Fort Worth Gas Drilling Continues Down The River Without a Plan, a Paddle or a Clue
by Steve SmithLike water seeking base level, the fight over urban gas drilling in Fort Worth always seems to come back to the Trinity River. Much like the Trinity Trees situation last year, the current debate over the Greenwood Cemetery drilling site wraps up all of the dilemmas and contradictions the public space / private property situation in one neat little package.
The Trinity Trails are one of the really unique aspects of Fort Worth that really make this city special. The open green spaces along the river provide beautiful vistas and open spaces for recreation. However, even though the Trinity Trails have the feel of one long park, the system is in actuality a hodge-podge of city parks, private property and land owned by the Tarrant Regional Water District. And these open spaces make the spaces as attractive to gas drilling operations as it does cyclists and runners.
As much as I would like to think that the City or the TRWD would actually increase protections of the Trinity Trails and public space, the opposite has actually happened — the Gas Drilling Task Force voted to reduce protections for the Trinity Trails. And TRWD feels free to take our tax dollars but hasn’t seen the need to seek any public input into gas drilling on land it controls. But considering Chesapeake’s pipeline subsidiary is using eminent domain to raze homes, I guess this is small potatoes.
However, balancing the legal rights of property owners to develop their mineral rights with the quality-of-life and safety concerns has become a balancing act that the City of Fort Worth has increasingly befuddles the Mayor and the City Council. That much became clear last week when the Council voted to continue consideration of the Greenwood permit for a second time. The issue is scheduled to come up for a vote again at tonight’s Council meeting, but it doesn’t seem like the Council wants to vote on this because the political climate is making it far less tenable for members of the Council to vote in favor of this permit.
Even though the 2006 drilling ordinance codified a 600-foot limit between gas wells and protected land uses, in practice, this setback requirement has been pretty squishy. In practice, 600 feet is really only a suggestion rather than a requirement.
This has been less of an issue as the producers have gobbled up the low-hanging fruit — the drilling sites that didn’t require a variance or were located where a variance could be easily had. As the Star-Telegram set out in a recent story, “Fort Worth has gotten requests for about 120 high-impact permits since the system was set up, out of about 1,150 wells in all. Of those, more than half — 64 — have been issued in the last year, and 50 have been issued in the last seven months. In most of those cases, the energy companies got waivers from the surrounding property owners. The City Council has considered about 10. The council has never voted against a high-impact permit, although a few have been delayed and later withdrawn.”
Those days are over. As the drilling moves into the urban core of Fort Worth, the relative trickle of high-impact well requests will soon become a torrent. And without a comprehensive plan, the City of Fort Worth will continue on its current path of writing a gas drilling ordinance one drilling site at a time. And the operators are becoming a little nervous about this possibility because securing five Council votes is hard enough when there’s only one hot-button issue drilling site on the council agenda? Imagine having a Greenwood, an Eighth Avenue, a Tandy Hills, a Carter Avenue and a couple of other pissed-off neighborhoods on the agenda on the same agenda. That’s not a recipe for re-election.
It’s also not a recipe for efficient business operations. Although Chesapeake’s confrontational style is to never give an inch on anything, some of the other operators not named Chesapeake are beginning to see that a Master Plan for gas drilling that exchanges common production and pipeline infrastructure in exchange for a process that expedites production may actually make some sense. All of the publicly traded operators are all in the same boat — they’ve laid out big money to secure leases and buy very expensive equipment, now Wall Street wants to see some production results within the next few quarters.
That’s the main reason that I don’t believe that even a moratorium on drilling is feasible — even a limited one that allows current permits to go forward but suspends issuing new permits for 90 or 180 days. There’s just too much pressure. However, I was surprised to learn that Fort Worth did have a drilling moratorium back in 2001 — and that’s on a council that included Frank Moss and Jungus Jordan as well as current Chesapeake employee Ken Barr was mayor.
(And I don’t even want to get into pipelines right now — although I was encouraged that Chuck Silcox was able to temporarily block approvals of the TCU Gas Well pipeline down Alton Road last week. His reasoning: what’s the rush to build a pipeline when we don’t even know where the well is going? My own grassy knoll: the pipeline is part of Chesapeake’s plan to get a permit for this highly contested well. “Hey, we got a pipeline. You can’t deny the permit now.”)
But even if a moratorium isn’t feasible, it wouldn’t surprise me to see some of the producers lean on the city for a Master Plan, at least privately if not publicly. The alternative is the status quo — writing a drilling ordinance five City Council votes at a time.
I really believe that Fort Worth can develop a plan that balances protections for green space, quality of life and landowners rights, but I don’t think we are headed in that direction right now. We’re just headed down the Trinity without a paddle, a plan or a clue.
Tags: Barnett Shale, Chesapeake Energy, chuck silcox, Greenwood, Mike Moncrief, TCU, trinity trails, trinity trees
3 Comments, Comments or Pings
jason
The Trinity Trails will come under attack again when Chesapeake begins drilling on their recently acquired site - behind the now closed Denny’s on University Drive, where the now-shuttered Days Inn stands ready for the wrecking ball. Chesapeake has bought most, if not all, of that property along old University Drive - that includes those 2-story buildings along the River and the aforementioned Trinity Trail. And I’m sure they won’t knock down any of those large trees that grow on the site.
Sep 9th, 2008
Emmy
There has been a flurry of truck activity in the Monticello neighborhood where I live. Down the hill from the Tres Jose restaurant, right along the Trinity Trail, there’s a new temporary gate shack set up now and the road is now constantly dirty and strewn with rocks. At this entrance during the day, flagmen are now having to caution traffic from the trucks crossing the road.
This is right across the road that will also lead to the area near the proposed Greenwood Cemetery well sites.
Sep 9th, 2008
John MacFarlane
The Fort Worth Weekly has a very in depth article about this subject. Please see it at:
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=7161
Sep 15th, 2008
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