ELECTION LETTERS
The Denton Record-Chronicle welcomes letters to the editor pertaining to the Nov. 4 general election. All regular submission rules apply. Letters concerning statewide races and local propositions on the Nov. 4 ballot must be received in this office by 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 24. None will be published after Friday, Oct. 31.
Ban fracking
I write to urge the residents of Denton to vote for the ban on fracking. Besides health issues, water usage and unknown chemicals left in the ground, I am concerned about what happens to the wells in our city limits when they are finished producing.
I recently flew into Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport from the west and was looking at the landscape just before landing. I was curious about what I thought was a large number of housing developments with no houses. There were roads and circles of bare spots covering the land. Then I recognized these were natural gas wells. I could not believe how many there were.
Is this what we have to look forward to in the city of Denton — city land becoming unusable for future use?
I understand there are more than 10,000 acres of land within the city limits already permitted for fracking, and this land will be devalued and can never gain permits for future building. Would you build on this land?
There is a well on Bonnie Brae Street and Windsor Drive, not out in the country, but surrounded by a church, a park and houses. Will that land ever be used for anything again?
What are we leaving for future generations? And how do we reconcile being told we need to limit our water use because we are in a severe drought, when the gas industry is allowed to use billions of gallons of water? Profits should not always be the benchmark for what is right and wrong.
Ann MacMillan,
Denton
Cockamamie stunts
So it began on Sept. 15, fracking ban advertising by our chamber. It encourages every member and employee to vote against clean air, water, child safety and a clean city environment. Thousands of dollars a week are spent on full-page newspaper ads and direct mail pieces.
Chuck Carpenter, president, and the fracking goons sure do have our best interest in mind. Perhaps they’re receiving something extra from Big Oil and Big Gas we’re not aware of.
The fracking industry has billions of dollars at its disposal and its profits are in the hundreds of millions each quarter. It does make one wonder if, maybe, there’s some fracking hanky panky at hand.
Denton can’t lose $250 million in economic activity it will never receive. It might lose 2,000 jobs when our population decreases as the frackers drive people away. UNT doesn’t need money, it has the public domain card that will force Sack and Save out of business.
Property taxes always go up regardless of whether Denton turns into America’s fracking capital or not.
Property owners’ rights are definitely violated when some fracking company drills an industrial waste-creating gas well in your backyard and ruins the water table and property values.
Yup, the pro frackers are sure putting the old political screws to Denton when it comes to the truth. Let’s see what cockamamie stunts they try ram down our throats next.
J. Aaron Cundall,
Denton
Your health or their wealth?
The oil and gas industry has been central to the Texas economy for many, many decades. I concede the state needs the revenue generated by the industry and the country needs the energy. But it should not come at the expense of the health and well-being of Denton residents. Or the value of their own property.
Mineral rights owners are howling and suing over lost revenue. They claim their drilling permits of old give them the right to frack. I live in a single-family home in Denton. Should I decide to change that already permitted residence by adding a room, city code would be all over me with a magnifying glass. Enforcement officers would enact numerous restrictions or simply deny the change outright.
I know of small-business owners who have given up expanding their businesses because City Hall was so difficult to deal with. Lost potential income for the small-business owner who lacks the legal deep pockets of the oil/gas industry. A landowner finds his property worth less because of a fracking operation next door.
My point is we all have to bend our will in some degree for the greater good of the community. Except for oil/gas, apparently. Distance between dense urban population and fracking operations should be measured in miles, not feet.
I live almost a half mile away from an Acme well. On cold, still mornings last winter, I could smell petroleum. Your health or their wealth — which is it going to be, Denton?
Jo Anne Bixby,
Denton
Think when you vote
Energy independence is a claim of the oil and gas industry, while their actions are the opposite. Cheniere Energy has a plant to liquefy natural gas (LNG) at low temperatures (2.6 billion cubic feet per day) and ship it to China and Japan. China gets the LPG, oil and gas gets the profits, and you get the pollution.
Loss of natural gas deprives the U.S. petrochemical industry of its cheap feedstock to compete with overseas labor cots. Petrochemicals and their related byproducts are our future manufacturing jobs.
Oil and gas trucks that haul away produced water are a hazard. The oil and gas lobby obtained an exemption allowing longer hours of work for truckers than other industries.
The truckers report pressure to drive even after shifts of 20 hours. One-third of the deaths in oil and gas production are related to highway crashes.
Oil and gas touts their tax support of schools. Texas gives a tax break to drill “high-cost” (fracking) wells. This exemption cost Texas $1.2 billion per year between 2004-2011 (Legislative Budget Board).
Pay a pittance and reap a fortune — nice trade.
When gas production runs low, the hole is plugged and abandoned. At some time in the future the cement will crack, the pipe will rust and the well will leak into your aquifer and bubble to the surface. Too bad — it is no longer an oil and gas problem; it’s yours. Think when you vote.
Native American proverb: “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”
Tom Hayden,
Double Oak
