I just want to edit the start of this post to say: IF THE FRACKERS DIDN’T SUCK SO BAD AT DRILLING AND FRACKING, WE WOULDN’T BE HAVING THIS CONVERSATION.
UPDATE: News story. Things were moving fast and I was typing on a phone so I probably missed some details.
I’m at the Dallas Drilling Task Force meeting where several angry citizens were just arrested for protesting #fracking in city parks.
Nope, I’m not kidding. The task force is deliberating drilling in city parks. Dallas wants to be just like Fort Worth.
Update: Terry Welch just made an impassioned plea to save the parks but the task force voted to drill baby drill.
Paraphrasing Welch: He wants to protect parkland. Drilling in parkland would make is unusable. No city ever says they have too much parkland so let’s get rid of some. We have a finite amount of parkland, even if it’s not used now there are future uses–dog parks, inline skating, marathon locale…)
Update: Biegler is discussing rolling back the setbacks. They want to protect the mineral owner and maybe “1% of the people are affected.” The mineral owner is the city so the citizens are sacrificed for the city’s minerals.
Now Terry Welch is arguing for a more protective setback. He reminds people that years ago “No one would have thought there would be that many health effects,” or property value declines. “Why should I take a reduction in property value?” “The science is conflicting” once the wells are there they will stay there and “if we guess wrong we affect a whole lot of people for a long time.”
Thank you Terry!
They vote to not change the starting measurement point from the operation site. I don’t think they needed a vote for that but okay.
They vote to make the ending measurement the protected use not the boundary. So they reduced the set back. They will now measure from your house not your fence. Maybe this is for non protected uses not homes.
Beigler wants a 300′ set back from all uses.
They are going to vote on each use to decide if it is protected. Unreal! The winners get a 1000′ setback the losers get 300′.
The losers are:
cemeteries
golf courses (there is a permit to drill near a country club. So country club members will need to stay in the club house. No more lying out at the pool.)
Offices smaller than 10,000′.
Auto service centers
Taxidermy
Dry cleaners
Commercial parking lot
Motor vehicle service center
The gas guy sitting in front of me said. “Gasboys don’t think a barber shop or tattoo parlor should be protected.”
Cherelle Blazer: if you work somewhere for 8 hours a day you should be protected.
Beigler: tax the citizens for their cars not the drillers for their emissions.
DALLAS FRACKS SMALL BUSINESS AND PARKS!!!
Now they are considering changing the setback. 1000′ or 750′ or 500′ or 250′..
Terry: we keep lowering the bar.
Aside: this is what happens when you stack the task force with industry insiders.
Council can grant a 500′ setback with a super majority.
Beigler is still arguing about what is a habitable structure. He wants to remove the 300′ setback for habitable structures that are not protected uses. I think… So if you live close to a non protected use, your setback is about to get whacked!
It is obvious that Beigler is fighting for some particular location where they want to drill.
Passed; 300′ from the structure for non protected uses.
Next up: setbacks from future/new development.
Wells have to be recorded on a city website. (But most buyers will not know to look.)
With the SUP that comes with the well, all homes within the buffer will be in a new district called a drilling district. The houses will be in a drilling district just like an historic district.
Now fences. Sorry, I didn’t have the attention span for fences.
About Sharon Wilson
Sharon Wilson is considered a leading citizen expert on the impacts of shale oil and gas extraction. She is the go-to person whether it’s top EPA officials from D.C., national and international news networks, or residents facing the shock of eminent domain and the devastating environmental effects of natural gas development in their backyards.
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Well that’s one way to get this story in the news, taking a page from the Occupy play book?
Maybe we can organize the 1% now.
Sad. This must have been worked out behind closed doors and under the radar. it’s too bad that there are those at Dallas City Hall
who exhibit ‘whorish behavior’ and are easily intimidated by those in the gas industry, lobbyists like Dallas Cothrum, and city officials in office. A sad day for Dallas and it’s residents.
Most productive thing I did all day.
You did good! We continued to misbehave the entire time. I started clapping for Terry Welch and everyone joined in which didn’t make Lois happy.
Terry Welch deserved the applause. He is a great town attorney.
What happened last night in Dallas is a good example of how important elected officials and those they appoint to city positions are to this issue.
I am proud of what my town Flower Mound achieved last summer by adopting a very protective ordinance.
We have another election coming up soon and 3 of our elected officials that were instrumental in the creation of the new ordinance are up for re-election. Mayor Northern, Lyda, and Filidoro. They never changed their position or allowed Town Hall to be bought by gas companies and developers. They even protected our right as a town to regulate gas drilling by trips to Austin during the legislative session. People of FM need to think long and hard when they walk into the booths in May. Our new ordinance good be weakened in just minutes. We could end up like Dallas and the rest of the shale towns. These 3 people have done a great job of protecting all of the residents of Flower Mound.
Sorry, I am climbing off soap box now 🙂
Are you concerned with the emissions from the endless lines of vehicles on 635 during rush hour? I’m curious as too the amount of water that poor golf course that you mentioned uses every year. How about the chemicals used in the dry cleaning or the taxidermy businesses?
Try living close to a pad site for 6 months and let us know how that works for ya.
Oh geez, 2006 arguments, so here are my 2006 replies. 635 didn’t get built next to ours homes ad hoc and rush hour is only an hour not 24 hours a day. Living next to a golf course actually raises your property value. The dry cleaning industry doesn’t have quite the powerful lobby that the gas industry does and has done a lot to use less harmful chemicals Taxidermy? Really? Taxidermy? How many of those are there in the city limits?
I wish you guys would come up with some new material. You must have copied that straight from your how to book.
This is the exact same BS that went on at the FW Task Farce in 2006. It’s deja vu all over again. As I said then, setbacks should be 3000′ for everyone. Anything less is a win for industry and heartless or absentee mineral owners and a loss for everyone else. Our motto then was Just Say NO!
If they got a restraining order of 3,000 feet they would not be able to rape us anymore.