Fort Worth, Chesapeake Reach Tentative Agreement on TCU Gas Drilling Site
by Steve Smith
Even though some said that a comprehensive approach to gas drilling in Fort Worth was not needed or even possible, it appears that Fort Worth and Chesapeake Energy have taken a first step in that direction.
After months of work on the issue, the City of Fort Worth and Chesapeake Energy have reached a tentative agreement on what District 9 City Council representative Joel Burns called a comprehensive plan proposal for gas drilling in Southwest Fort Worth. The proposed agreement, if presented and approved by the City Council, means that Chesapeake will not drill a well on the TCU campus and the Alton Road pipeline through Westcliff will be unnecessary. TCU’s mineral leases will be developed instead from two well sites off of Granbury Road to the Southeast of the campus, including the Thornton site pictured above.
“I hope this agreement is a helpful example of what we can accomplish in other parts of the city when we take a comprehensive approach to gas drilling,” Burns said.
Evidently, the City asked Chesapeake Energy to develop a plan — and Chesapeake actually came back with something. For the first time, Chesapeake Energy opened their playbook and showed their drilling strategy, including potential pad sites and pipeline routes. As a result, they have agreed to limit their operations to only four additional pad sites.
Those four sites sites would be a new site near the Thornton site, the Merrimac site, a site near the Baptist Seminary site and a site near the former S&H Green Stamps Warehouse off of Seminary Drive. Not only would this reduce most of the impact to the neighborhoods, it would take most of the pipelines out of residential neighborhoods and run them along railroad easements. Chesapeake could bring a proposal to the City Council for a vote by April or May.
Although the plan isn’t perfect and some of the details haven’t been ironed out, this could be a huge step toward a comprehensive plan on urban gas drilling in Fort Worth.
“I worked harder on this than on any other issue since I’ve been on the City Council, including the Eighth Avenue drilling site and the Streetcar initiative,” Burns said. “The Mayor was very supportive of my work, and TCU deserves a lot of credit, too. Victor Boschini and Brian Gutierrez were instrumental in making it happen.”
It appears that TCU left a lot of money on the table for doing so, too. However, the money it would have made by having a surface drilling site on the campus would have been more than offset by the bad will generated by having more than 40 homes that would have been considered high impact, including some as close as 220 feet to the proposed site.
Although Burns had no comment when I asked him about it, another source close to the process confirmed that similar proposals had been shopped to other City Council members about drilling in other districts around Fort Worth.
Regarding the proposed Merrimac site that West and Clear reported on last week, it appears that this site will be moving forward. Also, the proposed initial pad site that was backed up to the Trinity Trail is now moved closer to Old University Drive.
What will be interesting to watch going forward is how Chesapeake Energy and XTO — not the best of friends in the least — can work together on lease swaps and other agreements that could lead to a much less intrusive urban gas drilling process. It will also be interesting to see if this less intrusive and more measured approach can be carried out all over Fort Worth — North, South, East and West.
It’s also interesting that Chesapeake’s Master Plan sounds remarkably like the one that Gas Drilling Task Force member Jim Bradbury had been proposing last summer. When I spoke with Bradbury last night, he had no comment on the issue. “I’m just pleased that a Master Plan approach that would share pad sites, pipelines and infrastructure is getting some momentum,” he said.
And even though I’m not ready to start throwing rose petals in front of Julie Wilson’s chariot, Chesapeake does deserve some credit for coming up with a realistic approach based more on engagement and not confrontation.
But there’s still a long way to go. For instance, Carter Avenue resident and homeowner, Steve Deoung, one of the last holdouts to signing, refuses to be intimidated by Chesapeake into signing an agreement that would threaten the safety of his neighborhood and put the value of homes on the street at risk. His court hearing on Friday morning in Judge Vince Sprinkle’s Tarrant County Court #3 will decide his motion to dismiss the case due to improper filings by Chesapeake.
And I wish that the TCU drilling agreement could have been reached before Chesapeake Energy’s pipeline subsidiary tore down two houses in my neighborhood for no reason. I’m still a little pissed about that.
However, all parties — Chesapeake, TCU, Mayor Moncrief and Councilman Burns deserve credit for taking a step in the right direction. Now let’s see what happens from here.
Tags: Barnett Shale, Chesapeake Energy, Joel Burns, Master Plan, Mike Moncrief, pipelines, TCU, Westcliff
10 Comments, Comments or Pings
Jessica
I guess it’s better than it could have been, but I’m still none too pleased about those wasted lots in the neighborhood and the idea of having a drilling site next door to my office. It seems crazy to me that the other developers, retailers, etc. off University wouldn’t mind having a pad site right outside their shopping.
Jan 16th, 2009
Don Young
I think it a very big mistake to start patting Chesapeake on the back. I hasten to remind you of the kids who live on streets like Carter Avenue. They and their parents are being treated like dirt by this company. I know it’s hard, but put yourselves in the place of these young children. They are living victims of a greedy company and have almost no one coming to their defense.
The reasons Chesapeake made this deal with TCU were not because they are “good guys”. It was a straight business decision they made to protect their assets and bottom line. Philanthropy had nothing whatsoever to do with it. They know where the money is in this town. They know whose bread to butter.
If they really were good guys they would not be endangering lives and property in ANY neighborhood. I see no reason to give Julie Wilson or any of them credit. Quite the contrary. This action demonizes them a bit more from my perspective.
Jan 16th, 2009
greg
As one whose neighborhood benefits from this I am certainly glad to see the result. But it was a crisis that did not need to happen.
TCU, with an endowment for flowers on its campus, should have exhibited better judgment to start with. Heavy Industry and toxic waste in the middle of a beautiful school? A clear example of collective stupidity. Thank God it has been reworked.
But to Don’s point… this is not about CHK being good guys. This is fallout from the 8th Avenue debacle: there is no way the TCU well would pass muster, and who wants to lose two times in a row? Goodness, might make Citizens of the Shale think they could control their own destiny! Armed with that, they might just try. Better to walk off quietly and press where there is less of an issue.
Real good guys would re-route the Carter Ave pipeline. I hope the council member there can match ours in making the deal.
Jan 16th, 2009
greg
Now the follow up from today’s S-T: “We won’t withdraw [the TCU application] until we’ve made sure we’ve got all these approved,” Wilson said.
So let’s be clear: getting the wells approved to replace the TCU well is not sufficient. CHK needs to have all the others approved also. If the company asked for approval of a “replacement” well that could harvest the TCU gas, that would seem a reasonable bargaining position. Instead the all-or-nothing proposal looks a lot like blackmail.
So far the lack of public input on the plan is astonishing, even by Fort Worth standards. I think I’m guilty of celebrating too soon when I got the “no TCU well” news because I failed to ask, “what’s the cost?” You would think I would know better by now.
How many homes in South Hills will be put in harm’s way? How badly will businesses, Mistletoe Heights and the Trinity Trail be damaged by the Days Inn Well that we have to agree to? Now we’ll have a well 1/4 mile upwind from our world class zoo with no regulation on airborne releases? How pleasant.
As far as I am concerned we should not have to give Chesapeake a pass on any of the plan. We should demand proof of no harm before agreeing to any of it.
Jan 17th, 2009
B. S. Hale
We need to remember the tale of the man who was going up a hill and came across a wounded snake that pleaded with the man to carry it up the hill so it could survive by slithering down the other side of that hill to the pond below. The man declined saying, “you’re a snake; you will bite and kill me”. The snake coughed and cried promising the man that it would not bite and kill him if the man would just help it survive. The man relented and carried the snake up the steep hill, at the top of which the snake stuck its venomous fangs into him. The dying man protested “but you promised not to bite and kill me!” The serpent hissed with a gleam in its eyes “I’m a snake. It’s what I do. You’ve always known that!!” S-s-silly man, shame on him. Snakes have no shame– or conscience either.
I hear there are snakes in our midst, passing out a few thousand dollars here and there and making promises to neutralize any resistance while they slowly squeeze the life from the poor people–of all ages–on Carter Ave. and nearby streets. A cautionary note to the people who had signed easement (eas-s-sy for whom?) contracts near TCU: the easement remains with the property and Ches-s-s-sapeake has the right to sell or lease out those easement rights that they now own. Properties with an easement closer than than ten feet from the house might be surprised to learn that they will have a harder time selling the property since FHA will not insure a mortgage for such a property–whether there is a pipeline under the ground or not because “the dominant estate” (i.e. Ches.) could exercise its “superior rights” to the use, enjoyment, and “convenience” of the easement at any time. Better read the fine print and watch out for snakes.
Jan 17th, 2009
Steve Smith
To clarify a couple of points from Greg and Don, my understanding of the deal is this: the City of Fort Worth wants to minimize the impact of gas drilling on neighborhoods and Chesapeake wants to know they can get the permits to drill. The consensus position is fewer padsites and pipelines removed from neighborhoods in exchange for blanket approval that removes uncertainty and cost for Chesapeake. Furthermore, if this works, it could be a model for how gas drilling is built out in the rest of urban Fort Worth.
Is this perfect? No. Is it better than an Eighth Avenue-like battle at a multitude of other drilling sites in urban Fort Worth? Potentially.
Regarding Julie Wilson’s statement about not withdrawing the TCU permit until the approval of the other drilling sites, that seems less like blackmail and more like not making any assumptions.
Regarding public input, it appears that Chesapeake is taking baby steps toward engaging neighborhoods in a more positive way. Don’t get me wrong, they could revert toward their “my way or the highway” approach at any time. I don’t chalk up this new approach to altruism, I chalk it up to reality. Chesapeake’s old brute force approach was driven largely by their ability to finance current operations based on future production. That model is dead. They need to put wells into production, and taking uncertainty out of the process can only help them.
Is the Merrimac site a sucky place for drilling operations? Hell yes. But my understanding is that as long as Chesapeake can get the waivers from protected uses as outlined by our newly minted and what I believe to be woefully flawed drilling ordinance, there really is little that can be done to stop that site. There are some things to be done to make it less bad, but it is unlikely to be stopped.
Again, is all this perfect? No. But I am intrigued that we are seeing some movement in what is possible. Let’s see where it goes from here.
Jan 17th, 2009
Don Young
Right on B.S Hale! You’ve captured the essence of Buzzworms in the Backyard.
Sorry to belabor the point, Steve, but I see no baby steps being taken by CHK on Carter Avenue or anyplace on the eastside. What I do see is a company looking to clean up their bad reputation by greasing the right palms. TCU is Exhibit A.
They could re-direct the Carter Av, pipeline tomorrow if they really wanted to, move it away from those homes and families, but the will is not present. Why? The low income eastside does not have the political muscle or willpower to force their hand, as Joel and southside activists have done.
To play this game of compromise fits neatly into Chesapeake’s game plan. There are better solutions to the drilling problem that the city and CHK refuse to examine. Until they do, they’ll get no applause from me.
Jan 17th, 2009
greg
On further reflection, consider there was no chance in Hades for CHK to get the TCU Well into production. Thought 8th Ave was a biggie? I think it would have been just like that and there are houses within 250 feet of the TCU Well, too.
So what does that mean? It means CHK is offering to trade nothing for something. A well they cannot get for blanket agreements elsewhere. Granted it’s only an offer, it has not been accepted.
But we’re supposed to think that’s a good deal? Man, if I could arrange to trade nothing for something on a routine basis I’d be livin’ on Easy Street!
Jan 17th, 2009
Suzette Watkins
Don – Sure the Eastside has the “political muscle.” It’s just that it hasn’t been moved, exercised or motivated in a long time. Nor has it had a strong leader for/of change, for its’ residents in a very long time. It doesn’t take “money” to have political muscle or willpower, it only takes motivated & informed voters to start rising to the occassion.
Jan 17th, 2009
Txsharon
Where the well sites are located is only one piece of the picture. So what if TCU dodges the bullet and doesn’t get a well in their backyard? Maybe they don’t get incinerated, but, instead, die the slow death from breathing the fumes that blow their way.
If you ever turn on the tap you might want to ask the Texas Railroad Commission the same question I asked: Where did the water go? Wise County is a watershed for DFW and it’s rollin’ downhill. http://txsharon.blogspot.com/2009/01/texas-railroad-commission-investigation.html
Jan 18th, 2009
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