A Sunday Surprise At the Fort Worth Beach Street Trinity River Gas Driller Pump Site

Today, Sunday, around noon, I was back at the Beach Street/Gateway Park site where I had an encounter with a White Darth Vader Truck Friday morning.

To recap, Wednesday afternoon I took pictures of the 6 pumps that I found at what I now know is East Side Unit #2H in the Oxbow Lands.

I said I saw no permits. And speculated as to the legality of this operation, what with the absence of posted permits.

Someone, I now believe to be an Express Energy Services employee, commented on the Wednesday blogging, saying I was clueless. I then blogged about me being clueless.

Then Friday morning, at 8:21, I got another comment, from what I believe to be the same Anonymous commenter, to the original Wednesday blogging about the subject, telling me that there are permits posted saying, "You also didn't take the time to go look at the permits that are posted on the pumps....where are THOSE pictures?!"

They were hard to notice, because on Wednesday they were not there.

So, I figured this Anonymous person would not be so brazen as to lie about there being permits posted, maybe somehow I had missed them, I thought, so, it being a short distance away, I drove to the site of the 6 pumps, once more saw no permits, saw more holes in the plastic oil barrier and on my way out of there had my encounter with the White Darth Vader Truck.

Yesterday, when driving on Beach Street I saw that intakes had now been stuck into the Trinity River and some sort of barrier placed in the river.

So, this morning I went back to East Side Unit 2H and guess what I found? Permits have been duct taped to the sides of all 6 pumps! Look at the picture at the top and you'll see where the permit is taped. You can look at the pictures I took on Friday to see there were no permits taped to the pumps at that time.

And the plastic oil barrier has been totally beefed up.

I'm thinking Friday morning someone gave Express Energy Services employees the directive to post the permits and fix the plastic oil barrier. The comment was then sent out to me, telling me the pumps had permits posted, with the commenter never thinking that within minutes of me getting the comment I would be checking the pumps again. To find no permits.

That is all pretty funny.

Now, looking at the permits is very interesting. The permits, if they actually are valid permits, are issued to the Purchaser, Finley Resources, Inc. Not Express Energy Services. A company that we learned yesterday, thanks to the research efforts of my West Texas Operative, CT2, has gone through Chapter 11 bankruptcy, leaving a lot of creditors in its bankruptcy wake.

On the permits there is a list of 5 conditions the Purchaser is subject to, listed A through E. Part B. says the Purchaser, that being Finley Resources, Inc. shall not sell or permit others to use said water, nor will Purchaser use said water for any purpose other than drilling.

I may be quibbling here, but I thought the water was used for fraccing, not drilling. And if only Finley Resources, Inc. can use the water, does this mean Finley Resources, Inc. is yet one more gas drilling company I've not heard of? Did Finley Resources, Inc. hire Express Energy Services to install the pumps and pipeline?

Each of the permits says "VOLUME: 150,000 barrels." Does this mean each of the pumps can pump that volume of water?

Another interesting item on the permits is "COST: $15,000 Payable in Advance." With each permit having, in handwriting, "Pd ck#44509." I assume that being the number of the check used to pay $15,000. Each permit has a different check number on it.

So, the grand total for the 6 pumps, paid to the Tarrant Regional Water District is $90,000, with the total VOLUME pumped being 900,000 Barrels? That sounds like an awful lot of water for $90,000.

Why is it that the pump that was previously in this location, the solo pump I blogged about months ago, which I also said had no permit posted anywhere, never did have a permit posted? Are any of you out there, who are seeing these pumps, also seeing permits.

So, I guess a few of my questions have been sort of answered. I still don't get how selling water for these purposes does not violate the mandate under which the Tarrant Regional Water District is supposed to operate, that being protecting the precious water from specious uses.

And another big question remains, besides the propriety of issuing these permits, is how is this water pumping metered? Honor system?