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Texas Sharon's Bluedaze

Fracking News

Another coupling failure! Amarillo house explodes!

January 8, 2010 By TXsharon

Oh! It was Atmos. What a surprise.

Amarillo Fire Department District Chief Jim Berry said the size and chaos of the scene would slow down the blast investigation. Atmos Energy personnel were driving stakes in the ground to see if they could find evidence of gas leaks, Berry said.

Link

The resident received only minor burns and injuries but the house was completely leveled.

The article does not say a coupling was the cause but I heard that from a reliable source.

How many more?

Brett Shipp: 24 Gas Leaks in Neighorhood

Some gas coupling history:

Gas Couplings Are “Ticking Time Bomb”

The Explosion in Irving Was Another Faulty Pipeline Coupler

WFAA Gets Peabody Award for Probing Railroad Commission “Dubious Practices”

About Sharon Wilson

Sharon Wilson is considered a leading citizen expert on the impacts of shale oil and gas extraction. She is the go-to person whether it’s top EPA officials from D.C., national and international news networks, or residents facing the shock of eminent domain and the devastating environmental effects of natural gas development in their backyards.

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Filed Under: Texas Railroad Commission

Comments

  1. Jovan Gonzales says

    January 8, 2010 at 3:53 am

    Wow. That makes me a little scared. My aunt lives outside Amarillo and has 3 gas wells on her land. Ummmmmm, I'm going to be calling her and making her have someone check the integrity of her wells. That's scary. I'm surprised that O&G aren't like railroads where if enough people get killed at a crossing that an automated crossing gets installed. I think enough people have died.

  2. TXsharon says

    January 8, 2010 at 4:02 am

    These explosions are from faulty couplings where the gas service pipelines connect up to the homes. This doesn't have anything to do with gas wells.

    This is another failure of the Texas Railroad Commission to protect the public. They have known for a decade that the couplings were faulty. Rather than making Atmos replace the couplings, they hid the internal memo and covered for them. Brett Shipp busted them ON CAMERA. AWESOME investigative reporting! I'll update the post with some history.

  3. Jovan Gonzales says

    January 8, 2010 at 4:33 am

    Ah, dumb! If I had READ hahaha, I was being lazy. But now I will read all! Sharon, you ever thought of being an investigative journalist!? Oh wait, you practically are already!!!

  4. Anonymous says

    January 8, 2010 at 4:00 pm

    Body count for RRC to act…not yet reached. I guess us gas well citizens will have to get in line, we are way behind in the body count. So, Mr. Williams, how many Texans lives does a senate seat cost? 1, 10, 100, 1000? Someone YOU know perhaps? I bet if your house had a faulty coupling, it would have been replaced yesterday.
    I will say ONE good thing about Mr. Williams, he did have the opinoin (and I hope it was genuine) that forced pooling in Texas violated private property rights as well as the original intent of the Mineral Interest Pooling Act. It's nice when you can be a Republican ALL of the time, and not just when it suits you politically or personally.

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