Lawsuit blames East Texas deer deaths on natural gas pipeline

In a lawsuit filed in Harris County, the owner of a deer breeding facility claims leaks from a Kinder Morgan-owned natural gas pipeline killed nearly 40 animals on his property. In a lawsuit filed in Harris County, the owner of a deer breeding facility claims leaks from a Kinder Morgan-owned natural gas pipeline killed nearly 40 animals on his property. Photo: Courtesy Photo / Potts Law Firm LLP Photo: Courtesy Photo / Potts Law Firm LLP Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Lawsuit blames East Texas deer deaths on natural gas pipeline 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

A lawsuit filed in state district court in Harris County blames two emergency releases of natural gas along a major interstate pipeline for the deaths of nearly 40 trophy deer at a breeding facility near the Sam Houston National Forest.

The lawsuit, led by Liberty County landowners Monty Mullenix and Greg Buford, alleges that Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co, a subsidiary of Houston pipeline company Kinder Morgan, flooded their properties with clouds of methane and other toxic gases during emergency shutdowns along the natural gas pipeline route near Cleveland.

Buford, who owns the Grande Whitetails breeding facility, claims that the white-tailed deer — each with an estimated worth in the tens of thousands of dollars — began to die shortly after the incidents

But Kinder Morgan said there is no evidence that the emergency releases killed the deer and blamed the deaths on a virus.

“Lab results on the deer tested to date confirmed that those deer died from epizootic hemorrhagic disease, or EHD, a virus transmitted by small insects,” Kinder Morgan said in statement. “The company has worked, and continues to work, with the nearby landowners to remediate any impacts to their property. Tennessee Gas Pipeline has also offered to conduct additional testing at locations designated by the landowners.”

The releases occurred Nov. 14 and Dec. 10, according to the lawsuit. Cleanup crews dressed in hazmat suits used detergents such as liquid Dawn and Simple Green to remove an oily mist that had settled on homes, cars, vegetation and swimming pools, according to court documents.

Concerned about the animal deaths and the potential exposure of local residents to the gases, Mullenix and Buford enlisted two lawyers, Patrick Zummo of Houston and Micah Dortch, who is with Potts Law Firm in Dallas. The suit is seeking class-action status to represent residents in the area.

“While this has been an awful tragedy for the animal population, what’s truly concerning are the potential health risks to people living in the area,” Dortch said in a statement. “We don’t know what those risks might be, and Kinder Morgan isn’t saying.”

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Kinder Morgan said the Nov. 14 incident was caused by line sensor failure at a compressor station near Cleveland. The sensor failure activated the pipeline’s emergency shutdown system, which triggered a four-minute “blowdown” in which natural gas and other products are vented to prevent a pipeline from becoming overpressurized and blowing up.

A Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. document shows that 565,000 cubic feet of natural gas and other similar compounds were released in the form of a “light mist” during the incident. The company notified seven landowners and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, even though the incident was below the state threshold for reporting to the state agency, according to Kinder Morgan.

Kinder Morgan said the residue removed by crews was tested and was determined to have no short-term or long-term impacts on people or livestock.

The Dec. 10 incident, the company said, was related to scheduled maintenance at the compressor station. Although that work required another blowdown, Kinder Morgan said that the controlled venting ended without the release of any gas clouds.

Breeding of deer, antelope and exotic game has become a $1 billion industry in Texas, where the majority of animals are sold to hunting ranches. Regulated by the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, deer-breeding facilities have come under scrutiny the past few years in the effort to control diseases such as chronic wasting disease and EHD.

Several of the deer bodies from Grande Whitetails were preserved and examined by a veterinarian at Texas A&M University in College Station. Kinder Morgan received full access, both sides said, and was allowed to use its own veterinarian, who, the company said, determined the deaths were caused by EHD virus.

Buford said Wednesday he received a report from Texas A&M that the deer appear to have died from a secondary diseases associated with EHD.

Buford, however, said in an interview he regularly sprays for the biting midge, the insect that causes the disease.

Buford said his pen-raised deer were not eating normally, and were coughing and sneezing with mucous around their noses after natural gas was released from the pipeline. Most of the animals died within a week of the Nov. 14 incident, he said.

“I’ve never had deaths like this before,” Buford said. “It makes me mad that something happened that I have no control over and can’t fix.”

Dortch insisted the release was primarily responsible for the deer deaths.

“They may have died from EHD, but they never would've gotten it but for the release suppressing their immune system,” Dortch said. “The timing is just remarkable. We had none die and then we had 40 die. The only thing in the middle was the release.”

sergio.chapa@chron.com

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