Natural Gas Drilling Sparks Fort Worth Protest

[struggle4progress]

Aug 7, 2008 4:35 pm US/Central

FORT WORTH (CBS 11 News) ― Worried homeowners descended on the Fort Worth City Council in protest on Thursday, angry over what they fear is uncontrolled and dangerous natural gas drilling. More than 60 percent of Fort Worth residents have seen the drilling, and not everyone likes it.

Protesters came from all over Fort Worth. Many had already complained quietly in the normal forum of the city council meetings. Usually, neighborhood associations come to meetings in small groups, showing up each week to complain about the issues.

But it has never been like this, with people yelling to get their point across ...

However, the City is almost powerless in this situation. State and federal laws over pipelines trump their rules. The City can only deliver the messages of their voters to industry regulators ...

http://cbs11tv.com/local/Fort.Worth.Drilling.2.790366.html

[MadMaddie]

1. Wow!! If they are protesting in Texas...this should be interesting!

[Jane Austin]

2. It's nuts in Ft. Wuth right now.

Our friend, like most of his neighbors has leased the mineral rights underneath his house!

[spag68]

3. Texans

I do feel sorry for the Fort Worth area,as my brother lives there. However, if some of these people would have taken the time to really look at their Governor those many years ago, we might not be in the pickle we are in today. That said I hope they get some traction, what we need is an energy policy for alternatives, not more fossil fuel use.

[bbinacan]

4. My guess is that

these protesters either don't own the mineral rights or don't live in the area being drilled. I would bet on the former. Have these idiots ever heard of slant or directional drilling?

[Not Sure]

5. It's not that simple

Not everyone owns the mineral rights that come with their property, but that's likely not the reason there is protesting. First of all, unless you saw the number of holes being poked in the ground around here, you wouldn't believe it. There are rigs everywhere. Even at the north end of DFW airport, not 1000 feet from a runway, there are two of these rigs in operation as I type. They operate 24 hours a day, they are noisy as can be, and the light from the towers is bright and illuminates everything around it.

There is also constant traffic to and from the sites. This is not your normal 18-wheeler traffic, either. These are heavy off-road trucks and they destroy the county roads and city streets they travel on, sometimes very quickly. After a month of this kind of traffic, if you get a good rain, suddenly there are large potholes where none existed before. It's not the kind of surprise you want when you're traveling 40 mph in your new Prius.

Drill sites also use a tremendous amount of water. Because of the urban location of the drilling activity, it's far easier and cheaper to tap a potable water supply than to drill a water well (assuming you could get a water well permit and could actually hit water). As a result, the Tarrant County water district reaches restricted use levels more quickly than normal. Despite the heavy rain we received last year, the area lakes can only hold so much, and our disproportionate number of waste-every-resource Republicans have ensured that we're nearing drought levels again and will be forced to once again restrict water usage.

Once the drilling is complete and the well is set up, they are connected to pipelines. The pipelines carry non-odorized gas, which poses a threat to a highly populated area. In the event of a leak, the only way to tell would be pressure loss on a section of pipe monitored by a central site. Once the section of leaking pipe was isolated, the valves could be closed off and the leak repaired. If the leak doesn't ignite first. After seeing a 20-inch line burst into a 200 foot tall tower of flame last summer -- and this was from static electricity, not a spark or a lightning strike -- I can certainly understand the concern.

Now with all that said, as far as I'm concerned, they can drill all they want. At the rates some of the people in areas close to me are getting, I'm finally happy to have the biggest lot in the neighborhood at the end of a cul-de-sac. There is no place to drill within 500 feet of my house, so I won't suffer the noise, the trees will block the light and the only traffic I'll see on my street are lost drivers. I do have an electric right-of-way along my north boundary line, so I suppose there is a chance I could have a gas pipeline near me, but this seems unlikely since there are other, better ways from the open areas near me. Besides, this may be the only way I can continue to afford to live in even a run down little house in North Texas, unless I make a deal with the devil and go to work for one of the drilling companies. And if the civil engineering business gets any slower, I might just have to do that.

[bbinacan]

6. Go west young man.

I'm a right of way agent securing easements in the Barnett Shale area.

[Not Sure]

7. What kind of qualifications would one need for that job?

I've got about 10 years of relevant boundary experience surveying and performing analysis in Tarrant County, though I've worked in Parker, Denton, Johnson, Dallas and Collin. I work for a civil firm right now doing mostly pipe work for storm and wastewater systems, but boundary work is my passion. Trouble is, boundary work is pretty much dead since people stopped buying houses, though. Also, none of my contacts in the surveying or civil business do any oil and gas work, so I'm not sure who I should talk to about getting into that field. Any information you have would be helpful. I need to put a fall-back plan together pretty soon because I just don't see how things are going to turn around quickly enough to keep me employed full time through the next year.