What Did Dallas City Hall Know and When Did it Know It?
Yesterday's DMN story on gas drilling in the Trinity River floodplains once again shined a spotlight on the role of the Army Corps of Engineers in the delicate business of deciding when it is and is not a good idea to go around setting off the equivalent of bombs underground near dams and levees.
Considering the subject matter, we thought it was kind of strange that the story didn't refer to the way the Corps' recommended 3000 foot buffer zone between dams and fracking originally came to light in DFW or any language from the Corps concerning the threat fracking poses to these structures.
As it turns out, Dallas might have been asked by the Corp to place a moratorium on new fracking inside the city as far back as a year ago because of proposed gas well locations threatening the Joe Pool Lake dam on Dallas's side of the Lake.
We know they asked Grand Prairie for a moratorium on new wells because of the same concern on the GP side of Joe Pool. Because she has the most experience on this matter than any citizen we know, we're going to let Grand Prairie citizen activist Susan Read of the Westchester- Grand Prairie Community Alliance tell us what the DMN should have told us yesterday.….
"The (3000 foot buffer zone or "exclusion zone") was established by the Bureau of Land Management in 1996 to do with "conventional" drilling within 3,000 feet of their federal dams and federal land. In 2010, Chesapeake and XTO sent out form letters to the Corps touting shale gas when seeking approval from the City of Grand Prairie for well sites close to the Joe Pool Lake dam (can we assume they did the same with Dallas?). These letters were sent to no one in particular care of the Corps' downtown Dallas office. Some of us doubt they were ever read. These same form letters were presented to the City of GP to show evidence of contacting all property owners in the area and became part of the files as requirements from the City of GP before approving the permits from the Railroad Commission. As we later discovered they were not aware of any of this until Carl Dimon, a retired petroleum engineer wrote to them on December 18, 2010. On February 18, 2011, the Corps' Col. Robert Muraski wrote back to Mr. Dimon thanking him for informing them of the drilling and fracking near the Joe Pool Lake Dam. In correspondence also dated February 18th, 2011, Col. Muraski writes to the City of Grand Prairie stating that the Corps never knew about the gas well sites proposed by Chesapeake and XTO near Joe Pool Lake Dam until they received correspondence from Mr. Dimon. Meetings with the Corps and the City of Grand Prairie ensued. With our Open Records Request in July of last year, we discovered that there had been numerous conversations with the Corps and the City of GP in January-February of 2011…and in this correspondence they requested that Grand Prairie AND Dallas put in place a Moratorium until they could do studies on the impacts of fracking on the already-compromised Joe Pool Lake dam. They wrote to Dallas because of the proximity of the "Luminant" drilling site on the Dallas side to the Joe Pool Lake dam. This site is one of eight well sites currently seeking a Special Use Permit from the city. Rosemary Reed (president of our Westchester Association of Homeowners) and residing only a few hundred feet from one of the well sites near the dam) wrote an email to the Corps and they responded to her email in on Aug. 14, 2011 that Chesapeake was NOT cooperating with their request to NOT pursue any more activity at the site until further notice. On Sept. 6, 2011 the City of Grand Prairie put in place a moratorium on all drilling and fracturing activities within 3,000 feet of dams and other water retention structures. It has been extended to January 2013."
Meanwhile, Dallas activist Raymond Crawford has submitted an Open Records Act request to the City of Dallas asking for all correspondence between the city and the Corps to confirm that City Hall did indeed get a request last year from the Corps to implement the same moratorium around dams and levees that it asked Grand Prairie to implement. Put in proper context, it makes so much sense that the Corps would have sent a letter to Dallas as well for the same reasons. One dam and lake with two cities on either side of them, both with gas drilling sites within 3000 feet.
Why would the Corps send one city with well sites near the dam a request for a fracking moratorium, but not send the other city with well sites just as close on the other side of the dam the exact same letter? Chances are they wouldn't and maybe that's why the city is dragging its feet in replying to Crawford's request. Is there a 2011 letter from the Corps sitting in a Dallas City Hall file drawer asking the city to quit permitting wells near Joe Pool dam and other "water retention structures?"
That's the questions the Morning News should have asked in its story on Tuesday. Let's hope there's a follow-up that puts the Dallas levee issue square in the middle of the larger issue of the Corps' moratorium request or Mr. Crawford gets his open records before the City Council votes on a new drilling ordinance that will decide where and how wells will be sited. Why is this so important? The Corps Col. Muraski set out the very high stakes involved in his February letter to Grand Prairie asking for a moratorium, noting that "significant dam safety concerns have been identified at Joe Pool Dam. As a result, that project is currently "considered to be a high priority with respect to implementation of measures that will reduce risk to thousands of persons and properties located downstream. Our engineers believe that drillng and fracking at the (Chesapeake well site near the dam in Grand Prairie) may increase the risk to the project and possibly contribute to catastrophic damn failure." At the end of the letter the Colonel says, "Since Joe Pool Dam is partially located in the City of Dallas, we will also be pursuing the moratorium with that municipality."
If a similar letter was sent to Dallas City Hall and never publicized or translated into public policy as the Corps requested, AND it takes a citizen to uncover the ruse, then the City Manager and several of her employees should be promptly fired.