Dallas Debate Shows City Power to Limit Drilling
DALLAS — Claudia and Ed Meyer do not want natural gas drilling near their Southwest Dallas home or anywhere else in the city, for that matter.
Their neighborhood sits next to a patch of land that developers, eager to tap the edge of the Barnett Shale, sought four years ago. Worried about the noise and the impact on air and water quality and a two-lane road where tankers might rumble to and fro, the Meyers, both in their 70s, have become fixtures at city meetings as they fight efforts to allow drilling.
“There’s so much to be concerned about,” Claudia ...
Comments (11)
Kim Feil
Arlington City Council voted to change their gas drilling ordinance to approve drilling in populated areas that are not industrial zoned in what is called an SUP Drilling Zone. Once the Special Use Permit is approved and once the first well on that drilling zone undergos a public hearing , then the remaining planned number of wells within that drilling zone would then be administrately approved if the driller is in compliance to the city (mostly aesthetic) inspections. So the first round of SUP’s are now void and the drillers have to reapply for the privilege of urban drilling and violating TEX LG. CODE ANN. A§ 253.005 : Texas Statutes – Section 253.005: LEASE OF OIL, GAS, OR MINERAL LAND
“(c) A well may not be drilled in the thickly settled part of the municipality..” Now this makes an “out" for Arlington to effective shut down future drilling. Now that the public has their eyes and lungs open, and more and more people are fighting fracking near their families and schools, the public needs to contact council with their fracking concerns.Council did approve the first several drilling zone SUP’s ...One 359 feet from a daycare (thanks to Dr Cluck’s swing vote), and one near the Entertainment District by my home. Here’s a little story on that one....,Last January, our Chesapeake was finishing the wells and sickened some employees and my mother-in-law. The odor came into my home (Jan my family had helath issues... rash on my teen and the swelling of my husbands lymph nodes-yes he just finished his chem/radiation in August)....that one odor event sent about 5 firetrucks out and one EMT medic out. But it never made the news, nor was there a violation found....so the problem with Arlington’s City Council is that they are still under the kool-aide Spell what with managing the one million dollar drilling revenue fund ....oh and council does have a definate conflict of interest in approving these drill sites and managing the dispersion of those funds...but council will not seize the opportunity to deny future SUP drilling zones ...but it was a clever back fire that this ordinace change opened the door so that they could legally shut the drillers down if they really wanted to. The public has to get involved in asking their city councils to ban this in populated areas.
Kim Feil
correction one hundred million dollar drilling revenue fund....how far does that kinda money go if untold numbers of people get cancer?
Raymond Crawford
Mr. Holden is not aware of the twists and turns that are contained within the City of Dallas and Trinity East Energy relationship since 2007. For that reason, talk of a possible lawsuit is not going to happen anytime soon, if at all. To have a lawsuit would mean that all evidence showing connected to that relationship would be made public and neither party wants to do that.
To adopt this current gas ordinance proposal would be the wisest thing the City of Dallas could do as soon as possible.
S. Read
The Meyers live in the suburbs of Southwestern Dallas and Southwestern Dallas County not West Dallas. This is important to the accuracy of this story since their neighborhood has been specifically targeted by the gas operators. The Meyers are heroic for all their hard work and due diligence. Thank you, Claudia and Ed.
S. Read
IF being "liberal" means you work hard to protect your property, air and water then we should all proudly call ourselves, "Liberal."
Bill Blackmon via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Send the drillers to Beeville - they need the money..........let the rest of the civilized portions of the state stay clean and free from Tea Party economic terrorism.
S. Read
And by the way, this is a very succinct and well-written story. Thanks to Jim Malewitz for writing it so well.
James A Boren via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Liberals should unplug, unclothe, move into caves and forgo the use of fire.
Robert Chapman
But energy companies call the rules unworkable, regardless of the motivation. “It pretty much puts the nail in the coffin in terms of mineral production,”
There is no such thing as mineral production.
What minerals are there were placed by god and we merely extract it.
It is mind boggling that Texans, so concerned about the paper debts the government is leaving behind would rob future generations of natural resources that they will need to live.
It mineral companies can't make a few more dollars and some natural gas gets left over for future generations that can only be considered a win-win.
Rick Henderson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Drilling in the Dallas city limits?!? I want some of those mineral rights. Can't imagine where
S. Read
After re-reading this, just realized that the link above to the Lubbock story shows that the Lubbock Board of Public Health is suggesting a 1,500 ft set back. Good grief! Even in the big oil cities of West Texas they know something we still haven't figured out in most Barnett Shale cities in North Texas.
P.S. To the Texas Tribute Editor: Two suggestions: 1) While commenting it would help if they "full story" would not be collapsed so that when clicking on "full story" the comment being composed vanishes; And 2) Wishing that long, incoherent comments that are irrelevant to the specific story would be moderated better here...maybe that would be a better place to use that "collapse" feature.