This December, Reilly will witness the fracing of a gas well in the same place where she used to ride her horse.
In 2003, her parents, Tim and Christine Ruggiero, moved to the country on 10 acres in Wise County. They thought they had the perfect place to call home on Star Shell Road, several miles west of Denton County.
"We moved here to get away from the noise and urban sprawl," Tim said. "Little did we know what was going to happen."
A single phone call in September shattered their quiet life.
"I was taking my daughter to school," Christine said, "when a neighbor called me and said bulldozers were all over my yard."
It was mid-September. Christine returned home to find 100 feet of their metal horse fence cut down. Bulldozer blades were plowing through their horse pasture. Aruba Petroleum, an energy company based in Plano, was beginning the process of drilling a fresh gas well on the Ruggiero property.
The Ruggieros said the company failed to give them proper warning. They also failed to secure the Ruggieros' horses, allowing them to gallop away down the dusty road after cutting down the fence. Fortunately, someone who lived in the area spotted and contained the horses. The horses now have to be boarded.
"I've never been so angry in my life," Tim said. "I now know what people mean when they say they've been violated."
"They thought it was normal to cut someone's fence, bulldoze their property and not put up their horses," Christine said.
"I know they are within the law," Tim said. "But it doesn't make it ethical."
The drilling operation now occupies four acres of the Ruggieros' 10 acres of property. They own the property but not the mineral rights beneath it. Tim said he never expected an energy company to occupy his land and drill a well there because they have so few acres on such a large lease.
"We own 10 acres on a 953-acre lease," he said. "So it's difficult to understand why Aruba Petroleum felt compelled to take over at least four of those acres without notice or just compensation when they had so many other options."
Now visitors to the Ruggiero home are greeted with a towering derrick called "Big Giant Rig Number 7." The couple had spent approximately $25,000 on a metal fence, horse barn, horses, tack and seeding the pasture. And in a matter of hours in September it was all but destroyed.
"I have a 9-year-old daughter," Christine said. "Smog blows right across her play area. She can no longer ride her horses."
The large combustion engine on the rig bellows black smoke every few minutes. If the wind is blowing in the right direction, the cloud blows right over Reilly's swing set and trampoline.
The well is only a few hundred feet from the Ruggieros' kitchen window.
"I'm a drill here, drill now, kind of guy," Tim said. "But I want them to do it responsibly and respect property owners. I know all of the energy companies do not operate like this."
When completed, Aruba Petroleum will leave four large tanks and a well set to operate for the next 30 years.
"This is not my home anymore," Christine said. "Since Sept. 18, this has not been my home, and it does not feel like home. I don't even want to be here. This is Aruba Petroleum's home now."
"That is their land now," Tim said as he looked at his former horse pasture. "I could be charged for trespassing for stepping foot on my own land."
The company is now pursuing a 15-foot wide easement on more than 200 feet of the property to install a gas pipe.
"We will be literally surrounded by gas operations," Tim said.
The well has not only ruined their quality of life, it has also affected their property value and made their home all but impossible to sell.
"We have good credit, a good home, nice jobs, but if it comes to the safety of my daughter, we will leave," Christine said. "I don't know if I can live here anymore, but we can't sell it."
Tim and Christine's biggest issue with the gas well is the potential of the operations to pollute the air their daughter breathes and the water she drinks.
The family first started having an issue with Aruba Petroleum when the company began drilling on their neighbor's property, 200 yards from their back porch. The well went up directly between the neighbor's house and a pond, marring the bucolic scene.
In protest, Tim spray painted a sign that read "Shame on You" and faced it toward the drill site. He erected it in his yard. He also put up another sign that read "Herb Wright, greed is a sin."
Wright owns the mineral rights on the 953-acre lease. The Ruggiero's happen to live on 10 acres within that lease.
Several days later, Tim found his sign defaced. An unknown person spray painted "Ur next (expletive)" along with crude drawings of genitals.
The blunt message foreshadowed what was to come.
The next part in the series will examine water and air pollution risk when living in such close proximity to a gas well operation.
