The West Australian 7 November 2014
Denton, Texas, has an estimated population of 123,000 people and is within the Barnett Shale, one of the larger gas fields in America.
It reportedly has 272 active fracking wells, with 212 additional wells within it’s extraterritorial jurisdiction.
Denton gas industry infrastucture
On 4 November 2014 over 58% of its eligible residents voted to ban any further fracking within city limits. The people had finally had enough.
The evacuation of houses and diversion of flights at the city airport near a well blowout in April 2013 was probably the one straw too many for some of theses voters:
Air quality samples were gathered when the incident was nearly over. Fort Worth-based Cudd Well Control, which EagleRidge first contacted at 5:30 a.m., had arrived at 11 a.m. and capped the well at 3:39 p.m., according to state documents.
One 30-minute air quality sample was collected downwind at 3:21 p.m. and another 30-minute sample was collected upwind at 4:11 p.m., according to state records.
The downwind sample detected 46 of the 84 hazardous air pollutants tested for, including benzene and ethylene dibromide, or EDB. Upwind, the sample detected 27 of 84 chemicals. Neither benzene nor EDB was detected upwind, state records showed.
Within 12 hours of the vote results being announced the gas industry and its political supporters mounted a legal challenge to this ban and went to the 53rd District Court of Travis County seeking a permanent injunction.
The application for this injunction has an unusual twist - referring to the gas leases on public land as “the school kids' minerals”.
Presumably the school kids actually living in Denton are supposed to tolerate, for the common good, the level of air pollution which may be experienced within the environs of these gas wells.
*Photographs found at Google Images
*Photographs found at Google Images
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