MONTAGUE COUNTY PROPERTY OWNERS

ASSOCIATION
UPPER CLEAR CREEK RANGE and WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT
ASSOCIATION
P O BOX 512
SAINT JO, TEXAS 76265-0512
Telephone 940-995-2349
www.themcpoa.com

July 14, 2010

RECENT NEWS

FENCO Contractors Group, LLC

As we noted in our news letter of June 22nd, FENCO has been granted
a hearing date (August 25, 2010) in Austin before a Hearing Examiner.
FENCO will have lawyers and other highly paid consultants making
presentations to the Hearing Examiner in an effort to convince the
Examiner to grant FENCO a permit to build and operate a Commercial
Stationary Treatment facility on 90.19 acres 3 miles west of Saint Jo at
the intersection of State Highway 59 and Starkey Road.

FENCO was first denied a permit administratively for its project on

June 19, 2008. To their credit the RRC Wichita Falls District Office
stated in writing they were “Not Recommending” the RRC
Commissioners grant a permit to FENCO.

FENCO then amended its application in hopes that if they put a band
aid on the project they might fool the RRC staff in Wichita Falls
(District 9) and squeak by.

The RCC reply to the amended application came from Jill Hybner,
Manager Environmental Permits and Support Technical Permitting, in
Austin, who wrote in her letter of June 25, 2010 that “The amended
application has been reviewed and cannot be approved
administratively.” Among the many reasons she gave for refusing to
approve the FENCO amended application were the following:

1) The site is located on a sensitive area.

 2) It is at or near the contact with the Antlers Sand Formation,
which is a recharge area of the Trinity Aquifer.
3) The location is on a topographic high with intermittent streams
at lower elevations to the north, south, east and west.
4) Drainage ways on and adjacent to the site have slopes as high
as 40 percent and include a drop in elevation of approximately
80 feet.
5) Any liner leakage has the potential to percolate through the
fractured limestone until reaching a confining layer, move
laterally and emerge down slope.
6) The Wichita Falls District Office maintains that the property is
not conducive for the operation of a Stationary Waste Treatment
facility.
7) The disposal of oil and gas waste at this facility offers potential
for the pollution of surface water and subsurface water.

The RRC staff findings and the opinions of independent Hydrologists

working with the Upper Trinity Groundwater Conservation District
(UTGCD) and the City of Saint Jo are the same; “The disposal of oil
and gas waste at this facility offers potential for the contamination of
surface water and subsurface water.” The UTGCD and the City of
Saint Jo have legal counsel and consultants who will present
evidence at the hearing as to why the permit application should be
denied.

The RRC cannot violate its own rules and “Statewide Rule 8 provides
that no person conducting activities subject to regulation by the
Commission may cause or allow pollution of surface or subsurface
water in the state.” One would assume that the Commissioners would
have to deny FENCO’s application based on Statewide Rule 8.

However, the Oil and Gas lobby in Austin is one of the most influential
and powerful forces in writing State statutes and RRC rules that apply
to the O&G industry. Likewise, RRC Chairman Victor Carrillo, who
spoke on July 8, 2010 in Fort Worth before the US EPA’s first of four
public meetings to be held nationwide on hydraulic fracturing said
“The Railroad Commission had no documented cases of water
contamination due to the process.” Many of the 600 people present
vehemently disagreed with Commissioner Carrillo.
The property where FENCO plans to put its Stationary Waste
Treatment Facility is the same rock quarry site where the Nunneley
Commercial Disposal Facility was located in the 1990s. In 1998 the
RRC District Office ordered Nunneley “to cease any further drilling
mud disposal operations at the site due to the operator not being able
to contain the drilling mud on the permitted site. It was observed
during the previous operations that the drilling mud being unloaded
on the ground in the rock quarry was draining through the extremely
porous and permeable rocky material into an unpermitted area
downslope from the rock quarry site.”

FENCO is fully aware of the extremely porous and permeable rocky

material at the site they have selected. They also know dumping O&G
waste materials in the rock quarry poses a clear and imminent threat
to the purity of the surface and/or groundwater (the Trinity Aquifer).

All seven of Saint Jo’s water wells may become contaminated by

FENCO’s waste facility. As will the Head of Elm Creek, which in turn
feeds into Lake Ray Roberts; one of the main sources of water for the
City of Dallas. Surface water in Clear Creek and Farmer’s Creek
watersheds will be in danger of being contaminated by FENCO’s O&G
waste disposal facility too. Agricultural and residential wells in
Montague and possibly adjoining counties may well be adversely
impacted by FENCO’s actions.

If Saint Jo’s water wells become contaminated the Texas Commission

on Environmental Quality will require the City to shut down its
drinking water system. No drinking water, no town! If you don’t think
contaminated water can cause a town to become a ghost town read
about what happened to Picher, Oklahoma.

We have seen nationally what financial and health suffering from an

oil & gas disaster looks like in the Gulf Coast. Locally the Bowie
News reported Stephen Brock’s family near Bowie can’t drink their
salty contaminated water and are afraid to bathe their children due to
O&G activities near them. If you don’t want to run these kinds of risks
personally, fill out the attached form with your comments. Mail it to
Mayor Tom Weger, City of Saint Jo, PO Box 186, Saint Jo, TX 76265,
so it can be entered into opposition before the RRC hearing.