The Frack Man Cometh

Tonight is fracking eve. The morning of Jan. 7th marks the beginning of fracking at the three wells on two pad sites near Vintage and S. Bonnie. Some homes in that neighborhood are within 250 feet, many others are far closer to the sites than our new setback requirement of 1,200 feet. I’ve pasted at the bottom of this post the letter that these Denton residents received from EagleRidge Energy. Here is a shot of them moving in their equipment and supplies.

This is clearly a situation that should not have happened. It should never happen again…but unless something drastic changes it will happen again and again. Residents there have already experienced nuisances and illnesses from the drilling. Many of them have kept their children indoors out of concern about the air quality. Some kids didn’t get to go trick or treating in their own neighborhood. At least one family has already moved out of the neighborhood. And others are concerned about the decreases they are likely to see in their property values.

Now that the fracking is coming, I know of at least two families with newborn babies that are evacuating their homes for the six weeks EagleRidge claims their operations will take.

Sleepless nights. Sick children. Families chased from their own homes. This is what Denton looks like on fracking.

It’s a sad day for that neighborhood. And it’s a sad day for our local democracy…it is a reminder that somehow we failed in our basic task of ordering the parts of our community into fitting relationships.