Lone Star Green: Policing Eagle Ford
Hector Zertuche’s first environmental crime occurred around 2009 when he discovered a truckload of oilfield drilling muds dumped on the banks of the Nueces River outside Sandia, Tex. “We matched the tracks to a nearby resident,” the Jim Wells County Sheriff’s Deputy told me recently. “But we messed up. We cited him for illegal dumping.”
While the abatement officer was well-versed in handling illegal trash pits and pitched tires, the laws regarding petroleum waste were unfamiliar territory. It was hardly his fault. Although police and sheriff’s deputies are tasked with enforcing them, Texas environmental laws are typically not taught by police academies in the state.
Zertuche promised himself he wouldn’t make the same mistake again and sought out training just as the Eagle Ford shale play began ushering in an explosion of oil and gas activity across South Texas. Soon streams of trucks were arriving in Jim Wells County to dump their oily sludge into one of a handful of nearby waste pits. Zertuche was ready with a working knowledge of Chapter 29 of the Texas Water Code, otherwise known as the Oil and Gas Waste Haulers Act.
“I’d just follow these open-topped trailers until they spilled,” he said. “Then the company would have two things to worry about: their ticket and getting my car washed.”
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