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Texas Family Awarded $2.9 Million In Fracking Lawsuit
New submitter martinQblank writes "CNN reports: A Texas family whose home was within a two-mile radius of 22 natural gas wells — one of which was less than 800 feet away — has been awarded $2.9 million by a jury. The family, who suffered from a variety of ailments (including nosebleeds, rashes, migraines and more), was advised by a doctor to leave their ranch immediately and see a physician specializing in environmental health. The defendant in the case, Aruba Petroleum, disagreed with the jury's decision, as did other attorneys who are familiar with the energy sector — calling in a 'knee-jerk' reaction. Additionally the company noted that they had complied with all applicable environmental regulations. The family itself? Still in favor of oil and natural gas extraction: 'We are not anti-fracking or anti-drilling. My goodness, we live in Texas. Keep it in the pipes, and if you have a leak or spill, report it and be respectful to your neighbors. If you are going to put this stuff in close proximity to homes, be respectful and careful.'"
We are not anti-fracking or anti-drilling. My goodness, we live in Texas.
Yeah, we love fracking! Now give us the 2.9 million dollars...
You're still responsible for the damage you cause, even if it's accidental. Your action, your responsibility.
The $2.9 million, minus attorney fees, costs, and taxes, might be just enough to compensate the family for their loss. Keep in mind that if any family members develop cancer or some other ailment later in life as a result of the company's irresponsibility, then that will probably be covered under this award as well.
If it had been an order of magnitude larger, then we could talk about "knee jerk".
I think we should add "mental retardation" to their list of ailments.
$2.9 million? Frackin' eh!
The lawyers got a jury to agree. That doesn't mean it will stand; we've all seen verdicts based on emotion that get tossed based on facts.
If TFA describes it correctly, there is not a shred of evidence that their ailments are related to fracking. They have common health problems and simply ascribe them to some cause that seems plausible to them and that lets them sue and blame someone else.
Having said that, I don't believe companies should be drilling for oil within a few hundred feet of existing residential areas, simply because they will get sued for noise, smell, and other nuisances.
I have had nosebleeds and rashes, and my mother got migraines when I lived with my parents, there MUST be a secret fracking operation going on near our home. Or maybe one of those wind 'death maker' turbines that is destroying our country! Killing several of our birds every year! Stinking up the view. I, as a citizen, DEMAND inexpensive clean energy, I dont want any of my tax dollars spent on developing it, and I dont want it in my back yard. Is that too much to ask as I sit at home, watching my 80" TV, with every light in my 4000 sq ft house that only myself and my wife live in, or while I drive my massively over powered car through the dirty countryside. Is that too much to ask!?
But why is fracking exempt from the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, National Environmental Policy Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act?
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
With 22 wells nearby, the chances of their water not being contaminated are very low.. Thus industry lifetime Failure rate for these wells runs 30% to 50%!
The industry really needs to step up to the plate and improve their drilling tech and methods. Hopefully more and more juries around the country will impose these costs on the oil and gas industry. Either clean up or get out!!
Personally, we really don't need this fossil fuel tech, when Renewable energy sources are very capable of fulfilling ALL our energy needs . We know fossil fuels are finite.. they're going to run out, sooner or later.. Let's jump into the future and skip over these nasty fault prone energy sources. It boarders to the point of insanity, that the general public hasn't figured this out..
Regulatory capture.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
I think the word you're looking for is "Cheney."
Any bets on what the award will be after the appeals are done with?
Passionately Indifferent
Was OMG the libs have penetrated Texas..
Then I gave it a bit more thought and got over myself. The point of a judgement like this, is that it's supposed to sting. It's a whole lot of money for doctor's bills, but not a whole lot of money if the intent is to punish. It's enough though, that I think Aruba (and others) will take notice. Not very many businesses can write a $2.9M check and walk it off in an afternoon.
But first, I don't see any real evil here. The ground around a working oil well is a messy place. You can't help but spill a little, and there's no malfeasance necessary to occasionally spill a lot (what you and I would call a lot). Every time I get gas, at least one drop hits the pavement, no matter how hard I try to tap it off. I totally believe Aruba when they say they did everything they were supposed to do.
I just think that what they are supposed to do, is probably fine for a well out in the middle of a field, but not good enough for a well in a neighborhood. Texas society, acting through their civil court, has pulled somewhat ahead of their regulations and legislation. And one has to think that eventually society will want wells to be cleaner even when they are out in the middle of nowhere.
So, if I am going to be all small government conservative, and pull for states and local folks to take more control of their lives from the mean old federal government, then I need to get my head right, and totally support this judgment. That means encouraging the oil companies to pay up and clean up, and pull themselves ahead of where they are, and catch up to where Texans now want them to be. They've moved the goalposts on you Aruba, but they have that right. And Texas, please continue to give my my under $4 a gallon gas, but don't poison your state and people while doing so. Thank you very much. :)
I've reviewed the numbers on your "renewable energy" site. They're nonsensical: they don't take into account the energy requirements of growing population, air conditioning for dense urban areas, desalinization for water supplies, nor the chemical needs for replacing cheap refined petroleum for plastics with manufacturing those plastics as petroleum supplies are exhausted.
Retaining anything like the current American lifestyle, or providing it to the growing world population, requires a new energy source. The only one that works without fundamentally new physics discoveries is space-based solar mirrors, which are _feasible_. They do have enormous startup costs and present a real risk of abuse as weapons. Arthur C. Clarke described how they can be orbited in non-geo-synchronous altitudes, using solar wind and light pressure to provide thrust to stabilize them in orbits that would require constant thrust to be geo-synchronous.
The settlement is on the low side of reasonable considering they been poisoned, nearly killed and lost the family home?
... "Oh frak."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Did any expert detected abnormal gases, unusual vibrations, any traces of radiation inside the family home ? Where is the science in this ?
negative externalities
ayottesoftware.com
Because of the golden rule: he who has the gold makes the rules.
Why you ask? Money and power. The excuse of course will turn out to be the same one that has been used for so many other abuses of rights since 9/11. Wonder how many of those people that died that day would be ashamed of how their deaths have been used to reduce the liberty they enjoyed?
General John Stark: Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils.
Considering the US wastes 61 to 86 percent of its energy, we've got plenty of room for improvement. Even the Toyota Prius is only 25% fuel efficient. Your average auto is around 10%. and that does NOT include all the losses involved in finding/refining/delivering the gas. Again lot's of room for improvement.
I have eight (8) fracked gas wells less than 300ft from my house. I get nose bleeds all the time. I’m going to sue the hell out of the bastards!!! (nevermind my nose bleeds are due to allergies did I say that outloud???)
I don’t know how many of y’all have been to Texas but the wind is blowing constantly. Any emissions from these wells are well down the highway seconds after being released. The thought that they will linger enough to cause these health issues is ridiculous. More likely they are being affected by the dust kicked up by all the water trucks that come in and out taking away the water overflow from these wells. Instead of sueing the well owners in a 2-mile radius they need to go after the well owners 20-miles upwind...
The award will not survive appeal.
Karma: Bad
I really enjoy seeing all the negative posts about these people. How about this, allow a Oil Co. to set up 20 frac rigs around your neighborhood and see if anything changes in your or your family's health. This shouldn't be a debate anymore, its been proven that this technique contaminates. Does that mean we should stop? No. Should these companies do more to prevent this? Yes. They should also do a better job compensating folks if they cause obvious damage. Just because most of you live in a metro or don't have any of this happening near you, doesn't mean it's not happening. It's always funny to see folks defend these companies that truly don't give a crap if you defend them or not, they still make money!! :P
How long before Congress passes a law limiting damages in Fracking lawsuits limited to $50,000? Maybe next year, this this is an election year.
Room for improvement, certainly. Enough to replace fossil fuels, no. That remaining 20-30%, even if we were far more efficient, is a limiting factor, and it's being expanded worldwide with growing population and growing wealth. Without investing enormous amounts of arable land and water that are needed for food production (for biofuels), or an unheralded shift in efficiency of solar cells (which is hoped for, but for which there are no proven technologies) and reduction in the toxic effects of their manufacture , or a profound breakthrough in hydrogen based rather than tritium based or deuterium based fusion (which no one has achieved), or a large improvement in efficiency, safety, and waste disposal for fusion, there's nothing left that looks technologically feasible and renewable.
Switching from gasoline to electrical motors does not solve the overall energy problem. Though often more efficient, there's still a tremendous consumption to support.
Yeah, pretty much this.
We all know that extraction companies do idiotic and careless things and don't give a fuck about safety -- either of their workers or of the environment around them.
We also know that a lot of environmentalists advocate the complete cessation of fracking and drilling even though that makes no practical sense (for now).
And so we've lost the middle ground of wanting a strong extractive industry with strong environmental safeguards and a culture of safety grown up around it. It would be a strategic error for companies to adopt such a policy in a situation where environmentalists are going to oppose them politically and legally anyway no matter what they do. And it would be a strategic error for environmentalists to advocate for responsible extraction given that the companies are going to weasel out of it anyway.
I know where we want to go, I think it's certainly technologically and economically feasible to extract oil and gas without damaging the environment. But the way we pursue it is fundamentally broken on all sides.
[ And none of this is intended to be negative. I consider myself an environmentalist and a technologist FWIW. ]
But why is fracking exempt from the Clean Air Act
Fracking doesn't occur in the air
Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act
Fracking occurs a mile or more away from the water table
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
Frack water isn't a resource
Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act
it occurs a mile below a community, and generally miles outside of town.
I'm hoping this was sarcasm. If not, for the love of FSM, find a non-politicized site to read up on what fracking actually is.
This sort of thing always make you recall the microwave wingnuts who sued a new microwave station for causing terrible health problems, only to find out it hadn't yet gone live. That said, the problem in TX is that there is no requirement that they must list the chemical/amounts they inject - they can cloak them as "trade secrets.". (Remember, big bidness uber alles in Texas.) Given that, there is no way to prove symptom cause/effect. Given that, I have little problem with the verdict...
So you want to beat entropy then? Good luck.
The effects of RF radiation has long proven to be harmless by the scientific consensus of virtually all studies and there are still people insisting that RF from cell phones and WIFI are causing their psychosomatic illnesses and are willing to go to court to sue their neighbors over it. The main ingredient in fracking Dihydrogen Monoxide, the exact same ingredient used in Homopathic medications that millions believe in to be effective treatment that can replace standard medicine. Expect full disclosure to change absolutely nothing as there are people who literally believe that even purified water alone can have magical properties that can fundamentally alter their health.
the company noted that they had complied with all applicable environmental regulations
Which in Texas means very little.
That whenever you pepper your misguided missive at "liberal idiots" or "conservative morons", you are basically saying that your brain can only process a 6 year old's level of communication, correct? Anyone with a brain laughs at people like you, because you barely qualify as sentient. You are a propaganda repeater, and have no ability to form original thoughts in that vacuum of a mind you have.
If these wells are engineered and drilled in a responsible way there will be absolutely ZERO chance of polluting ground and surface water.
The problem is a lack of regulation and cowboy outfits that often disappear overnight.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Where I live (ok, within a few hundred miles), a company was pulling heavy oil out of the ground and it was causing local ranchers to get sick. It was determined that the company was venting (as was allowed) a certain amount of gas, and it was also determined that this particular oilfield/heavy oil source had a higher than expected amount of sulphur and H2S. The company was ordered to pay some compensation to the ranchers, and their license was amended to eliminate venting (which they said they would comply with). Water and air are common, and shouldn't be destroyed/contaminated. Oil companies make a lot of money, but they shouldn't impact the ability of others to run their businesses (and few people ranch or farm just as a hobby: its a business).
"Additionally the company noted that they had complied with all applicable environmental regulations."
Doesn't matter. If you cause damage, you owe damages.
227-3517
1) BUSINESS COST. Shell already has said it's not profitable to extract frack gas at current prices. This is with extensive deregulation, circumvention, and violations. The industry wastes massive amounts during extraction which they don't even consider worth the cost to recover. Shale oil is never cheap; it requires high oil prices and that is with the poor regulation it has today. Deep water is less bad but also expensive, they don't take precautions or figure out how to do it safely... that one might be profitable after regulation. In addition, reality makes theses difficult methods take more energy to extract and process even if you somehow found cheap solutions it still takes huge amounts of energy. I suppose the middle ground is ignoring or eliminating regulations or subsidies? (all of which are unethical.)
2) As the USA falls further into despotism (the plutocratic form) functional regulation dies and it is replaced with propaganda. Religious (economic) "tough love" or "poison is good for you," take your pick. No acceptable middle ground between slow death or fast death.
3) Global warming becomes a bigger unchecked problem and people are starting to notice the impacts... which are not yet at a level of an invasion (which always motivates/necessitates a response.) There is no middle ground; other than procrastinating by surrendering territory which makes the inevitable fight more difficult.
Now proper regulation would raise costs significantly and put pressure on finding REAL solutions sooner which is why environmentalists want to use them to prohibit dirty industry growth; HOWEVER, we are actually beyond that point today where industry has to corrupt the whole system to continue to be profitable. Yes there is still cheap oil still pumping but demand far exceeds it so much that even the Saudis are doing offshore extraction to keep up when they claim to have plenty of life left in the ground (either they are lying or desperate to meet demand...as if higher demand was their problem to solve...) By corrupting the system we've made the transition even more painful than it would have been. Naturally, industry also been a part of saying alternatives are not perfect enough to start using them while it undermines and stalls.
Nuclear power is a great example. A still functioning regulatory system makes nuclear power more costly than solar PV. This is still the case with the large government subsidies involved in that industry already. There is no reason nuclear couldn't be run by the gov for baseload power as a non-profit, at a loss. The military handles it's nuclear power better and a base load power grid is a national security issue... Perhaps better designs would be possible, I keep hearing other nations do a better job deciding such things; like Canada for example.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
We are not anti-fracking or anti-drilling. My goodness, we live in Texas.
Yeah, we love fracking! Now give us the 2.9 million dollars...
I love cars. However, if you drove a car into my house and caused serious injury to my family, I would expect monetary compensation from you to cover the damages and medical bills.
1 or 22 wells, it doesn't matter.
If these wells are engineered and drilled in a responsible way there will be absolutely ZERO chance of polluting ground and surface water.
You seem to not undrstand how fracking works. It is based on the idea of injecting CONTAMINATION into the ground, which in turn releases even more contamination.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
Technology has made oil irrelevant except to protect entrenched economic monopolies. There is no reason to not modernize infrastructure.
2.9 Million for your home and health? Ripoff.
I agree some of the chemicals used in the US fracking business are unpleasant but the quantities are very small and like fracking of a one-off nature.
All oil and gas wells produce 'associated' water and it is always a health hazard, similar to the oil and condensate from the same wells.
In other words, when treating the fracking chemicals exactly as the associated water from these wells there is no health hazard at all.
Other countries have regulated the type of chemicals used, this has not at all stopped companies investing in those places, the process depends mainly on water, sand (a ceramic called proppant) and high pressure.
Oh yes, the frack itself costs per well between half an hour and maybe two hours at the most, plus a couple of days rigging up and down.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
It sounds like they have an indoor air quality problem. I don't see where they considered other far more likely sources such as a bad water heater, furnace or stove producing carbon monoxide, refrigerator, air conditioner, or freezer leaking freon, etc. Go straight for someone you can sue - that's the American way.
I hope more and more families are awarded big, juicy settlements like this, to the point where it's no longer worthwhile for frackers to have those regulatory exemptions.
@ "Additionally the company noted that they had complied with all applicable environmental regulations."
Regulatory agencies do not grant regulated companies a right to injure others' properties, liberties, or lives. If they did, it would be an unconstitutional taking of property, liberty, or life without due process and just compensation under the 5th and 14th Amendments. For that reason and because environmental regulations may be inadequate to protect third parties, compliance with applicable environmental regulations is not an affirmative defense to a toxic tort claim. Such compliance may be admissible as evidence, but it creates no legal right to pollute if it results in harm to others. One need look no further than the pollution permits issued by regulatory agencies to read that the permit does not grant permission to harm others.
Paul E. Merrell, J.D.
Dear AC, there's a difference between "the Act does not apply" and "the Act is not allowed to apply".
No fracking way!
A jury of ignorant, frighten people award money to an ignorant, frightened sick family from a corporation doing something the jury doesn't understand with chemicals the jury has never heard of and have no idea what kind of side effects might occur from exposure.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.