Dallas Homeowners League Helps Announce Meeting

The Dallas Homeowners League is a citywide alliance of neighborhoods working for neighborhood self-determination and empowerment.

Gas Well Drilling Meeting Notice The City Council task force appointed to study the issue of gas well drilling within the Dallas city limits has completed its study and made its recommendations to the council. Several neighborhoods and organizations (listed below) will be hosting a public meeting to discuss changes that they would like to see made to the task force's recommendations, and to mobilize public support for their changes. For more information, see this meeting flyer. Meeting Information: Tuesday, March 27th 7pm - 8:30pm Center for Community Cooperation 2900 Live Oak Dallas, TX The meeting is being hosted by the following groups: Mountain Creek Neighborhood Alliance Texas Campaign for the Environment Dallas Area Residents for Responsible Drilling Earthworks Oil and Gas Accountability Project Downwinders at Risk Dallas Sierra Club

We hope you find this information useful. Thank you for your support of the Dallas Homeowners League! Sincerely, Crispin Lawson Dallas Homeowners League President

GAS WELLS IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD ....

.... only if you let it happen.

Mountain Creek Neighborhood Alliance residents have been attending the Dallas Gas Drilling Task Force's meetings at City Hall from July, 2011 to February, 2012.  All 22 meetings and 2 Public Hearings.  The Task Force has made their recommendations.  And we're not happy with them and you're not going to be happy with them either.

Here is a chart we made for you of the key areas we're not happy with and they MUST be changed.

Task Force Recommendations that Must be Strengthened:

ISSUE	TASK FORCE	SOLUTION
Too close for comfort	Separate and unequal protections: 1000 feet from homes, schools, hospitals and places of worship, but less for offices, shopping centers and restaurants—and gas companies can ask for a “variance” of just 500 feet for any of these!	Dallas should proceed with caution. The Army Corps of Engineers recommends a setback of 3000 feet for the protection of a dam. Dallas should use this as a guideline to uniformly protect its residents where we live, work, worship and play.
Secret toxic chemicals	Gas companies can keep the full list of toxic chemicals they use to frack permanently hidden, calling it their “trade secret.” Not even Dallas police, firefighters and medical professionals would be given this information.	Dallas’ first responders are on the front lines every day and will be put at high risk of exposure to these toxic chemicals. Dallas should demand full disclosure of all chemicals with no “trade secret” exemptions.
Water for drinking, not for fracking	Fracking uses 1-8 million gallons of water for each new gas well—and this water is permanently contaminated with toxic chemicals. Gas companies would be allowed to do this even during severe droughts, and even use drinking water from Dallas to drill in other cities.	Dallas should charge gas companies twice as much for using our water since it will be contaminated and lost forever, ban the exporting of our drinking water to other cities for the purpose of fracking and ban water for fracking as a part of Dallas’ Stage III drought restrictions.
Save our parklands & floodplains	Reverse the current gas drilling ordinance in order to allow fracking inside Dallas parklands and floodplains—as well as all compressor stations, storage tanks and other industrial equipment.	Allowing industrial development inside our parklands and floodplains is dangerous, risky and costly. Dallas should keep the existing prohibition on fracking inside parklands and floodplains, and protect these with 3000 foot setbacks.
Protect the  air we breathe	Allow fracking operations to continue contributing as much CO2 as all the cars on D/FW roads, which would all but eliminate the recently adopted Dallas climate action plan.	Dallas should require the gas industry to  use their own Best Practises so as to not add to the smog producing and poisonous gases in Dallas' air.
Effective oversight	Continue relying on failed state and federal efforts to police fracking operations in the D/FW Metroplex, and these outside agencies to handle problems when they arise.	Dallas should establish its own industry-funded office of gas drilling oversight. This office must have enough trained personnel, equipped with the latest technology, to be able to provide help to residents 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Mountain Creek Neighborhood Alliance Leaders  Stand Up by Attending:

Citywide Organizing Meeting on Gas Drilling in Dallas
Tuesday, March 27th
7 to 8:30 pm
Center for Community Cooperation
2900 Live Oak
Dallas, TX 75204

Email mcnadallas@yahoo.com with any questions.

Dallas Gas Drilling Task Force Makes Recommendations

CONFUSING   CONFUSING

After 8 months of studying ordinances from Ft Worth, Arlington, Grand Prairie, Flower Mound, and Hurst, the Dallas Gas Drilling Task Force has made its confusing and hard to understand recommendations.


The upshot is Dallas has a weaker proposed ordinance of protection for their citizens than most of the other cities they studied.


http://www.dallascityhall.com/pdf/GasDrilling/GasDrillingandProductionOrdinance_030112.pdf


Of major importance is the "setback" or distance required from a gas drilling and production use to a protected use is as follows:  1,000 ft minimum spacing measured from the property line of the operation/pad site to  ....


residential, institutional and community service uses *


.... but the City Council may grant a setback distance of not less than 500 ft for protected use with 2/3 vote in favor.


The distance for Habitable Structures (is any use that is not a protected use) is 300' from the property line of the operation/pad site. 


.... So our homes* could be between 500 ft to 1000 ft from a pad site 


.... and anything else can be 300 ft?


Got that?  You need to be a lobbyist to keep track of this!  


Their will be a:

Citywide Organizing Meeting on Gas Drilling in Dallas

Tuesday, March 27th  7 to 8:30 pm

Center for Comunity Cooperation

2900 Live Oak, Dallas

* See exceptions on link.