Legislation Moving to Committees

These 3 bills have moved to Committee. The next step is to get the hearing scheduled and Phil King's office is working on that right now. So keep watching the blog. We need as many affected people to show up in Austin as possible for the hearing.

Texas Legislature OnlineBill Alert
HB 3402 Relating to a restriction on the location of a well drilled for oil or gas.
3/19/2009 H Referred to Energy Resources

HB 3403 Relating to the operation of certain commercial motor vehicles in certain residential subdivisions.
3/19/2009 H Referred to Transportation

HB 3761 Relating to a grant program to assist counties in repairing county roads damaged by certain natural gas activities.
3/19/2009 H Referred to Ways & Means

Legislation supporting Peaceful Coexistence

As we have stated all along, our neighborhood is for peaceful coexistence with the Barnett Shale drilling. That means we expect the drillers, pipeline companies and royalty owners to respect the fact that they are affecting the safety of our neighborhoods, our families and our property values. We expect a high degree of business ethics from the corporations and the royalty owners when placing the wells so as not to adversely affect the health, safety and well being of our families and property.

Representative Phil King has introduced 3 pieces of legislation which attempts to address the worst of the problems. You will need to call and email with your opinion and keep the pressure on. Once the legislative session ends May 31st, it will be another year and half until our next opportunity.

HB3402 Proximity
HB3403 Traffic Through Platted neighborhoods
HB3761 Grants for county roads damaged by drilling traffic

You can read about the bills and voice your opinion to Rep. King at:
http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/dist61/king.php

Set up Bill tracker/alerts:
http://www.legis.state.tx.us/MnuMyTLO.aspx

Please get involved and make your government work for you to protect your property rights and your quality of life.

A New Day

Encana and the Beggs family moved the road and all the traffic out of our neighborhood on March 6, 2009, some three years after we asked them not to put the road through our neighborhood in the first place. We said it would bring traffic, noise, dust and crime, loss of privacy, danger, the potential of long term health effects and turn our neighborhood into an industrial zone. This is exactly what happened and we complained. Thousands of phone calls to local and state government officials, regulatory agencies, Encana employees at every level, watchdog groups, newspapers and other media, this blog and numerous meetings and somehow, we finally made them understand that we would not stop our efforts until the traffic was moved.

It also appears that the remaining portion of the road that will see 1 truck/day to the well has been paved, removing future calls from us about the dust. Encana proacted instead of reacted this time, and I thank them for that.

Last Friday evening, we dusted off the porch chairs and sat outside in the QUIET, without waiting for the next truck and cloud of dust to cover your body, hair, and clothes and pollute your beverage or food. We just sat and listened to the quiet, felt the cool breeze and for the first time in two years, had some peace.

The family was outside most of the weekend, wth the horses and dogs, tilling the garden, washing down the trees and bushes and just enjoying being outdoors again.

I would like to tell you that Encana has seen the error of their ways and now understands it is bad business practice to put heavy industry too close to neighborhoods, families and children, but I don't know that to be the case. Maybe they just got tired of dealing with us? There is absolutely nothing in place, from a legal perspective to keep them from reopening the road through our neighborhood, and this concerns me.

Aerial View

It is much easier to understand why our neighborhood is so upset about the truck traffic, dust, noise, and proximity to the gas well if you better understand the lay of the land. The rig road runs, 50 to 100 feet behind the houses. Your bedroom, your bathroom, your living room, your backyard where you like to hang out and BBQ; a place to keep your pets.

The wind usually blows out of the southwest so from the gas well, look to the left and that is where any gas well fire will spread. It will burn our neighborhood down. It is not uncommon to get 10-30 mph winds because it is on a hilltop and as you can see, there is nothing to slow the wind down. Not a lot of time to escape or move your belongings, pets or livestock.

From the labeled gas well, look up and to the left. That is another gas well. If that one blows or causes a grass fire, we have time to respond. There is proximity. With the labeled gas well, there is no proximity, no safety barrier, just an accident waiting to happen. How would you like to live with an incendiary device right behind your home? So no, we are not being unreasonable to ask for a little space. One person's opinion, it is absolutely criminal, what was done to our neighborhood. And don't tell me it won't happen. We just had a gas leak for 4 days. See below. All it would have taken was a spark.