Howdy y’all! Charlie and Sharon were in the Eagle Ford in Texas and Charlie was also in the Permian in New Mexico this month. We can confirm that, even in May, the Eagle Ford is quite hot and humid. Unfortunately, as the laws of physics have not changed, this means higher methane emissions like it does every summer.

Our Work in the Media

Justin was quoted in a piece about European imports of ammonia made from fracked shale gas in Texas.

“The findings have also raised concerns among experts who have spent years tracking methane emissions in the Permian oil and gas fields, among them Justin Mikulka, communications director at the Texas-based NGO Oilfield Witness.

‘We know the Permian is one of the worst hotspots for oil and gas methane emissions globally,’ says Mikulka.”

Sharon was featured in an article on methane hunters.

“When Sharon Wilson arrives on site at an oil and gas facility in Texas, it’s the smell that often greets her first. An odor similar to rotten eggs or a mechanic shop can come from toxic pollutants emitted during fossil fuel production, like hydrogen sulfide and benzene. But Wilson is also there to capture an invisible, odorless pollutant: methane, a potent greenhouse gas that can only be seen through her optical gas imaging camera.

Wilson and her crew at advocacy nonprofit Oilfield Witness are called “methane hunters” — but she simply points her camera at an oil and gas facility and can see a black cloud on screen as the instrument picks up hydrocarbons absorbing infrared in real time.

“The oil and gas industry says ‘Look, you can see our site — you can’t see anything.’” she said. “Well, yeah, you can with one of those cameras.”

Charlie was quoted in a major piece from Searchlight on the impacts of the oil industry on workers and wildlife.

“They can’t sleep, they can’t eat properly, they can’t properly forage for food and they can’t reproduce,” says Charlie Barrett, a field ecologist and thermographer with Oilfield Witness.

Fieldwork

Sharon and Charlie went to the Eagle Ford shale basin in Texas for continuing education work with Tim Doty, who is a certified Infrared Training Center Level III thermographer. As part of this work they documented more of the ongoing emissions disaster in the Eagle Ford.

Tim and Charlie in the Eagle Ford

Marathon Sugarhorn

On this trip to the Eagle Ford, Sharon revisited a site she has been observing for over a decade. Sharon explains this long history:

“Marathon Sugarhorn and I have a long history. March 6-7, 2014, is the first time I visited the Marathon Sugarhorn Facility in Karnes County Texas in the heart of the Eagle Ford Shale. This was prior to my certification as a thermographer in June  2014 and I was using an older model optical gas imaging camera borrowed from ShaleTest. The emission event I recorded over those two days traveled over 22 miles to spike a state air monitor and ended up in a peer-reviewed paper. I have documented over 11 years of intense pollution from Sugarhorn despite the installation of best available control technologies.”

Education

Sharon gave a lecture at a Liveable Arlington event focused on “Revealing Pollution Through the Lifecycle of Natural Gas”

Our Writing

Charlie wrote about his visit to the notorious Artesia refinery located near an elementary school where he found ongoing emissions.

“Utilizing an optical gas imaging camera, we were able to visualize the emissions emanating from the facility, and it quickly became apparent that every stack in site was releasing uncombusted and/or partially combusted pollutants into the air.”

Justin wrote about how the U.S. shale oil and gas industry is still deeply in debt and unlikely to ever turn a profit as U.S. oil production is now in decline.

“The U.S. shale industry has peaked and it is still in a deep financial hole. Meanwhile, the world has changed in some big ways that make the odds of a financial turn-around of the U.S. shale industry highly unlikely.”

Video Work

We learned about our friends at Jersey House studio when they made a video about methane hunters based on our work. We collaborated with them on a new piece about worker safety issues.

Last year Rolling Stone published an article by Justin Nobel on worker safety issues after Sharon informed Nobel about the case of Jeff Springman — a Texas oilfield worker turned whistleblower. This new video is based on those real life events.

Jeff is currently in hospice. He sued Diamondback, the site owner, and his direct employer Pilot, for hydrocarbon poisoning caused by manual tank gauging. Diamondback settled but the litigation with Pilot is ongoing. His final wish? Expose an industry practice that’s killed workers and poisons families living near wells.

If you are interested in organizing for labor rights to improve safety for oilfield workers, text or call (432) 201-1061.

– Till the end of oil

The Oilfield Witness Team