No to fracking
To frack or not to frack, that is the question. I hope the long-gone Bard will forgive me for using one of his literary ideas as an opening.
The people of Denton certainly need attention to future fracking, after the Zoning Board of Adjustment granted Vantage Energy of Colorado a waiver to the current moratorium on new gas wells.
The action came after Vantage charged “unique and undue hardship.” Without the waiver they purport a loss of $14.4 million, which is a lot, but Vantage's poor-mouth plea loses significant importance when they have at their disposal, “More than 7 billion dollars of capital under stewardship” (company website).
As my Grandpa would say, “sorta sticks in your craw.”
The way this waiver came about sticks in mine. The Zoning Board of Adjustment is a quasi-judicial body under the city charter.
What that means, friends and neighbors, is that if you don’t like an action and the Vantage waiver comes to mind, you have no means of expressing your dislike. They were never elected so you can’t vote then out of power.
I doubt if one person in a hundred knows who they are, with the exception of Marshall Surratt who voted against the waiver.
He had the integrity to vote for the people because of “concern about the projected 30-year life of the gas wells and any homes or business that might be built there in the future.”
I say not to frack, not in the city of Denton.
John Nance Garner,
Denton
