Dallas City Council Wants Fracking in Park Land

Citizens Protest Gas Drilling in Dallas Parks By Setting Up
Fracking Rig at White Rock Lake on “It’s My Park Day”

 

New 15-foot “rig” will make appearances at Winfrey Point

and Valley View Park to highlight danger to public spaces

 

What: Citizens show up with new fake fracking rig to protest gas drilling in Dallas parks

Where/When: 1) Winfrey Point, White Rock Lake (Emerald Isle Dr), Saturday October 6^th, 9:00 a.m.

                               2) Valley View Park, 6950 Valley View Lane at Hillcrest, Saturday October 6^th, 11:00 a.m.

 

(Dallas)--- Neighborhood activists will be using a 15-foot model gas drilling rig during this Saturday’s city-sponsored “It’s My Park Day” to spotlight a new city ordinance that could allow drilling in parks for the first time.

 

“It’s ridiculous that while the City is out celebrating our public spaces and trying to recruit residents to help them maintain them, it’s also considering a policy that would allow gas drilling to ruin them,” said Claudia Meyer, of the Mountain Creek Neighborhood Alliance, a member of the Dallas Residents at Risk coalition sponsoring the action. “We want to give Dallas residents some idea of what it means to have your local park turned into an industrial zone.”

 

Meyer and at least a dozen others will be showing up at White Rock Lake’s Winfrey Point at 9am on Saturday morning with a 15-foot high model of a gas drilling rig that citizens built as a travelling protest. It will be the rig’s debut, and the red and black prop promises to be an eye-catcher.  As the rig attracts attention, Meyer and her fellow activists will be handing out flyers warning volunteers that their favorite urban refuges could be targets of development if the city allows gas drilling in parks as part of its larger ordinance governing drilling in Dallas.

 

Thousands of acres of Dallas parkland is currently under lease for drilling. The city council’s gas task force, including outgoing Park and Recreation Board President Joan Walne, reversed a previous position at the last minute and endorsed drilling in parkland. Although White Rock Lake isn’t a declared site, protesters picked the park because it’s the gem of the City’s park system and it’s in the district of Councilmember Sheffie Kadane, who’s been an unquestioning advocate of park drilling. During an August council briefing, Kadane was recorded as saying, “We’ve got parklands there that aren’t being utilized for anything. What else are you gonna put there?”

 

“I don’t know what kind of park system Councilmember Kadane grew up enjoying, but we believe that most Dallas residents like their parks without heavy industrial activity in them,” said Edward Hartmann, with the Texas Campaign for the Environment. “The fact that the city would even consider allowing gas drilling operations on parkland is appalling.”

 

Dallas Sierra Club Conservation Co-Chair Molly Rooke pointed out that there’s never been any drilling in Dallas parks and Kadane is working hard to change this. “Councilmen Kadane actually wants to open up our parks to a land rush by gas operators. This is why residents in his district need to firmly say they don’t support such a radical change, and they won’t vote to re-elect the Councilman if he continues to push for it.”

 

After the stop at White Rock Lake, the rig will make its way to Valley View Park by 11:00 a.m. for a Volunteer Appreciation Ceremony, where city officials are expected to gather.

 

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