September 26, 2009

Dear Dr. Pierpont,

I would like to thank you for making time to read this. Also, for your excellent work on WTS. It is so similar to VAD Vibroacoustic Disease caused by low frequency noise. Initially identified in the aeronautical field, by military pilots and aircrew. I am sure you are aware of Vieques, Puerto Rico studies. The Navy bought the end of this small island for artillery practice. Poor people lived at the other end of the island. They have since suffered high cancer rates, heart problems, internal problems, and low birth weights.

I live in Texas, the state with the most gas wells (95,000+). The gas from the wells is piped to compressor stations. Our county has 130 or more compressor stations. The low frequency noise travels up to 5 miles radius, thereby overlapping.

Our director, Charles Morgan, has been diagnosed with VAD by a Dr. Wright in Indiana. Feel so bad for him. Sometimes he drives 150 miles just to sleep. His eardrums have burst twice. He has very bad headaches and burning in his veins.

We have tried all means to get to get Noise Law (1982) given to states re-enacted, to no avail. We have tried to get school districts to have a noise assessment. We have been to Austin to see Representatives and Senators. We are not trying to stop big oil & gas, just get them to give up some of those billions in profit and do the responsible thing by enclosing, or using noise abatement, on these compressor stations. Yes, even the rural ones. To protect us and the wildlife.

Could I be so bold to ask if you could do a paper or write something on this subject you know so much about? Please help us! I wear earphones and take [redacted] medicine, and can’t afford to move away.

Enclosed please find our brochure. Thank you again for your time.

Sincerely

Sharon Ward, Secretary
Fairfield, TX 75840

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What kind of system allows an industry to run amok and ruin peoples’ lives and health?

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“We also have a stripper plant in our residentially-zoned neighborhood that has us furious.  It consists of a 19,000 gallon propane tank less than 300 feet from our house, a compressor and generator that run 24/7 – the noise is simply unbearable – and pipes that seem to leak propane so that we smell it all of the time.  Propane trucks the size of semi’s routinely come to the pipes to fill up with propane.  We just don’t understand how this all fits into zoning laws, and we are frustrated with how it has changed our neighborhood and property values. ”

Glycol leak 1

Glycol leak 2

Methanol leak

Click here>> Video: methanol leak

Oil leak

Oil leak

Oil leak

Oil staining of soil

15w40 drum and leak

“Our water smells and tastes weird enough that we don’t drink it, and we don’t even give it to our animals.  It smells musty- like dirt.  It reminds me of an organic that I used to work with when I was a chemist.  DEP officials have agreed that they smell and taste it, but that the standard test they run for about 15 or so substances come back normal.  We have asked DEP repeatedly to test for VOCs, but they refuse.  They say that the test is tricky because a neighbor spilling oil or gas could be the cause.  I told him, I agree – a neighbor IS spilling oil – Aiello Brothers Oil and Gas – drillers for Schreiner  (http://abogi.net/default.aspx)  … and I have the pictures to prove it.  They still refused to test for VOCs.  They said that it isn’t standard operating procedure to do so.  When I responded that my neighborhood isn’t going through a “standard” situation, they replied that we actually are. When I asked for clarification, I was told that this sort of thing happens every month.  I said I found that interesting because this very same DEP official was quoted in a newspaper article as calling the situation in Dimock an anomaly, so I asked him which was it?  Was it typical, or an anomaly?  He said that he didn’t know where I got that info but that I shouldn’t believe everything I read.  Because my water doesn’t have one of the about 15 substances that DEP tests for (Fe, Mn, methane) we have been written off.  I find that to be ridiculous and negligent.  One of my neighbors has been given the very same treatment.  So much for presumptive liability when the wells are drilled within 1000ft from your water well!!!”

Propane tank

Propane truck

“As I research and find that this is happening all over the country, I get more angry!  It’s just wrong.  And to think that in our case we are asking for so little…..they can’t use just a smidgin of the millions that they gain from our hill to give us safe drinking water?  Absurd.”