Texas Town Fights Fracking Near Dallas Cowboys Stadium

Gas drilling companies sure know to strike while the gridiron is hot.

Or at least that may be why they want to drill hydraulic fracturing wells a mere 3,000 feet from the Dallas Cowboys stadium in Arlington, Texas (for more on the devastating practice of hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" read here).

When fracking comes to town, this is generally bad news—last month, we covered the serious health problems fracking wells and pipelines are causing in nearby Argyle, right near where students go to school. Both Arlington and Argyle are in the heart of an ongoing drilling boom in North Texas's Barnett Shale geologic formation.

But beyond the obvious health risks of contaminated groundwater, there are additional reasons why residents want to call a timeout on the rush to drill in Arlington.  For one, there are justified worries about safety and the value of the neighborhood. Gas drilling explosions have happened around the country, and even the safest natural gas wells still do not make good neighbors.

At first, there were two well sites planned near the $1.2 billion dollar stadium and nearby entertainment district. In June, the city council rejected one proposed site, because it was "uncomfortably close to homes, schools and medical facilities." The second site features many of the same problems but is in a low-income area.  That proposal is alive and well, with only one final round of approvals standing between this neighborhood and fracking.

Kim Feil, a concerned resident who lives in this threatened neighborhood, told Change.org about her work fighting drilling around her home. "This has been my full time, volunteer job since this summer. I have never worked so hard to just maintain our quality of life and property values," she says. She spends her time going door-to-door informing renters in the nearby multi-family housing complexes and in a low-income trailer park. Most hadn't even aware of the proposed project, since notification was only sent to the property owners and signs about the public meeting were placed on a street with restricted commercial access.

Ms. Feil explains that locals were assured that the drilling site would not be near them and would inconvenience them for just one month.  That just isn’t the case. Even without accidents or groundwater contamination, fracking is disruptive to the local community.

Construction and drilling are, predictably, noisy endeavors.  Heavy equipment, millions of gallons of water and chemicals, and other material must be trucked to and from the site.  According to a study commissioned by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, fracking requires as many as 1,365 truckloads of equipment and transportation – per well.  Each of those loads means a big rig diesel truck roaring through the neighborhood both ways.  Furthermore, “frac” ponds – giant pools of polluted water that can leak or even spill – blot the community for 5-10 years and can pose health risks to wandering children and even adults as breeding grounds for disease-carrying mosquitoes.

The local government is unlikely to be of any help as it reportedly stands to gain 50 percent of the royalties from this proposed drilling.  So it falls to average citizens to fight for their neighborhood.

The final public hearing for this project will be held on Tuesday, December 7^th.  That’s not much time to get the word out.  Ms. Feil has worked tirelessly to inform and mobilize her neighborhood against this threat.

Sign this petition to show your support for these hardworking activists and their community that simply does not want dangerous fracking in their backyard.

Photo credit: Collin Harvey via Flickr.

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