Will Dallas Council Listen to the Dallas Morning News?

Today's editorial in the Morning News on Injection wells is a good one, although you'd like it to add the lack of any good waste disposal options for billions of gallons of contaminated fracking fluid to the reasons not to allow fracking at all.

At its core, the argument is whether it's fair for a city like Dallas to make a profit from gas drilling while banning the logical results of that drilling to rural areas where residents there must bear a disproportional risk of earthquakes and other hazards.

But if the Dallas City Council was looking at a short way to describe its job of writing a new gas drilling ordinance in August, this is a pretty good candidate:

"…increase setbacks of drilling operations from schools, churches, other buildings and levees, regulate the use of water during drought conditions and ensure that drilling operations don’t worsen air quality."

There were already plenty of reasons to be cautious about frackign anywhere, but it's the fact that new hazards are being "discovered" at a quickening pace that should be of equal concern.

Earthquakes from injection wells wasn't even a topic of concern two years ago and now it's becoming a scientific consensus. Silica pollution was an unknown danger until recent testing showed levels of it off the charts at fracking sites. It's all the things we don't know yet about the consequences of fracking that should give any official pause before allowing it close to people or valuable natural resources. Injection wells is just one example of that unknown.