Nordheim: A Texas Town Facing A Toxic Future  Thu, 2014-01-30
10:44Julie Dermansky Julie Dermansky's picture  Nordheim: A
Texas Town Facing A Toxic Future  Nordheim, Texas, population
307, may soon have a 200-plus acre waste disposal plant as its
neighbor despite the protests of the city’s mayor, Kathy Payne.
The small town (one bank, one school, one cafe and a couple of
shops) is located in the Eagle Ford Shale region of southern
Texas, where vast oil deposits have only recently become
accessible through hydraulic fracturing — a process that
involves injecting a mixture of water, sand and chemicals at
high pressure underground to fracture the rocks and release the
oil inside.  Nordheim Mayor Kathy Payne in City Hall. ©2014
Julie Dermansky  Payne learned about the waste disposal plant in
the local paper. Because the facility is planned for outside
city limits, industry doesn’t have to share its plans with her.
Since reading about the proposal she has done all she can to
learn what it will mean for her city