Texas town’s fracturing ban appears headed for ballot
Houston Chronicle | Rhiannon Meyers
July 14, 2014
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Denton voters, and not the seven-member City Council, probably will decide whether to ban hydraulic fracturing in the North Texas city, officials said Monday.
The issue is scheduled for a public hearing Tuesday in the gas-rich city about 40 miles northwest of downtown Dallas, where some wells are less than 200 feet from residential areas.
Opponents earlier this year gathered more than 1,900 signatures on a petition to ban hydraulic fracturing within Denton city limits, enough to force the council to approve a ban outright or place the issue on the November ballot. Such a ban would be the first in Texas.
"I think everyone all along assumed this was going to go to a citywide vote, given the uncharted waters we find ourselves in," Councilman Kevin Roden said in an interview. "My guess is there's comfort in letting it go to an entire city vote as opposed to seven of us trying to decide this."
Denton sits over the Barnett Shale, one of the nation's largest natural gas fields.
Hydraulic fracturing, a well completion process in which water, sand and chemicals are injected underground at high pressure, unlocks oil and gas from dense shale formations. Advances in fracturing and horizontal drilling have fueled a U.S. oil and gas boom.
But opponents complain that fracturing diminishes home values and exposes residents to environmental risks, particularly in urban areas where wells are near residences.
Mayor Chris Watts said 287 wells are within Denton's city limits.
"When an operator re-drilled within 187 feet of a residential neighborhood and brought all the corresponding nuisance - the noise, the lights, the vibration, the fumes - that's when (opponents) really mobilized, adding a real fire to this movement," he said.
The city of Denton has become a battleground over urban drilling for natural gas.
The city last year passed an ordinance to regulate more tightly how close wells could be drilled to residential areas, but some drilling sites were platted years ago, and drillers have argued the new setback rules aren't retroactive.
The city sought a temporary injunction against an Eagle-Ridge Energy well it claimed violated the city's setback rules, but lost in court, the mayor said.
That means that if voters do approve a ban in November, the city still may face legal challenges from drillers claiming their mineral rights are vested and protected by law, Watts said.
Now that the city has become a battleground over urban drilling, opponents of a ban have begun weighing in, characterizing the attempt as an assault on Texan values of energy independence and limited regulation.
Those opponents include the head of the state's top oil and gas regulating agency, who said Friday that a fracturing ban would undercut a key pillar of the Texas economy.
Barry Smitherman, chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission, sent a 4-page letter to the mayor and council members blasting the ban proposal as "extremely misguided."
"Increased production of natural gas, natural gas liquids and crude oil has greatly enhanced the Texas economy," Smitherman wrote. "Over 400,000 Texans work in the oil and gas industry and the average wage per employee is a staggering $128,000."
Smitherman won't attend Tuesday's public hearing because of a prior commitment, but asked that his written comments be considered.
Although Roden, the councilman, declined to state his position on the ban, he was unimpressed with Smitherman's letter.
"We've been struggling with how to make natural gas drilling compatible in residential areas and largely because of the regulatory environment we find ourselves in, the state is pulling the shots and we're not able to regulate from a local perspective," he said.
"For him to write us a letter in the 11th hour with no policy suggestions on how to get better, only advocating for an industry he's supposed to be regulating, I found it pretty out of touch."
Sharon Wilson, who helped advise the group that launched the petition, said she believes residents support a ban, and that it would show a lack of political courage for council members to delay the decision.
Waiting until November to take the issue to voters will subject Denton residents to an onslaught of industry bullying, she said.
The city is bracing for record crowds of up to 500 people at Tuesday's public hearing, spokeswoman Lindsey Baker said. City staff configured a nearby civic center to live-stream the meeting and scheduled additional police officers to provide security.
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