A Texas sheriff who has adamantly and indefatigably gone after a hauling
company, On Point Services LLC, that allegedly dumped hydraulic fracking waste all over eight miles of a
public roadway, is not a maverick lawman who is going against the grain to attack the fracking industry.
No, Karnes County Sheriff Dwayne Villanueva said he is just doing his job. Villanueva asserted that the media is erroneously portraying him as a lone actor - sort of a chivalrous environmental lone ranger - who is going after an alleged environmental violator.
Villanueva said this isn't the case; he is simply the head of one of several government entities involved in bringing criminal and subsequent civil charges against On Point Services, which allegedly spilled as much as 1,260 gallons of fracking waste on two rural roads in Karnes County.
The two roads affected by the spill are Farm to Market Road (Texas Route 81) and Farm to Market Road (Texas Route 44), Vallanueva said.
Karnes County is in south-central Texas and the 2010 U.S. Census deemed it as having a population of 14,824 - a few more residents than that gallon figure of waste spilled on March 10.
Two Lone Star State agencies are working with the Karnes County Sheriff. They're working on a civil and criminal matter concerning a hauling company that allegedly is responsible for a March 10 fracking waste spill on two rural routes.
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In a private telephone interview with this writer on Wednesday, July 16, Sheriff Villanueva said he is just one of sundry government officials involved in this matter - the other two main governmental entities associated with this case include the Texas Dept. of Public Safety (TDPS) and the Texas Railroad Commission, Villanueva explained.
"We're all working on this together," Sheriff Valanueva said. "If criminal proceedings are brought against this hauling company, the TDPS and the state Railroad Commission will work through the Karnes County District Attorney's office, and the Karnes County Sheriff's Department won't be charging this company," Valanueva said.
"A lot of the news media are saying that we're filing criminal complaint charges. And they make it seem like we're acting on our own. This isn't true," the sheriff said.
"The Karnes County Sheriff's Dept. worked on this for three weeks. My staff went to a lot of the houses in the vicinity where the oil was spilled and asked residents if they had any surveillance footage. These roads are way out in the country," Villanueva added.
It was time consuming and labor intensive for the Karnes County Sheriff's Dept. to conduct this investigation. Some Karnes County residents who live near the roads that had fracking waste spilled on them have game cameras, while other residences have surveillance cameras that keep a constant eye on houses, outbuildings, yards and even farms and fields, he said.
"My staff went to every resident and company along the two roads and talked to people, asking them if they saw anything concerning this matter. We also requested surveillance or camera footage from them if they had any....This was not an accident. "This individual was going about his work routine and he was using defective equipment," Sheriff Villanueva told OpEdNews.com.
"There was an oil spill - one of the worst oil spills we've ever had in Karnes county - and my chief deputy and investigators worked very hard on collecting surveillance footage, eyewitness testimony, and other evidence for three weeks. When we had everything in order, somebody from our office hand-delivered our findings to the Texas Dept. of Public Safety in Austin," Sheriff Villanueva said.
A branch of the state's Highway Patrol - the Texas Dept. of Public Safety - has special equipment and highly trained technical staff members who can clean up surveillance footage that may be grainy, dark, muddled, or sometimes even seemingly indecipherable, he mentioned.
"They get blurry film of corner store robberies and carryout stickups - even murders - and clean it up so suspects can be identified. It's amazing what they can do to footage that is very bad. They have the ability to make it clear, in many cases. They did this with our footage and we were able to identify the truck because of their work," Sheriff Villanueva explained.
And with cleaned-up surveillance footage, some eyewitness account information and other sharp detective work, the Karnes County Sheriff was able to discover the hauling company - On Point Services LLC - that was in violation of the spill, and the driver who was hauling the load that leaked was even able to be identified, too.
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