By: RT.com, 12/13/2013

The Dallas City Council passed Wednesday new restrictions that bar hydraulic fracturing within 1,500 feet of a home, school, church, and other protected areas. The new rules effectively ban the practice within the city. The council approved the ordinance in a vote of 9-6, with Mayor Mike Rawlings voting for it. The city is on the edge of the Barnett Shale area, predicted to be a treasure trove of onshore natural gas reserves. However, the new limit placed on hydraulic fracturing - known as fracking - effectively bans the practice.

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By: RT.com, 11/28/2013

Northern Texas towns are experiencing an intense string of earthquakes – the last of which was one of the most powerful in 5 years. As unusual tremors have been going on for over 3 weeks now, many suspect fracking might be to blame.

On Thursday, the region experienced two tremors, with one of them registering 3.6 magnitude, 55 km west of the town of Azle at 07:58:36 GMT, as recorded by the US Geological Service, and the other 2.8 at 08:41:07 GMT, with the epicenter not far from the first one. USGS records show that the 3.6 tremor was one of the strongest earthquakes to hit the region in 5 years. “It sounded like a sonic boom, and then the house started shaking,” Keith Krayer, a local resident who felt the effects of the quake, told RT. Krayer said he had no doubt the quake was sparked by fracking. “When they frack, they inject all that water and chemicals into the ground, then they pump it back up and separate the gas from the water, then they have to dispose of that water 13,000 feet down. It causes the plates to slip, the lubrication from the water.”

Reuters, By: Reuters, 11/04/2013

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Carbon dioxide injected into oil and gas wells may have caused a series of minor earthquakes in Texas long before the adoption of current hydraulic fracking, according to a study published on Monday in a national science journal. The study, which analyzed 93 earthquakes that occurred between March 2009 and December 2010, appears to be the first to link earthquakes of magnitude 3 and above and carbon dioxide injections in the Cogdell oil field near Snyder, Texas.

Tremors in the area that occurred between 1975 and 1982 were previously linked to the injection of water into wells but the same explanation could not be applied to earthquakes that occurred in late 2000s, the paper's two authors said. "The timing of gas injection suggests it may have contributed to triggering the recent seismic activity," the study said. "If so, this represents an instance where gas injection has triggered earthquakes having magnitudes 3 and larger."

The Texas Tribune, By: Kate Galbraith, 06/07/2013

Barnhart, a small community in West Texas, has run out of water. John Nanny, an Irion County commissioner and an official with Barnhart’s water supply corporation, said on Thursday that the situation was serious. When reached by telephone, he was working on pumping operations and hoped to have a backup well in service Friday morning. A load of bottled water was on its way to the community center, he said.

The town has one main well that serves 112 customers, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. But the well stopped pumping quickly enough Tuesday evening, and while there is still some water in it, Nanny said, “We don’t want to get down to the mud.”

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