Federal and state authorities have passed laws requiring workers who cut or grind materials such as concrete, brick, stone, or granite to wear respirators or other devices designed to protect them from breathing in these materials. And with good reason. The cloud of dust created when workers use tools on these materials contains crystalline silica,…
Fatal accidents on Texas roads have spiked during the ongoing boom in hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) according to a joint investigation by the Houston Chronicle and Houston Public Media News 88.7. Highway deaths have dropped steadily all across the United States for the last six decades. However, in Texas, the numbers of all motor vehicle fatalities…
Bob and Lisa Parr own a 40-acre ranch in Wise County, Texas. The property is within the Barnett Shale, one of the country’s most prolific natural gas production areas as a result of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling techniques. Within two miles of the Parr’s property, Aruba Petroleum Inc. operated 22 hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”,…
Last month, Heckmann Water Resources, a company working in the Eagle Ford Shale, was ordered to pay $281 million by a Dimmit County, Texas jury in a wrongful death case in Carrizo Springs, Texas. The jury awarded the verdict to the family of Carlos Aguilar, who was killed in a trucking accident in May 2012…
Workers at fracking drill sites across the country are at risk of developing silicosis and other diseases as a result of exposure to airborne silica sand, according to a recently published study. The report, published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, found that levels of airborne silica sand at hydraulic fracturing drill sites…
Two separate lawsuits against trucking companies that haul water to hydraulic fracturing sites have recently been settled in Texas. One lawsuit settled for $8.7 million and the other for $3 million, which was the maximum available under the trucking company’s insurance policy.
Fracking workers who are exposed to airborne silica sand may be at risk of developing silicosis or other respiratory diseases, according to warnings from federal safety officials. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) have also warned that residents who live near fracking sites may…
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is booming across the country. The boom means the rest of us are sharing the road with lots of extremely heavy trucks. Unfortunately, sometimes those trucks have not been properly maintained and sometimes the trucks are being driven by tired and overworked drivers in a hurry to get to back to…