Traffic Legislation Progressing

We went to Austin on 5/5 to testify on behalf of HB3403, traffic through a platted neighborhood. Last night, by unanimous vote, it was voted out of the Transportation committee. The next vote will be on the House floor. Please contact anyone you know in other counties to contact their reps to vote YES for HB3403. This bill gives platted neighborhoods in unincorporated areas the right to petition the commissioners court to restrict commercial traffic through their neighborhood.

In our case, it will prevent EnCana from ever using our neighborhood again to access the Beggs Ranch.

Traffic Through a Platted Community Legislation

HB3403, Traffic Through a platted community is on schedule to be discussed at the Transportation committee on Tuesday, May5th, session starting at 8am. We were successful at getting the rig road traffic moved from out of our neighborhood, but there is NOTHING to prevent them from restarting the truck traffic at will. We still have no legal protection.

If you can't make it down, contact members of the Transportation committee and ask for their support. Just contact each member, provide your name and address, and ask for their support for HB3403. It takes about 15 minutes. Also contact your State Senator Craig Estes and ask for his support.

http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Committees/MembershipCmte.aspx?LegSess=81R&CmteCode=C470

The agenda for tomorrow's meeting:
http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/81R/schedules/html/C4702009050508001.HTM

Proximity Legislation

See the link for the minutes of the discussion and testimony on the proximity legislation:

http://www.house.state.tx.us/committees/bycmte.php?startDate=01-09-2007&endDate=today&committeeCode=C250

The minutes should be posted in the next day or so. I want you all to know that there are plenty of folks against this legislation and they all have their reasons. The discussion of HB3402 was very thorough with committee members asking very thoughtful questions on a wide range of issues. Representative King did a wonderful job of representing our points plus a few that us rookie witnesses forgot to mention, like property and resell values.

One of the questions asked was how many people were affected by proximity issues, hundreds or thousands of people. It is imperative that each of you contact Rep Phil King, and members of the Energy Resources Committee and voice your opinion and let them know how many of you care about wells placed too close to homes.

Here is the link for the members of the Energy Resouces Committee. Please contact each of them and ask for their support on HB3402.
http://www.house.state.tx.us/committees/list81/250.htm

Then contact State Senator Craig Estes at the following link and ask for his support.
http://www.senate.state.tx.us/75r/senate/members/dist30/dist30.htm

It is crunch time and a call to each of these folks may help return safety to our homes and neighborhoods and allow there to be peaceful coexistence on the Barnett Shale; the Shale being a precious gift to our local economy especially in these tough economic times.

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.

Dust

I was out feeding the horses on a beautiful Sunday morning. Then 3 tank trucks drove by, at close the 5mph speed and a cloud of dust rose probably 15 feet in the air and came down on me, the horses, the barn, the back yard to the point of not being able to breath. I was about 50 yards from the back fence. My neighbors on the ridge are much closer to the road than I am, like 10-20 yards and I can only imagine what they are going through. So, as we have done over the last 2 years, I contacted Encana, told them the dust was bad and hopefully they will water the road down. Reacting instead of proacting. Wait until we complain before they do anything. So much for managing the location.

Encana Relationship with the Neighbors

When all this started, Encana called a neighborhood meeting to explain to us what was going to happen on the Beggs Ranch. We spoke with Encana's Community Relations and a supervisor in charge of the gas field. He explained that the plan was to put 40 some wells behind our houses with wells located on the north fence shooting south and wells at the south end shooting north to get maximum production out of the gas field. That would mean a well behind every 2-3 houses on the ridge. The trucks would enter through our neighborhood to service all the wells. We told them that would bring crime, noise, dust, traffic, transients to our neighborhood and basically turn it in to an industrial zone. They were going to have a meeting between the Beggs, Encana and said they would invite us to discuss the road placement. The trucks had already created a crater, yes a crater, at the entrance to our neighborhood that a small car could get stuck in. I should have known we were in trouble when the Community Relations person said she hadn't noticed any crater when she drove in. Huh?

We didn't hear anything for a few weeks and then she contacted each of us to let us know they had the meeting, without us, and decided to run the traffic through our neighborhood. My first thought, "What a bunch of liars; telling us they would invite us, and then making the decision without us. " An opportunity for Encana to build trust and cooperation with the community squandered.

Then came all the calls about the truck traffic and the dust and the noise. See Noise post. They could have brought the noise abatement with the drilling rig, but nope, we had to beg for it. React instead of proact. An opportunity for Encana to build trust and cooperation with the community squandered.

At 4:00am, the truck came to drain the tanks; sounded like someone started a chainsaw outside my window. Encana community relations received a call at 4:15am. This time they put out an edict that the tank was only to be drained during daylight hours. Why did we even have to ask? React rather than proact. Don't do anything unless someone complains. But in fairness, we have had no more problems with nighttime tank draining.

Then came all the problems with the truck traffic. See that post. So they added a video surveillance camera to regulate the speed. See that post. Encana Community Relations said the camera would only be pointed at the road, that the camera could not swivel. For 3 weekends in a row, that camera was pointed at my house filming everything that went on in my yard on a server somewhere in internet land. Each Saturday morning for 3 weeks I spent calling everyone including the landowner to turn that camera away from my house. I also wanted any film taken of my house destroyed. So they lied about the camera, they invaded my privacy and they still posess film of my home and family. So the surveillance camera that was to be used to control the truck traffic was instead used to intimidate the people that were complaining. Another opportunity for trust and cooperation squandered.

Everytime Encana felt we complained too much, there was suddenly a plan in place to move the road. Now remember, to put the road in initially took a single meeting and the road was built in less than a week. But to move the road is a very, very complicated undertaking. We have been told on at least 2 separate occasions prior to the 4 day gas leak that the road would be moved within weeks. Nothing ever happened. Another opportunity for trust and cooperation squandered.

Many times we have complained about specific issues. Some of the neighbors complain more than others. But most of us have made calls and not had them returned. Encana Community Relations told me on one occasion that she is under no obligation to return phone calls. Not returning phone calls in my mind means she is irrelevant and I won't do business with her anymore. Another opportunity squandered.

So after the gas leak, suddenly the road was going to be moved again, really. We would hear from them by the end of the 2nd week of January, 2009. No phone call. Then the irrelevant one calls and says they are moving the road, but don't call us, we'll call you because we can't discuss details. But really, it is moving.

After all we've been through with Encana, would you trust them?

Gas Well Leak

I came home from work on December 26th and my husband had been home with our kids all day. The first words out of his mouth were, "They've been bleeding the well today." He had left a message with our Encana contacts, but did not receive a response.

We were kind of expecting this because the pressure builds in the well everytime the temperature dips into the 20s then warms quickly. As they told us the last time, if they don't bleed the pressure off, "it will blow up". Not a comforting thought when the well is about 100 yards from your home, with your barn and horses about 100 feet away. We have always been concerned with what is "bleeding" out of the well since we are breathing it in. It makes your sinuses and nose really sensitive, like you have a sinus infection.

By Monday, the 4th day, we were really getting concerned that it might be more than "bleeding" and be an actual gas leak and began contacting people. We contacted all of our Encana contacts; no one answered and no one returned messages. Then we contacted the Railroad commission, the EPA, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. We finally contacted our fire department and they came right away. On the way into the ranch, the security guard stopped them. He then escorted them to the well at 5mph. The security guard got out and told us we just heard a little air leaking and that we really didn't know what we were talking about. The fireman said, no it was indeed a gas leak. The guard told us not to light any matches and I said, "you know, it has been leaking for 4 days and we could have turned on our BBQ grill. Would we have been blown up? Why aren't you guys checking this well regularly?"

Then he told us to evacuate the area and we did when the fire department moved out of the danger zone. How far back were we supposed to evacuate? No one ever told us. We were in our back pasture, so was back at our barn far enough? We brought our horses up to the barn as they had been at the fence with us, breathing in the natural gas. As we walked out of the back pasture, both of us were feeling kind of light headed. Guess that is what happens when you breathe in natural gas?

The fire department apparently had more clout than we did because workers came out almost immediately and worked on the pipeline for quite a while. The TCEQ followed the fire truck to the well site but had no equipment to measure the air quality. My family and livestock had been breathing in the gas for 4 days. On December 26th, I tied a piece of Christmas garland to the fence behind the well to show the wind direction. Yes, the natural gas was blowing directly over to my house with a wind out of the southwest at about 25-30mph. We have a video that shows the garland with audio with the distinctive hissing sound of a gas leak, which could be heard from my back porch.

I was in tears from the stress of a potential explosion just over my back fence. I upset the TCEQ lady and accused her of not taking our situation seriously. Why in the world would she not have brought out any measurement equipment? Why would no one return calls? Why would the security guard have been so sure we didn't know what we were talking about it? If there is one thing for sure, we live next to that well every single day and know what is and what is not normal noises. Why would no one return calls? The TCEQ said that could not come out until the Railroad Commission told them to. How often are these wells and pipeline junction subject to inspection?


Thank you, Aledo Volunteer Fire Department for your timely, efficient, courteous response to a very scary situation.