Marty Schladen

El Paso Times

AUSTIN — As floods and severe weather swept through Central Texas, the state Railroad Commission last week reported that it was dealing with 21 oil spill incidents – some of which dumped hundreds of barrels of oil and fracking fluid into Texas waterways.

However, other agencies involved in the emergency response did not respond directly when asked if they’d gotten reports of oil and chemical spills or what they were doing about them if they had. Instead, they offered general assurances that the situation is in hand.

The latest round of fatal flooding in Texas killed 16 people, inundated hundreds of homes and forced the evacuation of a prison. It follows earlier rounds of severe Texas flooding in March, in spring and fall of 2015 and on the Pecos River in West Texas in 2014.

Particularly hard hit between May 18 and June 1 with spills reported by the Railroad Commission were Lee County, just east of Austin, and its neighbor to the south, Fayette County. Together, they were the scene of at least nine incidents.

In one Lee County spill, 100 barrels of oil was released into Yegua Creek, the Railroad Commission reported.

In a Stephens County spill, 50 barrels of oil and 250 barrels of fracking fluid were released into Gonsolus Creek. Booms and vacuum trucks were used to clean up, the commission reported.

Some public health experts worry that fracking fluid, which is used to fracture underground rock to extract natural gas, might be more toxic than oil.

In several instances in recent weeks, oil and chemicals escaped from production sites without being contained. In at least one, workers were powerless to do anything to prevent a spill.

“Floodwaters are preventing personnel from gaining access to the location at this time,” the Railroad Commission report said of a Lee County production site where two tanks were floating on their sides.

A spokeswoman for the commission stressed that reports were preliminary and subject to change.

The whole picture?

The number of oil and gas production sites near Texas rivers and creeks has grown rapidly at the same time that the state has seen repeated, severe floods.

In the past few months, the El Paso Times has reported on photos of massive spills taken by the Texas Civil Air patrol as part of the state’s disaster response. In the case of at least one flood - which occurred a year ago on the Lower Trinity River - the Railroad Commission didn’t have records in its oil-spill database of the spills depicted in the photographs.

Just after the first story about the photos, the Texas Department of Public Safety, ordered them removed from a public website. A spokesman cited privacy concerns as the reason, but critics, including open-government advocates, have questioned the move.

The spokesman, Tom Vinger, was asked last week whether any photos of the current floods showed spills of oil and fracking fluid and, if they did, what state and local agencies were being notified. He didn’t answer directly.

“The public can rest assured that the state is doing all that it can in extraordinarily adverse conditions to protect the lives and wellbeing of Texas residents,” he said in an email.

The Texas Department of Emergency Management, a division of the Department of Public Safety, “is fulfilling its role in coordinating state resources and providing assistance to local jurisdictions upon request,” Vinger said. “As mentioned by our other state partners, much of our focus at this time is search and rescue efforts, saving lives and making sure Texas residents and government stakeholders have the information they need to deal with imminent threats to life and property.”

It’s important that not just state agencies know where oil, chemical and sewage spills might be happening, said Meredith Miller, senior program coordinator at the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University in San Marcos. Local agencies and the public should be notified, too, she said.

“There should be some real-time mechanism so that if there’s a problem, the public is notified immediately,” said Miller, who coordinates the Texas Stream Team, a network of hundreds of volunteers who monitor Texas waterways and collect data from them.

Miller said the volunteers pulled back in the face of the raging floods.

“I think all water-quality testing is suspended right now,” she said.

Environmental response

The Texas Department of Environmental Quality coordinates the state response to all oil and chemical spills, a spokeswoman, Andrea Morrow, said.

“Under the State’s Emergency Management Plan, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is the state’s lead agency for hazardous materials and oil spill response,” Morrow said in an email. “As the lead agency, TCEQ serves as the coordinating agency to determine which state agency has jurisdiction for the spill, and ensuring that appropriate spill response measures are being taken.”

As she has in the past, Morrow said the Railroad Commission is responsible for making sure that spills from oil and gas production sites are cleaned up.

However, she didn’t respond directly when asked if her agency had been notified of any spills in the current flooding.

“In an ongoing emergency response the TCEQ and other state agencies give priority to protecting, and preventing (imminent) threats to public health,” Morrow said. “Emergency managers will always prioritize public health and safety to include search and rescue activities to ensure human health and safety are protected.

“Once flood waters have receded and it is safe to enter flooded areas debris removal activities will commence. The TCEQ is aware that spills occur during flooding events, and the appropriate primary agency will monitor and work with the responsible party, if known, to take appropriate actions as conditions allow. Throughout the flooding event we remain in constant contact with our state partners in spill response.”

Morrow also didn’t address a question asking whether her agency had records of previous spills photographed by the Civil Air Patrol or whether, as the lead agency, it had monitored the Railroad Commission’s response.

Miller and other environmental watchdogs have been critical of the Railroad Commission’s regulation of the oil and gas industry. A 2015 report said that the three commissioners received most of their campaign funding from the industry they regulate.

But Ramona Nye, a spokeswoman, said last week that the commission was working diligently to protect the public during the current disaster.

“To reiterate, the Railroad Commission responds to any reports of potential oil releases with urgency to ensure protection of public safety and the environment,” Nye said in an email. “Operators are required by commission rules to report spills to the commission and contain and remediate releases. Additionally, the commission dispatches inspectors to reported spills as quickly as it is safe for them to access a potentially affected area. The Railroad Commission oversees containment and cleanup to ensure it is done in compliance with RRC rules.”

Marty Schladen can be reached at 512-479-6606; mschladen@gannett.com; @martyschladen on Twitter.

Preliminary reports for weather-related incidents, May 18 – June 1: