A Wise County couple has been awarded $3 million by a Dallas jury in their suit against a Plano gas drilling company. 
 
 Bob and Lisa Parr sued Aruba Petroleum of Plano in 2011, claiming spills and emissions from the company’s hydraulic fracturing operations had contaminated their 40-acre ranch in Decatur. They argued the pollution made them sick, as well as their pets and livestock. At times they were forced to evacuate the property, they said. 
 
 “They’re vindicated,” said David Matthews, a Houston attorney representing the family. “It takes guts to say, ‘I'm going to stand here and protect my family from an invasion of our right to enjoy our property.’” 
 
 The Wise County drilling site was within the Barnett Shale, which became one of the country’s most prolific natural gas plays after the advent of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling techniques. 
 
 Attorneys for Aruba argued during the trial in Dallas County Court that there are more than 100 natural gas wells within a 2-mile radius of the Parrs’ property. 
 
 “It was arbitrary,” said Ben Barron, one of the attorneys representing Aruba in the case. “How do you determine which well caused what, if any, damages? 
 
 Barron said Aruba had not yet made a decision on whether to appeal the ruling. 
 
 Also named in the 2011 suit was Encana Oil & Gas of Calgary. The Parrs previously settled with that company for an undisclosed sum. 
 
 Matthews claims on his website the jury decision Tuesday represented the first “fracking verdict” in Texas. The Parrs appeared in the documentary “Gasland Part II,” which made the case hydraulic fracturing operations were contaminating the country’s air and water. 
 
 In the lawsuit, the couple presents a long list of maladies they and their daughter suffered since moving onto the ranch in 2008. Included are asthma, nausea, nose bleeds, ear ringing and depression. They note one of their calves was born “dwarfed.” 
 
 “These are all classic symptoms tied to hydrocarbon exposure,” said Brad Gilde, a Houston attorney who represented the Parrs in the trial. “The boom hit the Barnett in 2008 and it just so happened that’s when the Parrs moved onto the ranch. Almost immediately their health effects started to manifest.” 
 
 Aruba argued in court its operations around the Parrs’ ranch did not produce emissions beyond those allowed under Texas air pollution standards. 
 
 But the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality fined Aruba both in 2011 and 2012 for air quality violations in Wise County, totaling close to $40,000. 
 
 The verdict drew cheers from environmentalists, who have been engaged in a long-running battle with the gas drilling industry over what they call the dangers of fracking. 
 
 “Six regular people who knew nothing about fracking were presented with the facts and awarded the victims $3 million. It’s going to be hard to spin that,” Sharon Wilson of Earthworks, an advocacy group with offices in Texas, wrote in a blog post Tuesday. 
 
 Oil and gas companies have been defending lawsuits from the landowners surrounding their drilling sites since the early days of the industry, said Larry Nettles, an attorney with Vinson & Elkins in Houston. 
 
 He said Friday’s verdict would likely give some companies pause, but most worked hard to try and keep their neighbors appeased. 
 
 “I don’t think this is going to be damaging to the industry. But it is a warning to operators they need to exercise caution when running operations near homesteads,” Nettles said. 
 
 Follow James Osborne on Twitter at @osborneja. ||||| A Texas jury has awarded nearly $3 million to a family for illnesses they suffered from exposure to contaminated groundwater, solid toxic waste and airborne chemicals generated by natural gas fracking operations surrounding their 40-acre ranch, attorneys on the case said. 
 
 The verdict, delivered Tuesday, is seen as a landmark decision for opponents of fracking, or hydraulic fracturing — a process in which high-pressure fluid is injected into the ground to fracture shale rock and release natural gas. 
 
 “We hope this verdict will prompt companies that engage in fracking operations to take responsibility for the health problems and property damage caused by their activities,” said David Matthews of Matthews & Associates, one of the law firms that represented the family, in an email statement to Al Jazeera. 
 
 Up to 600 chemicals are used in fracking fluid, and they include known human carcinogens, according to a press release from Matthews & Associates. Studies indicate that only 30 to 50 percent of those fluids are recovered, with the rest of the nonbiodegradable chemicals left in the ground. 
 
 Plaintiffs Bob and Lisa Parr sued Texas-based Aruba Petroleum in 2011 over its fracking activities that they said polluted their 40-acre ranch, lowered their property’s value and sickened their family, pets and livestock. 
 
 The decision found that Aruba Petroleum, which has been drilling in the area for several years, intentionally created a private nuisance, according to Law360, a LexisNexis news source that covers high-stakes litigation. Almost as soon as Aruba began drilling near their home, the family, pets and livestock started to become ill. 
 
 “Robert and Lisa Parr, along with their young daughter, began experiencing health problems in 2009, after Aruba began drilling the first of 20 wells which the company operates less than two miles from the Parrs’ ranch near Decatur, Texas — about 45 miles northwest of Fort Worth,” Matthews & Associates said in a press release. 
 
 Fred Stern, a spokesman for Aruba Petroleum, told Al Jazeera in an emailed statement that "the facts of the case and the law as applied to those facts do not support the verdict. Natural gas development has long been prevalent in Wise County with hundreds of wells drilled and currently operated by dozens of companies. Aruba is just one of those operators." 
 
 He added: "We contended the plaintiffs were neither harmed by the presence of our drilling operations nor was the value of their property diminished because of our natural gas development." 
 
 Air quality tests conducted by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality found hazardous air that could lead to respiratory and neurological risks within a quarter mile of the Parrs’ home, according to Matthews & Associates. 
 
 The Parr family reported symptoms such as migraines, rashes, dizziness, nausea and chronic nosebleeds. One night, their daughter woke up in the middle of the night covered in blood, attorneys said, presumably from a bad nosebleed. 
 
 Living near fracking sites may increase the risk of some birth defects by as much as 30 percent, a January study by the Colorado School of Public Health said. The study was based on evidence gathered from heavily drilled rural Colorado, which has some of the highest densities of oil and gas wells in the United States. 
 
 Another study, by the University of Missouri School of Medicine, showed that fracking fluids contain chemicals that can disrupt the functioning of human hormones and lead to a greater chance of infertility, cancer and other health problems. 
 
 Fracking activity has accelerated under the administration of President Barack Obama, with supporters saying it could provide a means to greater energy independence, create jobs and boost the U.S. economy. 
 
 The Barnett Shale region surrounding the Dallas-Fort Worth area is currently home to at least 12,000 gas wells, according to the environmentalist nonprofit organization EarthJustice. Industry experts have said drilling in the region has created thousands of jobs and generated tens of billions of dollars in investment. 
 
 Many Texas residents have complained about fracking activities being too close to home. Heavily drilled Denton, Texas — about 30 miles east of the Parr family — has passed fracking moratoriums, and residents have pushed for a complete ban. They said they spent years trying to make fracking compatible with a healthy city, but found it impossible. 
 
 “These companies make millions of dollars at the expense of people’s health and property without any financial benefit to the actual buys of natural gas. In fact, natural gas prices are on the rise,” Matthews said.
– A Texas family suing a gas-drilling firm over alleged contamination of their ranch has won $3 million in what their lawyer calls Texas' first fracking verdict. Bob and Lisa Parr said their family, pets, and livestock developed ailments tied to fracking operations, driving them to evacuate their land on some occasions, the Dallas Morning News reports. After moving to the Wise County ranch in 2008, the Parrs and their daughter grappled with asthma, nausea, and depression; their daughter reportedly awakened with a nosebleed covering her in blood, al Jazeera America reports. "These are all classic symptoms tied to hydrocarbon exposure," says another member of their legal team. The Parrs sued Aruba Petroleum of Plano in 2011 and were featured in the documentary Gasland Part II. The company's lawyers called the ruling "arbitrary," noting that the two miles around the ranch contain more than 100 natural gas wells. "How do you determine which well caused what, if any, damages?" But environmentalists called the case a victory: The jury of "six regular people who knew nothing about fracking were presented with the facts and awarded the victims $3 million. It’s going to be hard to spin that." Aruba hasn't decided whether to appeal. ($3 million? Better than a pizza.)