to determine who is responsible so that they can be legally forced to clean up the mess.


The EPA’s findings, released as a draft last month, clearly lay the blame at the feet of the gas industry and in particular, Encana Corporation, the gas field owner around Pavillion.


The agency found that natural gas and dangerous chemicals were migrating through local aquifers. More importantly the EPA discovered, via its own monitoring wells, that man-made chemicals used exclusively for hydraulic fracturing are showing up in the water.


In other words, these chemicals couldn’t have come from some sort of natural source or even another man-made source, but only from gas drilling. It was the first time that a direct scientific link has been made between gas drilling and groundwater contamination.


Not surprisingly, Encana and the industry are fighting back, arguing that the EPA’s findings are flawed on several grounds. The impact on their industry — and the worldwide natural gas supply situation — could be tremendous, if the EPA’s findings are upheld.


At stake are shale plays all around the country that have not been allowed to proceed until the gas industry proves it can drill without contaminating water supplies. Not to mention the blowback in places like Texas, where landowners across the Barnett Shale and other shale areas could conceivably use the EPA’s findings as a basis for damage suits and actions to prevent or stop drilling activities. The Natural Resources Defense Council has a list of 36 places around the country — including nine in the Barnett Shale — where landowners believe that gas fracking has contaminated their water wells.


One of those problem areas in North Texas, involving three homeowners in Hill County, stopped being a problem after the drillers, Williams Production–Gulf Coast Co., purchased all of the affected property. A second local case, involving possible contamination by Range Resources of water wells in Parker County is an ongoing legal battle.


Another contaminated property in North Texas is part of a broader review being conducted by the EPA to be released later this year. Drilling activist Tim Ruggiero said the land he formerly owned in Wise County is included in a review by the EPA of seven regions of the country, regarding fracking’s effects on groundwater. Ruggiero’s land was initially contaminated by a series of spills in 2009 and 2010. Eventually, his water well was poisoned with methane, and the gas also began bubbling up from other sections of his property.


“I don’t think any new science would have changed anything for my family,” he said. “We got them [the EPA] involved early on, but they didn’t even begin to do any testing until the second year of production.”


Deborah Rogers, who brought attention to drilling-related pollution on her Fort Worth-area goat farm several years ago, said she’s not surprised by the industry reaction. “Of course industry is [denying] it,” she said. “The industry stands to lose so much money now. They’ve kept this cat in the bag for so long they have nothing left to do but deny, deny, deny.”


Jerry Lobdill, a retired Fort Worth physicist who has long studied the gas drilling operations around Fort Worth, agreed. “The industry will try to ignore the EPA study and continue with the mantra that there has never been a proven contamination by a gas well. The industry is criminal.”


The groundwater contamination report could turn out to be only the first of several scientific body-blows to the industry. Scientists in Ohio have recently determined that an injection well — the industry’s main method for disposing of its toxic wastes — is the cause of 11 earthquakes there in the last year. The wells shoot the chemical-laden liquid, under extremely high pressure, into formations far below water-bearing strata.


That finding, in turn, comes on the heels of new concerns that sucking out so much gas, as well as extracting vast quantities of water from aquifers to use in drilling, could cause the ground above those aquifers and gas patches to settle. That might not matter much out in the country, but it would be devastating to urban areas that have been heavily drilled, like Fort Worth. In fact, one geologist said, the long history of oil and gas drilling and water extraction in the North Texas geologic zone that includes the Barnett Shale has already led to settling in some parts of the region.


The Powder River Basin, a high-plains region that spans northeast Wyoming and southeast Montana, is home to the largest coal reserves in the U.S. The high mountain desert is also ecologically important, providing habitat to 10 threatened or endangered species. Within the basin’s 24,000 square miles is the Wind River Indian Reservation, home to portions of the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone Tribes. The tiny town of Pavillion (population about 170) and its gas field lie within the reservation’s boundaries. Nearby reservation land, outside of the Pavillion gas patch proper, has also been heavily drilled.

These vials of contaminated well water are samples from DISH, Texas.

The geology of the area is a complex series of sandy crusts folded back on themselves, creating pockets of water and natural gas. Because of the sand pockets, groundwater is not a continuous aquifer. Gas migrates up through the sandy formations in plumes. According to a report by Encana Corp., that occurs because there is no solid cap rock between the deep natural gas deposits and the shallower water-bearing levels. Drillers have brought in gas wells as shallow as 1,100 feet.

The first gas well was drilled in 1960. Locker, who has lived in the area his whole life and bought his current farm in 1988, said his well water was good until about 1998, when Tom Brown Inc., which owned the gas field, began replacing the casing on a well about 1,000 feet from his water source.

“One day while they were working out there, the well just went bad,” he said. “You couldn’t stand to smell it or taste it. I asked the fellow what he’d done to the water, and he denied doing anything. And it’s been a battle ever since.”

His well water “was fine for 10 years ’til it went bad, and when it went bad, it was almost overnight,” he said.

Locker and his family continued to bathe with the water, but he began hauling in drinking water — and kept hauling it for 12 years. At one point he even bought a $10,000 whole-house reverse osmosis unit to clean the contaminated water for bathing. “But I still wouldn’t drink it. Neither would my son. But my wife did. She thought the unit made it drinkable. But about six months after she started drinking it, she got very sick with extreme neuropathy.” That was more than five years ago, he said, and she’s suffered with it ever since. “Nerve damage doesn’t heal; it’s just a question of pain management.”

Encana bought the field in 2004. Between then and the end of 2007, the company drilled 44 new gas wells, bringing the total in the field to 125. The company also inherited several old production pits — large open-air pits dug to store drilling waste, much of it toxic — that Encana never used. The company discovered groundwater contamination seeping from those pits and in 2005 began trying to remediate the problem, a process that’s still going on.

But the presence of a big-name outfit like Encana didn’t put an end to the growing water well contamination in the area.

In late 2004, Meeks, a former gas and oilfield worker, said Encana “drilled a well 500 feet from my house. They completed it — fracked it — in January 2005, and in early February my water went bad.”

When Meeks complained to Encana, he said, the company immediately brought a water tank to his home and hooked it up. “They got the tank to me in March, I think, and they took care of all my house water needs. But then in October they decided it wasn’t their fault my well went bad, and they pulled the tank.”

Meeks brought in a private company to drill a new well, hoping the water would be usable. At the initial completion depth of 180 feet, the water was “horrible. It was filled with floating things, bad smell, just rotten. It was really just production water from the gas drilling.”

Meeks told the water well driller to go deeper. The well reached 540 feet and a new water pocket. “We decided to clean out the hole — we’d already dropped the casing pipe in and had it cemented — to see what kind of water we had,” he said. But when they’d cleaned out the drilling mud and old water with air pressure to about half the water well’s depth, foamy gas began coming up with the water.

“It was thick. If there was a spark, we would have died,” Meeks said. “It came up with the water, and it kept flowing, right over the top of the wellbore. ”

The escaping gas posed enough of a danger that the sheriff’s department closed three roads to keep traffic away. Three days after the gassy water began to escape, Encana plugged Meeks’ well.

“There was so much gas coming out of my water well,” Meeks said, laughing, “that when they plugged it, production on their three closest gas wells tripled.”

Even though he can laugh about it now, Meeks said the situation was terrifying at the time. He could see his home exploding at any minute — but he couldn’t get any help from either Encana or state agencies.

“They called me a troublemaker at first and then a liar,” Meeks said. “Encana actually told people I threatened to shoot the drillers. But I knew I wasn’t wrong. I worked the gas fields. They just didn’t drill this field right. The gas wells were communicating with the water wells. Gas was just flowing into the aquifers.”

Locker, Meeks, and others in the area formed the Pavillion Area Concerned Citizens group to try to get their problems taken seriously. The organization contacted the Powder River Basin Resource Council, which contacted Earthworks’ Oil and Gas Accountability Project. Together they were finally able to get the attention of the EPA.

In March 2009, the EPA sampled 39 private water wells in the area and two municipal wells. The municipal wells in the town of  Pavillion several miles from the gas field were clean, but 11 of the private water wells were found to have traces of contaminants, including methane, oil, and metals. Three of the wells contained a chemical used in hydraulic fracturing. Residents in the area were told not to drink or cook with the water, and to open the windows in their bathrooms before showering to prevent explosions from a buildup of methane.

Encana, through the Wyoming Rural Water Association, began supplying drinking water to anyone in the area who requested it. Locker gets 75 gallons of drinking water every two weeks.

“Twelve years of hauling water, and the EPA shows up, and suddenly Encana can supply drinking water,” he said. “How about that?”

Shortly after the EPA’s initial report was released, Wilma Subra, the Louisiana biochemist who has been studying the health effects of gas drilling activities for years, conducted a voluntary health report in the area. What she found was an array of problems very much like what she’d already encountered in other shale gas areas, including the North Texas town of DISH and the Marcellus Shale in the northeastern United States.

“The health survey correlated the symptoms of people with the chemicals found in the drinking water and air associated with gas drilling. There were both acute and chronic symptoms, from rashes to headaches to neurological disorders and cancers,” she said. More than 90 percent of the survey participants reported symptoms that are known effects of the chemicals identified in the wells studied by the EPA.

Deb Thomas, spokesperson for the resource council, said that gas field residents were relieved and thrilled that the EPA came in.

“Some of those people had been trying for more than 10 years to get someone to pay attention to their problems, and they were continually told that there were no problems,” she said. “The fact that someone took them seriously, and that science was utilized to determine that something was indeed terribly wrong, was a vindication for them.”

 ********

The initial study of the Pavillion gas field was only the start for the EPA. In 2010 the agency declared it a Superfund site and decided to continue to keep tabs on the shallow water wells and to also drill two deep water wells of its own to monitor what was going on. Those wells were drilled to 775 feet, roughly the depth of the deepest domestic water wells in the area, but several hundred feet above the shallowest gas well.

The EPA found that several of the old production pits inherited by Encana were indeed contributing to groundwater contamination of the shallowest water wells, some of which are only about 100 feet deep. According to the EPA draft report released on Dec. 8, “high concentrations of benzene, xylenes, gasoline range organics, diesel range organics, and … hydrocarbons” were strong indications that the pits were causing part of the problem.

The shallow groundwater con-tamination from the old production pits had been expected, but there were also problems with deeper water wells not associated with the pits. In several, the EPA “identified contaminants of concern,” including low levels of hydrocarbons and high levels of methane.

While the levels of hydrocarbons and other chemicals were found to be “generally below established health and safety standards,” they were high enough to draw another agency’s concern. The Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, reviewed the EPA data and reiterated the warnings about not drinking the well water or cooking with it and ensuring there was plenty of ventilation while showering.

The EPA determined that the presence of the chemicals in the water was being caused by “migration from areas of gas production” and suggested three ways that migration might be occurring. They included compromised wellbores or poor wellbore casing, frack fluid flowing into porous sandstone formations, and the creation of new fractures or enlargement of existing fractures in the strata during the fracking process, allowing gas and frack fluids to migrate upward. The draft report did not attempt to determine which of the three mechanisms was responsible for the well contamination.

The most serious findings by the EPA came from its own deep monitoring wells. The water from those wells contained high levels of methane, benzene concentrations 50 times above Safe Drinking Water Act standards, and an array of synthetic chemicals “like glycols and alcohols consistent with gas production and hydraulic fracking fluids.”

The implications of the EPA findings could be vast for the gas industry and those who live near the gas fields. While drillers can rectify poorly constructed or compromised wellbores, if fracking can be proven to open up new fractures or widen existing ones, allowing gas and other chemicals to migrate upward and contaminate aquifers, public officials could decide to ban drilling altogether in some places. (Not of course, likely to happen in Texas, where the oil and gas industry wields such power.) In places like New York state, where gas companies want to drill near aquifers that supply New York and New Jersey with drinking water, public reaction against drilling is likely to be strong.

Recognizing the risks they face, the industry is fighting back. Editorials and guest columns on television and in newspapers and hundreds of industry web sites decried the study’s findings.

The Wall Street Journal, on Dec. 20, in an editorial titled “The EPA’s Fracking Scare,” pointed out alleged errors in the study and questioned the integrity of the EPA itself. “Nothing would shut down drilling faster, and destroy billions of dollars of investment, than media interviews with mothers afraid to let their kids brush their teeth with polluted water. So the EPA study needs to be carefully reviewed,” the editorial said. It went on to warn, “The agency is dominated by anti-carbon true believers, and the Obama administration has waged a campaign to raise the price and limit the production of fossil fuels.”

Encana essentially pooh-poohed the entire study. “The EPA found no domestic water wells that have any oil or gas impact,” Encana spokesman Doug Hock told Fort Worth Weekly. “They found traces of diesel range organics. And what was found on further investigation was that none of those diesel range organics were related to oil or gas. They also found methane. But there is a lot of methane near the surface there.”

Hock also derided the deep monitoring well findings. “The EPA dug two deep wells into a gas formation and found gas, which we think is normal,” he said.

He conceded that the production pits’ contaminants might affect shallow groundwater but insisted that they are not in proximity to the gas wells Encana itself has drilled. And, he said, “We’ve been working on remediation of those [pits] for some time.”

In a December press release the company claimed that many of the EPA’s findings from the monitoring wells are “conjecture, not factual, and only serve to trigger undue alarm.” Encana went on to suggest that some of the samples could have been compromised by sloppy collection and handling by the EPA.

Kim Feil, an anti-drilling activist from Arlington, said Encana’s reaction is par for the course. “I’m not even surprised that they [Encana] went so far as to say the EPA testers themselves probably caused the contamination they were reporting.”

The Encana release noted that the EPA’s findings have not yet been scientifically peer-reviewed and suggested they won’t hold up to scrutiny. The EPA responded to that charge by reiterating that the report is a draft, subject to a period of public questioning to be followed by scientific peer-review.

EPA spokesman Larry Jackson, in response to Encana’s charges, told the Weekly that “the deeper part of the drinking water aquifer used by Pavillion residents is highly contaminated with constituents that are best explained as resulting from gas production practices, including hydraulic fracturing … . The samples from the wells included not only petroleum-related compounds at very high concentrations, but also synthetic chemicals such as alcohols and glycols that do not occur naturally in groundwater, whether in proximity to a gas field or not. These chemicals are known to have been used in fracturing fluids in this field based on data provided by Encana.”

Richard Mylott, another EPA spokesman, said it’s important to note that “the draft report findings are specific to Pavillion, where … production conditions are different from those in many other parts of the country.”

Pavillion gas wells, for instance, are considerably shallower than those in the Barnett Shale, and they are vertical, not horizontal. Many in the gas industry suggest that even if the EPA findings hold up and a link is established between gas drilling and water contamination in Pavillion, it wouldn’t be applicable in areas of deeper drilling.

Officials with the Texas Railroad Commission, which oversees the state’s oil and gas industry, did not respond to an e-mail request asking whether the Pavillion study could affect drilling here. However, commission chairwoman Elizabeth Ames Jones is on the record as saying, “Hydraulic fracturing does not go on close to the surface here, and it would be impossible [for gas or drilling wastes] to migrate up from miles below the earth to the water table.”

Alisa Rich, owner of Wolf Eagle Environmental, which did the air studies for DISH and elsewhere, thinks that is nonsense. “Encana suggests that methane migrates in the Pavillion gas field naturally and leaves it at that. And yes, gas can migrate,” she said. “But most gas has to be stimulated to be released, particularly if the volume of gas increases substantially.”

That stimulation could be caused by underground tremors that open fissures in shale formations. But, Rich said, when water wells have historically never had methane contamination, and suddenly there are large volumes of methane coming up with the water near hydraulic fracking, “then there is a fairly logical hypothesis that can be made that that stimulation had an effect on the geology to cause those increases.”

Even with the deeper gas wells typical in the Barnett, stimulation through fracking could produce the same result, she said. “If someone fracks below an aquifer and that aquifer doesn’t have a confined bottom — if it’s contained in sandstone, for instance — the gas set free could very well migrate up and into that aquifer.”

Rich noted that it would be almost impossible for the man-made chemicals found in the water from Pavillion’s deep monitoring wells to have gotten there except through fracking.

Dozens of cases have been reported around the country of water wells getting contaminated from deep fracking. Amy Mall, a staff member of the National Resources Defense Council, keeps an ongoing list of such contamination reports. Of the 36 cases detailed on her blog, nine are in the Barnett Shale.

Don Young’s bumper sticker says it all.

“And those are only the cases where people made a public issue of it,” Mall said. “So often we don’t hear about water contamination because the gas companies responsible make a settlement with the affected well owner that includes a non-disclosure agreement.”

How many more cases are out there? AScientific American article published last October cited a Duke University study from earlier in 2011 that found “methane levels in dozens of drinking-water wells within a kilometer [3,280 feet] of new fracking sites were 17 times higher than in wells farther away.”

Calvin Tillman, the former mayor of DISH, at the epicenter of the Barnett Shale, said that he’s glad the EPA has finally gotten into the fray. “I think it’s a big step for a governmental agency to come out and show what everybody has been thinking,” he said. “No one ever had the smoking gun before, and we do. Hopefully that will help improve situations around the country where gas is being drilled.”

Sharon Wilson, coordinator for Earthworks’ Texas Oil and Gas Accountability Project and author of the BlueDaze: Drilling Reform web site, said she’s glad that the EPA’s Pavillion study was done. But, she said,  “None of this stuff is new to people who live in the gas patch. We know that gas drilling is contaminating our water and our air. The problem is that ordinary people cannot afford to bear the burden of proof against the richest industry on the planet.”

Wilson sees the EPA’s Pavillion study as a first step in shifting the burden of proof from the affected citizens to the industry, “where it should be. Private citizens shouldn’t have to spend millions of dollars to prove that industry polluted their water.” If the gas industry comes in and pollution follows closely on their heels, she said, “it should be on the backs of the industry to prove that they didn’t cause it.”

She cited the Parker County case, where Range Resources is accused of polluting water wells so badly that residents’ tap water became flammable. “The EPA simply shifted the burden onto Range by issuing an ‘imminent and substantial endangerment’ order and told Range they had to prove they had not polluted those wells.

“The industry claims to have a record of clean work,” she said. “What they really have is a record of pollution and non-disclosure agreements.”

Drilling itself is far from the only source of environmental troubles posed by the shale gas industry. There are two other areas where recent developments are undercutting the industry’s denials of environmental damage — and strengthening the resolve of activists. Both concern what drilling is doing to the stability of the ground itself.

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The quake in Youngstown, Ohio, hit on New Year’s Eve, but its effects could reverberate far longer and further than the temblor itself.

The 4.0 magnitude quake originated directly below an injection well. The next day, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources shut down the well. It was the 11th earthquake originating below the well site since March 2011 and the strongest.

Injection wells have been suspected of causing earthquakes in Oklahoma, Arkansas, and North Texas, but the Youngstown well was the first to be outfitted with sensors to actually track that relationship.

John Armbruster, a seismologist with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, was involved in interpreting the findings. “The well opened in December 2010, and the first earthquake occurred three months later,” he said. “In November 2011, after the ninth earthquake happened, Ohio officials asked the university for scientific help.”

Armbruster and his colleagues installed four seismographs in the area. “And then on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve when we recorded earthquakes, we were able to determine that their epicenters were about 3,000 feet directly below where the gas wastewater and chemicals were being injected,” he said.

His team at Columbia monitors earthquakes in New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Connecticut, and New Jersey. Experience, he said, has drawn his team to “understand the connection between injection wells and earthquakes. Simple reasoning makes you ask if that connection is possible. And as a scientist I have to say this link is accepted.”

Not every injection well is likely to cause quakes, Armbruster said — it depends on the geology. The Youngstown well was operating “only one kilometer from where some earthquakes were waiting to happen. It was an unlucky well.”

On the other hand, he said, every such well should be watched. “If it was up to me, I would monitor every injection well closely, and at the first sign of a [small] earthquake, I’d have them shut down before there were larger ones.

“Right now we’re in a situation where you inject into the well, and if it cries out with earthquakes, then you react,” he said.

The injection wells are more likely to cause quakes than the gas wells themselves, the seismologist said, because the waste-disposal wells are drilled so much deeper.

He also noted another potential geological danger associated with gas drilling. In areas where there has been heavy drilling or where huge quantities of water have been removed from an aquifer, the land might subside.

“Try to picture Southern California’s Imperial Valley. They’ve sucked so much water out of the aquifer there for so long that the entire valley has sunk about 30 feet,” he said. “I have not studied the Fort Worth situation, but it’s not impossible that there might one day be potential geological problems with sucking so much gas and water from beneath the city. If it settled, let’s say, 20 feet, certainly that could potentially cause serious problems. Would floors crack? Walls crack?”

The issue hasn’t gotten much coverage, but it’s not new either. More than a decade ago the U.S. Geological Survey released a paper noting that more than 17,000 square miles in 45 states had been affected by land subsidence and pinpointing water extraction as a cause of 80 percent of that. But mining for hydrocarbons was also mentioned as a reason: Subsidence in the Goose Creek oilfield near Galveston was first noted in the mid-1920s, for instance.

Fracking for gas severely affects the underground pressure of both aquifers and gas-bearing shale. On average, it takes three to five million gallons of water to frack a well in the Barnett Shale, and then huge amounts of gas are extracted, changing the pressure levels in underground geologic formations.

“It’s certainly possible that you’re going to have subsidence problems in Fort Worth,” said Lynn Highland, a geographer with the U.S.G.S. She said it is very difficult to predict where it would occur because of the time and expense needed to study the underground geology of an area. “But when you take that much water out of the ground and that much gas, you’re changing the integrity of what’s going on with the geology,” she said. “And once you do that, let’s just say that homeowners quickly find out that they’re generally not covered by homeowner’s insurance when subsidence occurs.”

Mark Engle, a research geologist with the same agency, said that subsidence is already happening in the Fort Worth Basin, a region that’s been heavily drilled for oil and gas for a long time, with fracking only the latest new twist. “So the question is how much more will occur because of hydraulic water fracturing? There is no way around the fact that we’re removing the infrastructure of the geology.”

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In January 2011, Encana asked the EPA to suspend public comment on the draft report because the company did not get all of the data the EPA had used in compiling it. Two weeks later, the Pavillion Area Concerned Citizens wrote to the EPA urging the agency to continue its investigation in the area. That sentiment was supported by both Earthworks’ OGAP and the Powder River Basin Resource Council.

In their letter, Gwen Lachelt, director of Earthworks’ OGAP, called the accusations that the EPA is withholding data “a political ploy to cover up the results and bring a halt to the study. We’ve seen this time and again with industry shirking responsibility and the government turning its back on the people who bear the impact of energy development in our country.”

“The people of Pavillion are living on a pool of bubbling, frothing, toxic chemicals,” said Powder River spokesman Thomas. “It’s a very dangerous situation. I strongly believe that all those affected should have the opportunity to leave if they want to leave.”

“Everybody says I should leave,” Meeks said. “I know I should leave. But where would I get the money to buy another place? Everything I’ve got is wrapped up in this place, and I couldn’t sell it because it’s worthless now. And I’m angry. I have nothing against oil and gas if it’s done right. But done the way it’s been done here, well, it’s a human-rights violation.”

Longtime Fort Worth activist Don Young, who sounded the alarm on gas drilling when it first began here, isn’t surprised by either the pollution left in the wake of the gas drilling at Pavillion or the industry’s howls.

“I’m glad the EPA is there, and I hope they keep their investigation going, but what the industry is doing, and has always done, is plant the seed of doubt in the public’s mind: ‘The water is not our problem. Air contamination is not our problem. Earthquakes are not our problem.’ And it’s been an effective campaign, even though it’s a lie.

“I’m glad to see the EPA is finally planting a seed itself, that there is a connection between the contamination and the drilling,” he said. “It’s too bad those people had to suffer like that before that connection was made.

“What I said years ago remains true today: We can’t drink natural gas.”