Stop fracking in North Texas

NORTH TEXAS lies above a 5,000-square mile layer of rock called the Barnett Shale, spanning at least 18 counties. Within this shale is natural gas, which has long been considered unexploitable. But since the early 2000s, the region has become one of the natural gas industry's largest targets.

New technology developed in the North Texas region led to the development of a process called hydraulic fracturing to obtain the natural gas. Now the gas industry is attempting to deploy this process in Texas and 27 other states, from Montana to New York.

For anyone who hasn't seen the Oscar-nominated film Gasland, here's how it works: workers drill down to the desired layer of rock, then drill horizontally, then explode the rock to create fractures. These fractures are expanded by a high-pressure mixture of millions of gallons of water, sand, gelling agents, lubricants, compressed gases and "proprietary chemicals."

The number of natural gas wells on the Barnett Shale has jumped from 150 in 1993 to 15,000 today--and growing. It's easy to see why the corporations involved in the extraction, distribution and use of natural gas are excited--big, quick and easy profits.

But for the people of North Texas, the "innovation" of fracking, as hydraulic fracturing is called for short, is a nightmare. The water table as well as local rivers and water formations are infected with poisons used and/or unleashed by fracking, resulting in dying animals and exposure to toxins for those dependent on the water to drink.

In areas where fracking takes place, the air is filled with carcinogens and asthma-inducing compounds. The earth dug out of the ground, including radioactive heavy metals, is then "land farmed," a euphemism for smearing it around on land near people not rich enough or connected enough to stop it. And to add insult to injury, there are now never-before-seen earthquakes in the area--a total of 24 since 2006, compared to just one from 1906 to 2006.

As if this weren't bad enough, the whole process is done to extract natural gas, a fossil fuel that still contributes to global warming, despite the industry's mantra that natural gas is "clean energy."

NATURALLY, CITY and state officials elected to protect us from this harm routinely act to protect the industry's profits, not the health and welfare of the environment or the residents of North Texas.

Take the city of Denton, for example. In 2009, permits were granted for wells in the midst of a neighborhood near a hospital, a nursing home and a playground. Seriously? Seriously.

When residents assembled at meeting after meeting of the city council to make their opposition heard, they were repeatedly rebuffed, delayed to the next meeting and ultimately ignored. The well is currently producing for the financial benefit of Range Resources.

Denton's gas-well administrator Darren Groth was imported from the city of Arlington, Texas, where he held the same job and approved 21 gas wells within 300 feet of a day care center. Groth now heads Denton's gas well drilling task force and is tasked with the job of recommending "best practice" methods to regulate the extraction of natural gas.

The task force, composed of three "representative" citizens and two industry "experts," is stacked with industry shills. While Tom LaPoint, an environmental scientist, and Vicki Oppenheim, an environmental urban planner, are included, also on the task force are Ed Ireland, the executive director of the Barnett Shale Energy Education Council, which is an industry mouthpiece; Don Butler, who works for New Tech Global, a company that advises energy companies on how best to avoid regulations; and John Siegmund, a banker who, before he retired, oversaw some of the oil industry's exploitations of people in Peru, Nigeria, Indonesia and Libya.

Fortunately, the citizens of North Texas are not letting this stand. In April 2011, members of the International Socialist Organization (ISO), Rising Tide North Texas (RTNT) and others participated in a march in downtown Fort Worth to ban fracking. The action succeeded in shutting down the headquarters of Range Resources for the day. Momentum from the event, along with activist networking, spilled over into further actions in the region.

Despite a statewide prohibition against municipal moratoriums on fracking, Denton activists are drawing inspiration from onerous regulations implemented in the nearby city of Flower Mound, which has effectively halted all fracking there since 2009.

A citizen-formed Denton Stakeholders Drilling Advisory Group (DAG) recently issued a list of recommended regulations, inspired by those in Flower Mound and other nearby cities. The DAG also hosted several well-attended informational sessions to educate concerned citizens about fracking.

The Denton branch of the ISO, Occupy Denton and RTNT have made it routine to organize protests at relevant public meeting of city officials. Public meetings of the task force, while rare, draw crowds unanimously opposed to fracking. On December 7, activists described by one blogger as "fracking insurgents" disrupted a meeting of the Denton Planning and Zoning Commission, mic-checking a vote to grant a permit to a company already drilling in the city illegally.

With the fight against fracking so clearly in the public eye and its presence growing still, activists here look forward to making a spectacle of the city's outrageous disregard for the health of its citizens and the natural environment until new regulations are in place.