(Cross-posted from the Dallas Resident at Risk website) The last time the Dallas Gas Drilling Task Force met in February, they voted on recommendations so bad—like fracking inside city parklands and within 500 feet of neighborhoods—they actually needed police protection during the deliberations. As the Task Force finally presented those recommendations to Mayor Rawlings and the City Council today, the only thing that changed was the crowd: What had been a small handful of activists became a filled-to-capacity hearing room with more people lined up outside than sitting down inside. Several organizers were forcibly removed yet again as they vocalized their disagreement with the idea that drilling all along the Trinity River floodplain and even inside the levees is somehow “safe and reasonable.” As it turns out, stating the obvious can get you kicked out of City Hall very quickly.Lots of coverage! CBS - NBC – KERA – Dallas Morning News – Dallas ObserverTo their credit, several City Council members pushed back against the worst proposals and even started using some independent thought to come up with better ideas in a few minutes than the Task Force had conceived of in 8 months. Unfortunately, some of the other Council Members fantasized about drilling royalties replacing billions of dollars of tax revenue and improving quality of life in Dallas—as if you can just go out and buy that at the mall. Some seemed convinced that fracking is perfectly safe and that it is going to be allowed in Dallas, regardless of what the pesky residents want. But neighborhood groups representing close to 180 homeowners associations all over the city have endorsed our “five protections” position. The gas-masked protesters were the lead story on the 6 o’clock news tonight. Democracy is on the march, and the police can’t evict us from the streets.Mayor Rawlings announced that there will be two more briefings before the City Council takes any votes, so we’ll see you all at City Hall again in the near future. You’ll get the schedule as soon as we do. Stay tuned for more interruptions of your normally scheduled programming.  Read More

Even though the federal government has established a new ozone standard of 75 parts per billion, DFW still hasn't managed to conquer the previous standard of 85 ppb. That was true again on Wednesday - the very same day the Dallas City Council began debate over a new gas drilling ordinance that could worsen regional air quality. Three ozone monitors - Dallas Executive Airport (the old Redbird), Dallas Hinton Street, and Arlington Municipal airport all registered 8 hour averages of 85 or above.  They were the first such "exceedences" of the standard this year. Arlington had at last three or so hours when it was breathing ozone levels of over 100 ppb. Whatever was happening today stuck around long enough to cause Parker County's monitor to still have readings in the 80's well past 10 at night. There were nine monitors that were at or above the new standard of 75 ppb spread out over four counties. Thursday is being forecast as another Orange Day for DFW, so in short order we could be halfway to an official violation (4 readings at the same monitor of 85 or more in one season) by the end of the week.  Read More

Word came Tuesday that two important Dallas neighborhood groups took very tough stands on the re-writing of a new city gas drilling ordinance. The Dallas Homeowners League, a city wide alliance of neighborhood associations and civic groups. adopted the same Dallas Residents at Risk resolution outlining the Five Basic Protections that you can find on this page to your right. That's a major milestone in and of itself. Not to be outdone, The Old Oak Cliff Conservation League passed a resolution that demanded the Mayor and Council prohibit  ANY drilling within Dallas city limits. Go to each of these group's website. Both prominently feature headlines and pictures about the Dallas Drilling controversy. It's not just Downwinders and other environmentalists anymore. The sound you hear is this two-year struggle gaining sudden and significant momentum.  Read More

For your consideration on the eve of the beginning of the Dallas City Council efforts to rewrite the Dallas gas drilling ordinance: Your local NPR affiliate decided to return to being a Public Broadcasting station for an entire hour on Monday when KERA-FM held a little mini-debate in its studios between Council member Scott Griggs, the Ft. Worth League of Neighborhoods president Libby Willis, and industry rep David Biegler. Griggs had a good time with Biegler while Willis was the Ft. Worth Cassandra warning Dallas what it was about to step into. Please go check it out and encourage KERA to do more public affairs shows like this. Next comes a national NPR story on fracking that also ran on Monday and tells the story of downwind residents and their doctors in Pennsylvania who are attributing familiar illness and ailments to the introduction of fracking: "And all of a sudden your tongue gets this metal taste on it. And it feels like it's enlarging, and it just feels like you're not getting enough air in, because your throat gets real 'burn-y.' And the next thing I know, I ... passed out."  Finally, a fascinating Dallas Observer interview with a Manager of Trinity East Drilling who promises Dallas "billions" in gas reserve money and no harm to scary-looking parkland that's sitting in the useless floodplain anyway. Absorb all this and be prepared for a pop quiz tomorrow at 1 pm at 6ES at City  Hall when gas drilling Task Force Chair Lois Finkelman officially hands over her recommendations to the Council and debate begins. We're told this is just the first of what will be multiple briefings on the issue with a timeline for a vote happening before they Council goes on summer break around July 4th.   Read More

Show the Dallas City Council you expect them to do better.....This Wednesday, May 16th the Dallas City Council will finally be getting the recommendations of its gas drilling task force. The recommendations will be summarized by Task Force Chair Lois Finkelman during the regular Dallas City Council briefing meeting right after a break for lunch, approximately 1:00 pm in Room 6ES at Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla. Among those recommendations: * Allow the drilling of natural gas wells and the siting of natural gas compressors as close as 500 feet from a home, school or hospital, *Reverse the current ordinance and allow drilling throughout the Trinity River floodplain, *Allow drilling in Dallas park land. After Finkelman's presentation, there will probably be discussion among council members about what to do next, i.e. hold public hearings, schedule a vote, etc. There will be no opportunity for public input before, during, or after the task force briefing except for the regularly-scheduled open mic speaker slots at 9 am, and at the very end of the meeting.  Some representatives of the Dallas Residents at Risk alliance Downwinders included, signed-up for those slots last week, so the council will be hearing from proponents of a stronger drilling ordinance in the morning and late afternoon. But they need to see you in front of them at 1 pm at City Hall. They need to know the public, their constituents, are watching. They need to know it's not OK with you to drill in parks or the floodplain or close to people. The Briefing Room is smaller than the regular Council Chambers. It doesn't take many people to fill it up. Your presence can make a big difference. We know it's a work day, but if you can take a late lunch and join us, please do. Thanks.    Read More

You may not know the name of the chemical, but you know it by smell. "Rotten eggs" is the olfactory indication you're being exposed to Hydrogen Sulfide. There's a reason it smells like that. Biological sources can emit it. Certain bacteria produce hydrogen sulfide as they decompose waste - like rotten eggs. It also occurs in geothermal situations. Hot water, steam and magma from inside the Earth carry heat, minerals and gases – like Hydrogen Sulfide – to the surface, liberating them in springs, geysers and volcanic lava. If you've ever been to Yellowstone, you know the smell. Industrial sources of hydrogen sulfide include oil and gas drilling, refineries, paper mills, large scale livestock production, waste water treatment and landfills. At high levels of exposure, Hydrogen Sulfide is linked with serious neurologic damage – including death. Lower levels can trigger eye irritation, fatigue and headaches...and asthma according to a new three-year study out of Iceland. Measuring levels of Hydrogen Sulfide near major intersections and power plants in the capital city of Reykjavik that turn geothermal energy into electricity and heating steam, researchers found a weak but constant association between the pollutant and asthma medication rates. It's one of the first studies to find respiratory ailments at low levels of Hydrogen Sulfide - much like you'd find in the Barnett Shale or any gas or oil patch. The fact that oil drilling has been around for over a century, and yet only now are we actually studying what happens when people are exposed ti it at exposure levels found in real life, tells you all you need to know about the risks of allowing drilling so close to people.   Read More

It's sure going to be crowded between the levees of the Trinity River in Dallas in a couple of years, what with the tollroads, and parks, and solar-powered water taxis. And they'll all have to dodge the new gas rigs, tanks, pipelines, separators, compressors and processing stations if gas operators get their way. A new map direct from Dallas City Hall staff shows practically the entire Trinity River bottoms from extreme Northwest Dallas to Downtown leased to just one fracking company, Trinity East. Look at a copy of the map accompanying this post. All that area in green with black stripes running through it has been leased for gas drilling purposes. Dallas Council member Scott Griggs asked city staff to start preparing maps of where all the city owned gas leases were located. This is the first. It was released to the press with the help of Dallas Residents at Risk, who produced their own map of gas leases on city land back in February (Channel 8 News coverage here; Channel 4 here) In addition to the whole of the river bottoms, the map also shows two pieces of park land in Northwest Dallas leased for gas drilling - the Crown Point baseball and soccer field complex and the proposed Elm Fork Soccer Complex. And all this is in addition to the LB Houston Golf Course lease site where the city is considering drilling next ti the park's golf course. This map is just the latest piece of evidence that Dallas hasn't really leaned anything from its past neglect and abuse of the Trinity River. When push comes to shove, it's still a dumping ground for the Powers That Be. To paraphrase the proponents only slightly, "It's already where we put landfills, so let's just keep putting crappy stuff by the River." Status Quo in 1964, even 1974 but unbelievable in 2012. The final round in this two year old fight to write a new gas drilling ordinance for Dallas begins at 9 am on May 16th at Dallas City Hall in the City Council Chambers when the Mayor and Council will officially receive the gas drilling task force recommendations and discuss where to go from here. We know it's a workday, but we must show strong public support for the most protective regulations we can get. We must send a message that even the Dallas City Council can't ignore.   Read More

Dallas Residents at Risk is taking its road show on fracking and the City's new gas drilling ordinance to southwest Dallas this Tuesday night,May 8th beginning at 7pm at the Harmony School, 8120 West Camp Wisdom Road. Along with northwest Dallas and West Dsllas, Mountain Creek is the site of some of the densest gas lease activity in the city. Longtime citizen activists Ed and Claudia Meyer will be hosting the event in their own neighborhood this time, with Downwinders Jim Schermbeck, Texas Campaign for the Environment's Zac Trahan, Sharon Wilson of Earthworks and the Blue Daze drilling blog, members of the gas drilling task force and other special guests. Don't forget that the Dallas City Council will be getting its first briefing on the gas drilling issue in a year on Wednesday, May 16th in the 6th floor Council Chambers at City Hall starting a 9am. If you can be there for this important milestone event, please attend and show your support for a stronger, more protective gas drilling ordinance for Dallas.   Read More

The Dallas City Council will be getting a briefing by members of the Dallas gas drilling task force about its controversial recommendations at the May 16th council briefing meeting. Things begin at 9am and take place in the Council Chambers on the 6th floor of City Hall. Besides getting a summary from Chair Lois Finkelman, each council member will be able to ask their task force appointee questions regarding the recommendations, so it could get interesting when Councilmember Davis decides to ask her task force appointee, Downwinders board member Cherelle Blazer, what she thinks. And will the Mayor have the gumption to ask his Parks Board Prez, Joan Walne why she voted to drill in city parkland? This is the first time gas drilling as been on the Council's agenda since the task froce was created last year. We know it's a work day, but if you can, you really need to make it downtown to be in the audience and show your support for a better drilling ordinance than the one being recommended by the task force, which rollbacked previously agreed-to protections at its very last meeting with any warning or public hearings. This is shaping up to be a very, very close vote. Your participation is critical in the most important environmental issue to face Dallas in the last 20 years.   Read More

Dallas Residents at Risk's road show on fracking in Dallas continues its tour with a stop at 7pm Thursday night, May 3rd, at the North Hills Prep School at 606 E Royal (near L.B. Houston Golf Course and the now famous drilling pad-in-a-park endorsed by none other than the President of the Dallas Parks and Rec Board). If you've seen the map of gas drilling leases on city owned land, you know that Northwest Dallas is a hotspot of activity. Along with West Dallas and Mountain Creek, it's one of the most densely leased areas of the city. Come see a basic explanation for why the activity is hazardous to neighborhoods, talk to some of the good guys who were on the City's gas drilling task force and find out what's being done to write a better gas drilling ordinance. Information is power. Don't be powerless.   Read More