This is how close gas drill sites are zoned for residential neighborhoods:
While we did not receive a response from the City, the Fire Department promptly released this Incident Report to us when we requested information:
Apparently, these incidents are fairly common in the gas patch. We heard Fire Chief Crowson testify at a recent Energy Resources Hearing in Austin that there have been approximately twenty gas releases in Arlington over the past year. That's too many. We were gassed. These residents were gassed. Who will be next?
I have requested through open records that the city provide us with the AFD field rep notes and the gas well coordinator's field notes and the 911 transcript with the CD for the related phone calls.
ReplyDeleteBloomberg reports, "A new study reports that a set of chemicals called non-methane hydrocarbons, or NMHC's, is found in the air near drilling sites even when fracking isn't in progress. According to a peer-reviewed study in the journal Human and Ecological Risk Assessment, more than 50 NMHCs were found near gas wells in rural Colorado, including 35 that affect the brain and nervous system. Some were detected at levels high enough to potentially harm children who are exposed to them before birth."
ReplyDeleteHere is the link to that article:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-03/hazardous-air-pollutants-detected-near-fracking-sites.html
About the Incident Report cited here:
ReplyDeleteThis City of Arlington, TX Property Use coding (Part J) was last updated in 1999. See the bottom of Page 1 *Code for this Property Use as Mining/Quarry.
Looks like the City and/or Fire Department have not recognized Gas Drilling as a Property Use for its "Incident Reports."
According to the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS), the code 679 includes a grab bag of activity including oil wells and other types of underground mining. It also includes salt mines and rock quarries.
DeleteThat's convenient for keeping our neighborhood gas drilling issues lost in that grab bag. This is that "lack of transparency" we discover with every new day in gasland.
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