Middle class schools in Denton and Tarrant get drilled and fracked more

Please read the Denton Record Chronicle article about some emerging research by University of North Texas.

Stuck in the middle
Research: ‘Socially vulnerable’ areas tend to have most gas wells near schools
Saturday, February 11, 2012
By Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe and Lowell Brown / Staff Writers

Here is some additional information about drilling next to schools:

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR POLICY CHANGES FOR GAS DRILLING NEAR SCHOOLS

Parents voice health concerns
Gas drilling near Argyle schools making kids ill, residents tell board
Sunday, October 24, 2010
By Lowell Brown and Britney Tabor / Staff Writers

Baseline testing when drilling was just getting started in Argyle showed 7 detects of the 84 chemicals  typically tested for by TCEQ. Follow up testing on the lot where the high school band practices showed 65 detects of the 84 chemicals typically tested for by TCEQ. (Flowback: How the Texas Natural Gas Boom Affects Health and Safety) The lot is 1/2 mile from the offending facility.

I have asked many scientists this question: What is the additional risk to our children when they go from breathing 7 chemicals to a cocktail of 65 chemicals. To date, no one has been able to answer with anything besides, “We don’t know.”

Map of Argyle schools for larger version click HERE.

 In Argyle Hillwood is fracking kids for Koch.

 

Guyer High School in Denton, Texas

 

In Benbrook, they built a new 3 story school. Right across the street (directly southwest) is a gas well complex with Condensate tanks. Out front is a sign “Chesapeake …clean energy”.

Selwyn School Denton, Texas

Emissions Video at Liberty Christian School and Liberty Christian School Compressor Station and Video of release at Liberty Christian School

Living in the Gas Patch gives kids a dirty mind.

EPA video: Gas emissions near school

Toxic Soup of toxic chemicals found in the air near schools and homes

From medical and public health groups:

Comments from American Lung Association, American Public Health Association, Amercan Thoracic Society, Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America and Trust for America’s Health to the EPA.

The Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Units recently distributed fact sheets for people who live in areas of natural gas development.

Here is a fact sheet for health care professionals on the dangers of exposing children to hydraulic fracturing and natural gas activity.

Here is a fact sheet for parents.

In Denton over 80 doctors signed a petition to the city council citing health concerns and asking them not to permit a drill site near the hospital, a city park and neighborhood.

But no one has voiced the concerns as succinctly as a doctor and father who lives in Southlake, when he stated:

“People think we figured out cigarettes cause cancer because we did a study and said, ‘Oh shit, this causes cancer!’ No, that’s not how we figured it out. Forty years later, when we saw all these people getting lung cancer, that’s when we got the information,” he says. “Do you want to be in the test group or the control group? I want to be in the control group that wasn’t exposed to elevated levels of benzene while gas drilling was going on near my house.

“The reality is it doesn’t make sense to take those risks. We don’t need the gas like that. We don’t need the money like that. I can live without gas, and I can live without gas royalties, but I can’t live without clean air, clean water and my health and my kids’ health.”

Fear and Fracking in Southlake

It’s not only in the Barnett Shale, they are drilling right next to schools in the Eagle Ford Shale.

And perhaps most disturbing of all:
Le Roy Mystery Disease Update: Fracking spill documented on school grounds
February 9, 2012 By Bob Harris

Fourteen teen girls and one teen boy now have Tourettes’ like tics. Some have fainted and displayed other neurological symptoms.

…a spill is documented to have occurred on school grounds- strangely, a month and a half before the first girl started exhibiting Tourette-like symptoms.

Industry says: lack of evidence. School officials have lawyered up and are not cooperating with the investigating.

From an email: It appears that the DEC granted a variance to the Le Roy Central School District that permitted it to drill and frack two gas wells closer to the  property line, and closer to existing gas wells, than would normally be allowed.