Vaguely Reminiscent of the ’70’s: Successful Occupation of British Site Drives Off Frackers For Now

Brit occupation of pad siteA long time and many galaxies ago, German citizens began occupying the construction site of the Weihl nuclear power plant in hopes of bringing the project to an end. Over 10,000 local residents flooded into the site and established not only an encampment, but an extension of the village itself, complete with school, library and governing council. The idea of such demonstration spread throughout the world, including here in the US, where the Seabrook, New Hampshire occupation in 1977 brought 2000 people out in one of the largest mass acts of civil disobedience in the US, and Texas where there were over over 200 arrests at the Comanche Peak site from 1979 to 1981.

Taking a page from this history, British fracking foes recently established an occupation of a pad site in Balcombe, West Sussex. Approximately 1000 people showed up for at least a six-day "Reclaim the Power Camp" that resulted in energy firm Cuadrilla suspending its operations until "it is safe " to resume them. Yes, nothing so frightening as British villagers.

While the original German protests did result in nuclear power plant cancelations, all the imitations since then have realized their power as symbolic protests. In Texas, the arrests at Comanche Peak were used to put the power plant on trial in Glen Rose itself – a trial that resulted in a hung jury and a huge PR victory at the time. Of course, you can recall that symbolic protest next time you drive by the completed nuke south of Granbury.

So far, no US group has adopted the occupation tactic to protest fracking in domestic gas fields, choosing larger mainstream mass legal actions like marches and rallies to express their displeasure instead. But maybe it's time to pick a pad and make a stand.

Send an E-mail to Dallas Plan Commission Today, Turn Out for Setback Showdown Tomorrow

MailBoxOverQuota_ErrorThursday's showdown at the Dallas Plan Commission over a 1500-foot setback between gas wells and "protected uses" like homes and schools is picking up steam.

After Commission members get lobbied during their morning session by City Attorney Tammy Palomino to "reconsider" their previous support of the extended buffer zone, local municipal Attorney Terry Welch, who's advised Flower Mound and Southlake on their gas drilling ordinances, has agreed to come to the afternoon public hearing and give a detailed presentation defending the distance. He'll also highlight other issues critical to a truly protective gas drilling ordinance, including drilling in parks, full disclosure of chemicals, and requiring first-ever air pollution off-sets of the gas industry.

Welch was a member of the Dallas Gas Drilling Task Force and his presentation of its "minority report" to the full City Council last August drew a lengthy and sustained standing ovation from the audience that even got Mayor Rawlings' attention.

From 8:30 am to 12 noon on Thursday the Plan Commission will continue its March through the construction of a draft gas drilling ordinance, including revisiting the 1500-foot setback provision, and discussing other issues like Emergency Response.

At 1:00 pm, citizens will start to gather for a pre-hearing news conference. At 1:30 we'll go into the council Chambers and wait for the public hearing on the draft ordinance to begin. It's very possible the Commission will have already decided to support or revise the 1500-foot setback by the time the hearing begins – we'll know by the press conference. If we win retention of 1500, then please thank the Commission and tell them what else you think should be included in a new ordinance. If they back down in the face of pressure from Palomino, then be prepared to raise hell and complain loudly. It's bad enough we have to fight a billion-dollar industry. We shouldn't also have to fight city staff that's supposed to be deciding policy based on the public interest, instead of secret agreements.

Remember, a 1500-foot setback for gas wells means a practical end to any attempt to bring back the Trinity East permits if the Plan Commission's denial of them is upheld at next Wednesday's Council vote. It also means fewer Dallas neighborhoods at risk from being fracked at all. This is a big deal.

We really need butts in the seats to show them you still care and they're still being watched. If you can make it down on Thursday, we know your presence will have an impact.

But we also realize that the Powers That Be are making it hard for the public to participate in their public hearings by scheduling them only during weekday business hours.

So whether you're planning on showing up or not, we've made it easy for you to let the Commission know before Thursday morning how you feel about any reconsideration of the 1500 foot setback. In less than a minute, you can click and send an e-mail to the Commission members supporting the extended buffer zone. JUST CLICK HERE. Please do this today so that when we roll into Thursday morning, Ms. Palomino will have to swim upstream against overwhelming public opposition in trying to persuade the Commission to reduce the setback. We win this round, we go a long way toward winning the whole fight. Thanks very much for hanging in there with us.

BPA Exposure Linked to Asthma For First Time

bpa in paper productsA study conducted by the National Primate Research Center at the University of California designed to look at how the common chemical bisphenol A, or BPA, affects the endocrine system of macaques has discovered that exposure led to changes in their lungs that increased the potential for developing asthma.

BPA is found in lots and lots of products in the marketplace, including can linings, plastic bottles, cash register receipts, and older plastic baby bottles. Many studies have found a link between BPA and effects on hormonal systems and fetal development but this is the first time the chemical has been associated with asthma. What makes it especially relevant is the way it mimicked human exposures and gestation. Fetal development of macaques mirrors that of humans, and the exposure levels were similar to those found in real life conditions.


Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/08/18/5659880/uc-davis-study-links-chemical.html#storylink=cp

"This is the first study to show a cellular and functional change in the lungs of animals exposed to BPA during the third trimester – a critical window of development," Van Winkle said.

Female macaques between 6 and 13 years of age were used in the study. After mating and conception, the macaques received an implant that gave them dosages of BPA to equal the level of BPA found in human blood, Van Winkle said.

"Our model faithfully replicates what is known for human exposure levels, and this is an environmentally relevant level," said Van Winkle. "Also, we did a constant exposure because human studies have shown people have nearly constant levels in their blood."

Who could have guessed?  No one, because the effects of BPA on human lung cells was never studied BEFORE the chemical hit the marketplace. Just like the effect of BPA on human ovary cells wasn't studied, but as it turns out the same team found that exposure to BPA disrupted the development of the ovaries – a significant finding because ovarian development occurs prenatally and the number of eggs a female will have later in life is established at birth.

Increasingly, it appears that generations of kids are being born predisposed to asthma or other health problems based on exposure to chemicals. Those health effects are then exacerbated by constant exposure to chemicals.  We're immersing ourselves in an environment that puts our bodies under poisonous assault from before we're born until the day we stop breathing. That's why the only model for chemical safety that makes sense is one based on discovering the health effects of products before we can by them at the grocery store.


Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/08/18/5659880/uc-davis-study-links-chemical.html#storylink=cpy
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/08/18/5659880/uc-davis-study-links-chemical.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/08/18/5659880/uc-davis-study-links-chemical.html#storylink=cpystudy found that BPA had adverse effects elsewhere – most significantly on ovary development. The ovary study found that exposure to BPA disrupted the development of the ovaries – a significant finding because ovarian development occurs prenatally and the number of eggs a female will have later in life is established at birth, Van Winkle said.


Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/08/18/5659880/uc-davis-study-links-chemical.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/08/18/5659880/uc-davis-study-links-chemical.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/08/18/5659880/uc-davis-study-links-chemical.html#storylink=cpyThis is yet another example fo a

“March of the Incinerators” is Killing Recycling in Britain

The Devil BurnsFor the first time in 30 years recycling rates in the UK are going down and a influx of incineration capacity is being blamed.

New European Union directives favoring waste burning over recycling are now spreading throughout Great Britain and having a big impact. Landfill disposal has gone down by almost 50% in just over a decade. Meanwhile there are now 39 incineration plants in the UK that have either been built are under construction or are at the planning stage – so many that there are now concerns about overcapacity. Moreover, every time an incinerator is chosen over other options, it institutionalizes the economics of incineration.

Experts said the use of incinerators had consequences for recycling as local authorities were forced to divert waste to feed the plants. "The choice to invest in thermal treatment can hold back recycling efforts," Adam Baddeley, principal consultant at Eunomia, said. "At one level, the money invested in such plant simply isn't available to put into building recycling plants or collection infrastructure. And once you've built an incinerator or gasifier, there's a strong incentive to keep it fed with waste, even if that means keeping on collecting as 'black bag' rubbish, material that would be economically practicable to collect separately for recycling."

Because Texas is still home to relatively cheap and abundant land, it hasn't seen the wave of incinerators that swallowed up the budgets of East Coast and Midwestern towns throughout the 1980's and 90's. But that may be about to change with increased urbanization, the desire of cities to profit from their garbage somehow, and new regs that are written to encourage incineration of "biofuels" that can include waste. Some local observers think it's only a mater of time before a large garbage incinerator is proposed for the Dallas area.

But why wait when you've got three large cement plants down the road?

Hazardous waste was burned in two out of the three Midlothian cement plants for decades and now all three are burning different kinds of solid wastes, including tires, car parts, and "non-recyclable" plastics. They're the front line in the March of Incineration in North Texas.

RIP: DFW Green Source News Service

Green SourceIt was with a great deal of sadness that we received word that the Green Source DFW news service is shutting down at the end of September.

For three years Phillip Shinoda and Company have produced a quality product that marked a new milestone in North Texas environmental community-building. The Green Source website and weekly mailings connected a wide variety of local green groups and individuals in a way no other single effort has in the past or is designed to do now. Its demise leaves a big gap in the attempt to build a more sophisticated infrastructure for the environmentally minded in DFW.

Its annual awards ceremony were just coming into their own as an institutional regular gathering. Downwinders was proud to win the first Grassroots Leadership ever given. We believed in the mission of the service so much we carried the site's RSS feed directly to our front page here.

What particularly disheartening is that we're in the nation's fourth largest metropolitan area in 2013 and we don't even have a basic all-comers regional green calendar now. We have no network that connects gardeners to Keystone Pipeline activists, solar energy advocates to beekeepers. And we're all the poorer for it.

State Ignores Latest Failure and Local Air Committee, Will Host “Public Information Meeting” on DFW Smog

Bull Shit protectorsThis curt announcement went out last Friday courtesy of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality:

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) will host a public information meeting to provide information on the development of revisions to the SIP for the 2008 ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) in the 10-county Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) nonattainment area. The meeting will take place on Thursday, September 5, 2013 at 10:00 a.m. at the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG), Transportation Council Room, 616 Six Flags Drive, Arlington, Texas 76005. NCTCOG and United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) representatives will also provide updates on local and federal initiatives.

What this doesn't say is that the last local clean air plan drafted by Rick Perry's TCEQ failed miserably last summer when DFW actually ended up with worse air than when it had begun in 2010. The state can't even bring itself to admit that. It's never had a successful smog plan in DFW, but only Rick Perry's TCEQ plan actually made the air worse. Maybe that's why they're holding this "public information meeting" at a mid-morning time guaranteed to result in a low rate of participation by actual DFW citizens.

You'd also never guess from this release that DFW has a local advisory board for drafting its own clean air plans. The North Texas Clean Air Steering Committee was constituted specifically for the purposes of working with the state on such plans. It hasn't met in two years. Nor is it likely to meet anytime soon if Rick Perry's TCEQ has its way – the state considers it a nuisance to have to come up here and explain itself to local elected officials and environmentalists.

Did we say environmentalists? Since the 2006-2007 smog plan, citizen groups have held three seats on the Committee to balance out the three seats given the local Chambers of Commerce. Right now those seats are held by Downwiders at Risk, the Sierra Club/Public Citizen and the Environmental Defense Fund.  The rest of the slots are filled by local city council members, Mayors, County Commissioners and County Judges.

Downwinder's own Jim Schermbeck is a member and has used the meetings of the Committee to cross-examine Rick Perry's TCEQ officials who otherwise receive a mostly unquestioning  welcome everywhere else they go. Committee meetings are the one place that representatives fo citizens groups can ask questions like a legislator in an Austin hearing. And the TCEQ reallly doesn't like that. Especially when we've been right about so many things and the TCEQ so wrong.

It's also true that Rick Perry's TCEQ really doesn't even bother to start any kind of consultation or planning process in DFW until a year before the plan is due. Since a new plan to achieve the new ozons/smog standard of 75 parts per billion doesn't kick in until 2015, it's doubtful the Committee will be called to order before next Spring. That way the pollution control measures needed by any plan have no chance of passing a state legislature at the last moment in 2015, ensuing that no real changes take place and DFW remains smoggy.

Perhaps you think that's way too cynical a perspective. But that's exactly what happened this last cycle in 2010-2011. And it was actually worse, because the biggest part of that last plan was to sit back and watch as DFW residents bought new cars. No moving parts.

Meanwhile, can anyone name a current local elected official who's known for their advocacy of clean air? Dallas Mayor Laura Miller fought Perry's coal plants in 2006. in 2013, her successor, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings protects secret deals with gas drillers. Dr./Mayor Cluck in Arlington has voted in favor for dozens, if not hundreds, of gas wells near homes, parks, and day care centers even as he recites his familiar litany about running into childhood asthma victims in the hospital emergency room. Fort Worth? Bought and sold to Chesapeake. Dallas County? They're too busy indiscriminately dropping pesticides on us. Mayor Evans of Plano used to be a voice of reason in Collin County. Now you've got Judge Keith Self who never met an air polluter he didn't liked.

Some stalwarts like Parker County Judge Mark Riley and Tarrant County Judge Glenn Whitley still represent moderate Republican views, but many of their peers have been replaced by Tea Party members who think smog is as imaginary a problem as climate change. We're actually going backwards in our local political engagement of the issue.

If TCEQ is emasculating the local advisory group on clean air, it's certainly getting a valuable assist from a feckless DFW indigenous officialdom, who seemed to have all walked away as a group from clean air as a goal they were willing to strive to achieve.

So mark your calendars for another citizen-friendly TCEQ  "public information meeting"….at 10 am on a Thursday morning, September 5th, in Arlginton at North Texas Council of Government headquarters, when most people will be working and unable to attend. For for the sensitive among you, we suggest also attending with some handy BS protectors for your ears so as not to irrevokably damage logic receptors in the brain.

Study: Carbon in Particulate Matter Air Pollution Kills

carbon black

Carbon soot found in Particulate Matter air pollution is responsible for increasing death risks in US cities according to a new nationwide study conducted by John Hopkins, Yale and Harvard. 

“Our work indicates that some constituents of PM2.5 may be more toxic than others and therefore regulating PM total mass alone may not be sufficient to protect human health,” the authors wrote in Environmental Health Perspectives.

Figuring out which ingredients are the most dangerous could help local air pollution agencies hone in on certain sources, making regulations more targeted.

“By identifying PM2.5 constituents that are more toxic, we can move towards developing source-specific air pollution regulation that may be more effective at protecting public health,” the authors wrote.

The study included data from 72 American cities, but that data was limited in a way familiar to downwinders – PM monitors often only took measurements every 6th day.

Particulate Matter, or PM, are microscopic leftovers of combustion that you can not only breathe, but also absorb into your blood stream. PM pollution has been linked to an increasing number of health effects, including asthma, heart attacks, strokes, and immune and brain disorders. Many scientists identifying these effects have concluded there probably isn't a "safe" level of exposure to PM – that any amount is capable of doing some kind of short or long-term harm.

PM pollution comes out of everything that burns something – fires, boilers, furnaces, and internal combustion engines. Locally, cars and trucks, the Midlothian cement plants, and the natural gas industry are the largest sources of industrial PM.

To the Barricades: 2 Hearings in 2 Weeks to Protect What We’ve Already Won in Dallas

to the barricadesWhat residents have accomplished in Dallas since last December is nothing short of amazing when you step back for a moment. They took a "done deal"  constructed by the Mayor to award Trinity East three gas permits in short order and ground it to a halt. They forced the disclosure of the notorious secret agreement underlying that done deal between the company and City Hall, and in doing so hastened the departure of the City Manager who had been its architect. They repeatedly turned out crowds in the middle of the day for what the Morning News has described as "one of the biggest zoning fights in Dallas history." And they've now begun to construct one of the most protective gas ordinances in the region.

But all of that progress gets put to the test in quick succession over the next two weeks. That why we're putting out the call again.

1. PUBLIC HEARING ON WHAT YOU WANT IN A NEW GAS DRILLING ORDINANCE, THIS THURSDAY, AUGUST 22nd,    1:00 PM DALLAS CITY HALL  6th Floor

This Thursday at 1:30 pm in the Dallas City Council chambers, the City Plan Commission will hold the first public hearing on the draft of a new gas drilling ordinance for the City of Dallas. There will be only two of these before it heads to the full City Council, with the second scheduled for late September right before a final vote by the Commission. So if you want the Commission to understand how strongly you feel about regulating gas drilling in Dallas while they're actually writing the ordinance, you need to show-up this Thursday.

As with previous encounters with Dallas City Hall, nothing takes the place or sends the message as loudly as butts in the seats. Nothing. We know it's a pain to make these work day hearings. They intend them to be. They want to discourage you from showing up. Don't let them.

Please plan on being there in the Flag Room outside the City Council Chambers on the 6th floor at 1:00 pm on Thursday for a pre-hearing news conference with some special guests.

Among the most important things at stake this Thursday is the strong stand taken a month ago by the Plan Commission to impose a 1500-foot setback separating gas wells from "protected uses" like homes and schools. This distance equals what both Southlake and Flower Mound require in their gas ordinances, and is the longest setback currently used by any North Texas municipality.

City staff, led by City Attorney Tammy Palomino, knows that a 1500 foot setback will severely limit the availability of land where fracking is allowed to take place in Dallas. Ms Palomino and company are still trying to produce a weak ordinance that will allow Trinity East, or other operators, to go back to the same areas that were being proposed before – park land, flood plains and new recreation centers. A 1500-foot setback would not allow that to happen. That's why they're trying to scuttle it.

Beginning at 8:30 am Thursday morning – before the public hearing even begins – Palomino will be giving a formal briefing on the setback issue to the Plan Commission aimed at getting the Plan Commission to "rescind" their support for 1500 feet. Staff wants a 1000-foot buffer zone that can be adjusted through "variances" down to only 500 feet – a distance even the Dallas Morning News has called "unacceptable." They want the Commission to vote for a lesser distance even before members hear from the public at the afternoon hearing. That's right, if Attorney Palomino has her way, this issue will have already been decided when you show up to speak at Thursday's afternoon public hearing.

What can you do besides work up a head of steam at the idea of staff once again short-circuiting democracy in this process? Let the Commission members know how you feel before Thursday by sending them a quick click and send e-mail that requests them to stand fast by the 1500 foot setback they've already voted to support. Please spend a minute doing this right now. We only have three days. Click here. Then mark your calendars to be at Dallas City Hall this Thursday at 1:00 pm to make sure we keep what we've worked for up to now. We need you again.

2. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28th: FINAL COUNCIL VOTE ON THE NOTORIOUS TRINITY EAST GAS PERMITS

Can we possibly be about to nail the final nail in the coffin of the never-say-dead Trinity East gas permits? Yes. Yes we can.

Two Wednesdays from now, at their regularly-scheduled meeting on August 28th, the Dallas City Council will be voting on whether to uphold the Plan Commission denials of the Trinity East permits – the three permits that have set-off the last nine months of citizen vs staff and council battling at City Hall.

Since the Plan Commission voted to deny the permits (twice, but who's counting?) the council must have a three-fourths majority, or 12 members out of 15, to overturn that denial. At last count, citizens have at least four or five council votes to uphold the denial, meaning the permits would die a final certain death, even if a majority of the council still supports them, as appears to be the case. Here's the tally as of today:

Against the permits:

Scott Griggs

Philip Kingston

Adam Medrano

Sandy Greyson

Uncertain, leaning against:

Carolyn Davis

Monica Alonzo

Uncertain, leaning for the permits:

Lee Kleinman

Jenifer Gates

Rick Callahan

For the permits:

Mayor Mike Rawlings

Jerry Allen

Sheffe Kadane

Terrell Atkins

Dwaine Carraway

Vonciel Hill

As you can see, despite months of overwhelming public opposition, editorial opposition form the Dallas Morning News, and two votes against the permits from its own Plan Commission, residents have exactly no margin of error in this vote. We must have four to win a permanent denial.

As we know more about when the vote is going to be scheduled during the Council's day-long agenda, we'll post it so you don't have to waste all day waiting to speak. 

Rumor has it that the City of Dallas hired an outside law firm to assess the lawsuit threat thrown around by Trinity East in case they don't get their permits. What came back was an assessment that said the City wouldn't be on the hook for anymore than the original $19 million paid by Trinity for the six years time on their unexploited leases even if the city lost. But more than this, the outside firm recommended that the city forgo any threat at all and go ahead and award the permits, taking a huge gamble on the company not being able to take drill in the 6 months left on the leases with gas prices so low.

So now council members feel like they've been given permission to vote for the permits, public be damned.

And what if the legal firm is wrong and Trinity East does go ahead a drill by February of next year? Well then the council in its infinite wisdom will have carved out a one-time only, one-operator only special class of gas fracking that violates its own rules about such things and can never be undone.

Last August, residents came together in front of the Council and literally blew away the members with their show of support for a strong protective gas ordinance. We need that kind of showing again, not once, but twice in as many weeks. We need you to stand with us to defend what we've already won. We can't guarantee that your presence will automatically insure victory, but we do know that we can't win the final rounds of these fights without it. Please try to stick with us as we get the job done. Thanks.

Online Again and Ready to Roll

Back with a vengenceOur apologies for the extended intermission the last week. A combination of travel and technical problems conspired to thwart postings. But summertime is supposed to be about a more relaxed schedule, right?

It used to be that way, but increasingly summer is seen by both industry and government as a time to accelerate their agendas while we're all out enjoying what little free time we have available. Kind of an extension of their  "night, weekends and holiday" approach to polluting.

Even Christmas has become fodder for this kind of maneuver. Remember when Dallas Mayor Rawlings and former (but still haunting) City Manager Mary Suhm thought they'd sneak the Trinity East gas permits through last December 23rd?

Combine these tactics with our culture's 24/7 news cycle and ability/addiction to being wired-in at all times, and it's hard to get a moment out in the wilderness or countryside to remember why you wanted to throw yourself into the gears of the machine to try and stop the wrongs you see in the first place.

But for whatever reason, you did make that decision to sacrifice your time and energy for something bigger than yourself. And that decision has changed you. Like our friend, former DISH Mayor Calvin Tillman says, "Once you know, you can not know." We keep at it because we need to, because it's self defense, and/or because we can not keep at it.

And so, we're back off the road now, and just in the nick of time. Lots of things coming up in the next month that you you need to know about and contribute to if you can – protecting the progress we're making in the Dallas gas drilling fight, pursuing a real clean-up of lead in Frisco, and even a state meeting on smog to look forward to! We'll be putting up news about all of these things shortly.

Finish loading the vacation pics online, get the kids in school, and tune back into the fights for health justice going on in your own backyard. We need you.

Groups: Dallas City Attorney is Blocking Stricter Gas Drilling Ordinance, Call for Independent Counsel

Tammy Palomino(Dallas)—- Citing City Hall official audio recordings, neighborhood and environmental groups are accusing Dallas City Attorney Tammy Palomino of blocking the City Plan Commission’s intentions to adopt a stricter gas drilling rule governing how far wells can be located from neighborhoods and schools.

“It’s a clumsy attempt to steamroll the Commission, made even more embarrassing by the fact that it’s captured on tape,” said Zac Trahan with Texas Campaign for the Environment. “She’s stepped out of her role as an objective advisor, and become an advocate for a much less protective ordinance – even after the Commission made it clear they want a stronger one. Residents can’t trust her.” 

In a letter to Mayor Mike Rawlings and the Dallas City Council, Trahan’s group, along with Downwinders at Risk, FracDallas, Dallas Area Residents for Responsible Drilling, Climate Reality Leadership Corps, and the Dallas Sierra Club complained that the evidence of Palomino’s bias was so blatant that the Council needs to appoint an outside lawyer to advise it and the Plan Commission on the writing of the new gas drilling ordinance. 

At issue is one of the most important restrictions a municipality can place on gas drilling – the buffer zone or “setback” distance between a gas well and a home, school or other “protected use.” 

Currently Dallas allows drilling within 300 feet of those kinds of structures, a holdover from the original 2007 drilling ordinance that is now being rewritten by the Plan Commission. At an earlier June meeting, Commission members reached a consensus to lengthen that distance to 1500 feet, with no objection. But when it was time to recap the results of that meeting, Attorney Palomino denied such a consensus ever occurred as part of the official record.

However, the city maintains audio recordings of every Plan Commission meeting and according to the recording of that June meeting, the intent of the Commission was clear, despite Palomino obvious attempts to get them to back down to a less protective distance. The groups released excerpts from the June meeting:

Commissioner Anglin: “The mandate generally would be, in my view, 1,500 feet generally and a 2/3rd [vote] waiver down to 1,000 feet.”

Commissioner Ridley: “I agree with that.”

  Chair Alcantar: “OK, any comments?”

                  (The audio is silent)

Assistant City Attorney Tammy Palomino: “Commissioner Anglin recommended 1,500 feet, do we need to have more debate on that? Is there a majority that wants to go back to 1,000 feet instead of 1,500?”

Chair Alcantar: “I think we are all in agreement on 1,500…you got that, Tammy?”

Assistant City Attorney Tammy Palomino: “I do…I will draft the changes to the spacing.”

Despite this promise, Palomino showed up at the next meeting with no such changes reflected in the draft. Surprised at the omission, a Plan Commission member quizzed her. Again, the groups point to excerpts from the July meeting:

Commissioner Paul Ridley: “At the last meeting we had a consensus on 1,500 feet. Why is that not reflected in the base draft?”

Assistant City Attorney Tammy Palomino: “Because at the last meeting at the end I said that staff needed to look at that because those numbers are different….from what the task force recommended….and we need to come back and provide information on how that may or may not affect land use….We did not have a consensus on that, either.”

Despite a consensus from the Commission itself to adopt a setback of 1,500 feet, Attorney Palomino is unilaterally vetoing the recommendation in the running draft of the ordinance – a draft that only she is allowed to keep.

When she says ‘we did not have consensus on that,” she’s not telling the truth” said Jim Schermbeck of Downwinders at Risk. “In fact, the Commission did reach consensus, but it was one that Attorney Palomino didn’t like. Apparently she feels like her vote counts more than all of those on the Commission combined.” 

Representatives from the groups say Palomino’s motive is clear – to weaken the new ordinance enough to allow the resubmission of the twice-rejected Trinity East gas permits that have been the center of controversy for the last nine months.

They claim the same thing that’s happening now with the Plan Commission has happened before. According to their letter, “This problem of staff bias towards the Trinity East permits has been omnipresent at Dallas City Hall since the 2007 secret deal between Trinity East and City Manager Mary Suhm was signed. There has been a long trail of contorting the process over the last six years.”

To prevent the same bias from twisting the process this time, the groups request the Mayor and Council appoint outside counsel for the drafting of the gas-drilling ordinance.

The Plan Commission’s next workshop on the gas drilling ordinance is this Thursday, August 8th, beginning at 8:30 a.m. in Room 5ES of Dallas City Hall. The agenda calls for a discussion of a wide range of issues concerning how to regulate drilling in Dallas, including a “review of the draft ordinance” so far, and a revisiting of “previous topics.”

Because of Ms. Palomino’s insistence that the 1,500ft setback has not been decided, the groups expect more debate within in the Plan Commission itself on Thursday in any review of the process-to-date.