A minority report from members of Denton’s official gas well task force says the task force was too small, did not represent residents, did not fully vet their concerns on natural gas production and, unlike similar committees in other cities, did not hear expert presentations or make site visits.
Denton’s gas drilling task force on Monday rejected several proposals to improve site conditions around gas wells and production facilities while endorsing measures meant to keep mud from pooling at well sites and spreading onto public streets.
Chemist Wilma Subra will speak about the possible health impacts of hydraulic fracturing and gas drilling today at the University of North Texas.
Members of the Denton’s gas drilling task force moved on a few items that could improve site conditions around natural gas wells and production facilities, although the group declined to advance all the items that could make both old wells and new ones look better.
Denton’s official gas drilling task force made scant progress this week with new recommendations to reduce noise created by natural gas drilling and production facilities. A 3-2 vote defeated a measure to limit the amount of noise such facilities could make at night and in neighborhoods.
Denton’s gas well task force split Monday on recommendations requiring more public notification of drilling activities, in a meeting that continued highlighting divisions between the panel’s citizen and industry-related members.
A natural gas well site near Apogee Stadium that officials said lacked city permits actually received drilling permits years ago, Denton’s planning director said Monday.
The Denton City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to impose a moratorium on new gas drilling and production permits, giving the city some breathing room to finish an ongoing ordinance overhaul.
Denton’s official gas drilling task force voted Monday to require some drillers to recycle water used in hydraulic fracturing but narrowly rejected new regulations for well casing and cementing.
Denton City Council members said they were on track to vote on a gas drilling permit moratorium next week after getting briefed by attorneys and staff members Tuesday.
Denton’s official gas drilling task force voted Monday to recommend a series of water-related regulations, including a ban on open waste pits at drilling sites and baseline testing of nearby water wells.
Denton’s official gas drilling task force voted Monday to recommend approval of more air quality regulations but rejected a ban on compressor stations and tank farms as impractical.
Four Denton City Council members said late Tuesday they would support a moratorium on new gas drilling and production permits.
Denton’s official gas drilling task force will have a public meeting from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 215 E. McKinney St.
A city project to build a combined heat and power plant near Denton Airport moved a step closer to reality Tuesday as the City Council approved an engineering contract for a related natural gas pipeline. IN OTHER ACTION
Protesters disrupted a Denton Planning and Zoning Commission meeting Wednesday night after commissioners endorsed a permit for a natural gas well site that operated without a city permit for years.
Denton City Council members will hear an update today on efforts to overhaul the city’s natural gas drilling ordinance.
PONDER — Residents learned during a town hall-style meeting Thursday night that the operators of a gas plant have made repairs and installed new equipment — done so in response to more than a year’s worth of complaints about odors emanating from the facility.
The Denton Stakeholder Drilling Advisory Group will hold two more panel discussions on natural gas drilling.
City employees discovered that a gas well company was pumping contaminated wastewater into a tributary of Hickory Creek, according to a Denton police report, and the company agreed to clean up the mess.
ARLINGTON — Representatives of the oil and gas industry told the Environmental Protection Agency in a special hearing Thursday that new rules proposed to protect air quality were too much, too fast. PROPOSED EMISSIONS RULES
Atmos Energy plans to conduct a “flare” burn of natural gas at 7 a.m. Friday at Geesling Road and U.S. Highway 380 in Denton.
PONDER — The Town Council has adopted new rules for natural gas development, increasing setbacks from neighborhoods, protecting platted property and adding public notification requirements.
The city of Corinth took the final steps this week to close the books on Corinth Municipal Utility District No. 1, nearly four months after 90 percent of the city’s voters approved a proposition dissolving the 30-year-old special taxing district.
Invasive breast cancer is on the rise in Denton County and five neighboring counties, even as the incidence rate for the disease is lower in the state and falling across the rest of the nation.
Clean air, clean water, stable property values.
Two meetings this week offer Denton residents a chance to get involved in the city's ongoing overhaul of natural gas drilling regulations. UPCOMING MEETINGS
The Denton City Council approved plans Tuesday for the build-out of Robson Ranch after adding conditions meant to address concerns about natural gas drilling near homes.
In response to public outcry against the gasoline distribution center proposed near Sanger, Denton Terminal LLC officials are considering alternate locations for their site.
A court ruling that allowed natural gas drilling at Denton’s Rayzor Ranch development has been upheld on appeal.
Denton residents who were involved in the push for stronger gas drilling regulations last year say they fear the city’s proposed drilling task force is skewed in favor of the industry. TASK FORCE
Denton city officials have assembled a task force to advise them on the second phase of a gas drilling ordinance overhaul.
PONDER — Both the developer and residents of the Remington Park subdivision say town staff should not have issued drilling permits for a new gas well site without Town Council approval.
PONDER — Residents in Remington Park believed that when they bought into the town’s newest subdivision five years ago, there would be a park behind them. Instead, Devon Energy will drill for gas.
Denton City Council members will meet today to consider lowering most of the city’s fees on the natural gas industry, after a consultant found they were too high.
State environmental regulators in Austin approved penalties Wednesday against several Denton-area companies, including a settlement against a natural gas operator believed to be the first of its kind in Denton County.
A North Texas environmental group has launched a campaign that members hope will reduce emissions from Barnett Shale natural gas facilities.
An activist group’s new policy report, to be released in Austin today, pulls another state agency into the fray of criticism that the state can’t keep pace with shale gas development. ALSO ONLINE
The Bartonville Town Council voted this week to impose a 90-day moratorium on new permits for natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing.
Bone-colored tumbleweeds roll across the smooth, bright concrete parking lot toward the gas well as a volunteer steps down from his pickup and walks to the front doors of First United Methodist Church of Krum. He is one of several adults who will help prepare for an after-school program that day.
It’s 3 a.m.
When Susan Knoll, her husband, Michael, and their teenage daughter moved into their $1 million, 4,500-square-foot brick home in Bartonville three years ago, Knoll couldn’t imagine a more idyllic place — her dream home surrounded by trees on 2 acres with a pool and three fireplaces.
Dangling about 125 feet above the ground and swinging in stiff winds, a 90-foot string of pipe bangs against the cold, metal drilling rig, slipping from the tool pushers below. The clanging is startling, but the roughnecks atop a three-story-high platform manage to gather the monstrous pipe and maneuver it into place.
In Parker County, Tom and Barbara Vastine say their well water seemed to change last summer, smelling different than normal. So they started buying bottled water for drinking and cooking.
FLOWER MOUND — Ever since this former frontier settlement was incorporated 50 years ago, town officials and residents took pride in protecting their slice of rural paradise along Grapevine Lake.
DISH — A mother directs her four children about the living room, helping each to comb through an assortment of papers, books, blankets and clothing. One child closes a cardboard box and carries it upstairs to a spare bedroom, already stacked high with boxes and plastic bins filled with shoes, craft supplies and keepsakes. The door to the adjacent room — the library — remains shut, the books since removed from shelves and poured into boxes that fill the room. More boxes spill out into the upstairs hallway.
“The land is our land, not gas land.”
Dawn Cobb
A pair of bills and an appropriations rider pending in the Texas Legislature could bring more vigorous inspections to natural gas production facilities in urban parts of the Barnett Shale area.
The Public Utility Commission of Texas ordered Oncor on Thursday to take a northern route around Ray Roberts Lake as it builds a 345-kilovolt power line from Krum to Anna. ALSO ONLINE
