Urban drilling and the Barnett Shale = tension

Check out the S-T's front page Saturday morning. Here's a tease to the story from Mike Lee, one of our Fort Worth City Hall reporters and an author of this blog, that you'll see there:

City Councilman Sal Espino should have been at ease Monday night.

He was leading a community meeting on the North Side, the neighborhood where he grew up, in the parish hall where his parents recently celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary.

He was telling a crowd of about 40 residents that the city was about to spend $4.8 million to fix up Rockwood Park.

But the group wanted to talk about the source of the money: a natural gas well next to the park.

The residents, including Fort Worth school trustee Camille Rodriguez, were concerned about noise, truck traffic, pipelines, the potential for accidents. They felt like they hadn’t gotten enough notice about the drilling site.

“If we can do this right, we can benefit the park and we can protect the neighborhood,” Espino said. “If, for whatever reason it doesn’t work, you can hold me accountable.”

The tension over gas drilling is becoming more common as natural gas drilling pushes into the center of Fort Worth.

• During the summer, residents in the Rolling Hills neighborhood learned they were powerless to stop a rig that was planned for the Glen Garden Country Club because the drilling company had obtained waivers from property owners.
• Negotiations are still going on about saltwater injection wells used to dispose of gas drilling waste.
• Most recently, opponents of a drilling site in a grove of trees next to the Trinity River hike-and-bike trail learned that the ordinance doesn’t consider the trail system a park. More than 1,200 people signed a petition opposing the site.

-- Scott

Comments

[Suzette]

Fort Worth City Council needs to reconvene the Gas Drilling Task Force and put some restrictions on the whereabouts of the massive pipeline maze going on in this City, along with more restrictions on maintenance and upkeep of the well heads, pipelines, and all the other pieces of this very large puzzle.

Also, why do Gas Companies have more authority and freedom in what the do than "Governmental Entities" as stated in the State Law? My understanding is that Rick Perry didn't want the eminent domain law touched during the last session.....hummmmmm wonder why? In my opinion, our lawmakers are failing us -- well some of us, those of us not getting kick backs from the "record profit making" energy companies.

[B. Humphries]

Archie, What is it that Don Young has actually done ? Other than
voice is opinion ? and have a common as a cow patty web site?
Until he sue's the city himself, puts his money where his mouth
is, what exactly has he accomplished ? other than to stir up and
scare people with his ignorance of gas well production and site
preservation? Thanks for the compliment of assuming I work for a
drilling company, but I am a Hairstylist going into into my 25th
year, thank you very much. I'd almost bet you are in the shovel
business and Don's day job is telemarketing.

[Archie]

Sounds like "Top Cat" and B. Humphries are the ones full of Bulls__t. I'll even go further and state that they most probably work for one of the drillers, as this sort of talk is to be heard by them all the time.
Don Young is a hero! He is a voice of reason when short sighted people like these two chime in with ignorance and rhetoric. You two need to wake up and smell what you are shoveling!

[B. Humphries]

Looks to my like Mr. Young rely's on other people (middle aged women
who have the time to dog walk) to put their money where his mouth is.
I've always heard that "talk is cheap" and that bullshit walks.

[sirius_girl]

Top Cat,

also in the 60's: the message of humanity from John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

[Top Cat]

I have one question? Does Don Young have a real job or does he just sit around writing his idiotic emails about lawsuits, etc. File the lawsuit buster. The mineral estate is dominant and the mineral owner has the right to obtain and enjoy those minerals. You are not Fort Worth can do, but can't do.

He is a child of the 1960's, SDS, LSD, and basically he must have lost his mind back then like so many of that enlightened generation that brought us defeat in Viet Nam.

[Don Young]

If we wait for an expolision or the devastation of Rckwood Park to hold Sal accountable, it will be too late. We must do everything possible to PREVENT drilling on the Northside BEFORE it happens. What good will it do to hold Sal accounatable after the neighborhood is denigrated???? He needs to do more NOW to protect our children, our homes, neigborhoods and parks. Does he represent the citizens or the gas drillers? He must choose.

Don Young

[Sirius_girl]

I'm curious about water use in the Barnett Shale.

If it takes between 3.5 and 5 million gallons of water to fraq a well, where does the water come from?
Do energy companies pay for water usage and are the rates the same as citizens pay? Will drillers pay the increased rate for large consumption users? When homeowners are restricted from watering yards during drought conditions, is there a moratorium on drilling?