Seeing Progress On $84 A Day

changeLike What We Just Accomplished in Dallas? Please Help Us Keep Doing Good Work. Donate Before January 1. Thanks.

"One of the toughest gas-drilling ordinances, not just in the Barnett Shale, but in the nation." That's what the media has been saying about the new Dallas gas drilling ordinance that residents won last Wednesday at City Hall.

Thanks to everyone who ever came out to a Planning Commission or City Council meeting or hearing. Thanks to those who provided a spectrum of heart-felt testimony. Thanks to those who sent e-mails when we asked you to, wrote letters and made phone calls. Thanks for hanging tough with us through the long slog of Trinity East battles, followed by the laborious job of actually writing a new ordinance – all within a system that was rigged against us. Showing up makes a difference.

Do-It-Yourself Democracy is messy and time-consuming. We hope you think the final results were worth it. We do. Combined with the Trinity East permit denials, we think this ordinance was one the most effective counter-strikes against a powerful Barnett Shale Gas Lobby in years. it had the additional advantages of giving local environmentalists political muscle in Dallas politics they haven't had before, and giving hope to others fighting for more protection from gas facilities elsewhere. We've gotten thank-yous and inquires from across the country.

The Dallas gas ordinance is just the latest and best example of the Downwinders at Risk philosophy of using local fights to set national precedents. Stick around, stand your ground, and lead by example. Or as some Greek guy named Archimedes once said, “Give me a place to stand and I will move the world.” What residents accomplished at Dallas City Hall last week moved the world.

We don't have to be beholden to Austin or Washington for "change" to trickle down from those capitals. We can make serious grassroots social change right here in the Belly of the Beast that has a national impact. It doesn't happen by accident, or just because we have a righteous cause. It happens because of years of planning and intense campaigning. Of constantly showing up, doing the research, attending the meetings, making the appointments, getting things done.

While this last Wednesday's win was a group effort, there's no doubt that Downwinders at Risk provided the leadership, the strategy, and the experience to mold the movement in Dallas into an effective policy-making juggernaut that it had not been elsewhere in North Texas. It's not a coincidence that this breakthrough came in Big D. Three years ago Downwinders said we were drawing a line in the Shale in Dallas and fighting back against an industry that thought it had a blank check to do just about anything it wanted. Along with the defeat of the Trinity East permits earlier in the year, we think the new Dallas ordinance delivers on that goal.

Since Downwinders at Risk decided in 2011 to expand its mission to protect the entire DFW airshed from toxic air pollution, all we've done is shut down a outlaw lead smelter, stop a wave of new park and floodplain drilling, and pass one of the most protective gas ordinances in the country. What other group do you know of that could turn on a dime and win on all those local fronts – or has the resources or motivation to do so?

We think we've done a good job of proving the same organizing strategy that cleaned-up the Midlothian cement industry can be applied effectively to other important threats to public health.

That strategy starts with paying at least one full time professional staff person to represent citizen interests in clean air fights and work on their behalf. Industry has armies of consultants and lawyers. Government as well. Citizens come to fights like the Dallas Gas Wars with no such pool of expertise. If your group or cause can't afford to hire a lawyer and other specialists, then you're very much alone. Until you call Downwinders at Risk. And then, for no charge at all, you get hours and hours of relentless effort that may, with some luck, change your life and the world. 

We offer this service to all comers on a organizational budget that measures out to about $84 a day.

That amount of money can't buy you much. Larger environmental groups could spend that on copy toner alone. But when Downwinders' spends it, it can buy you 4000 pounds less lead every year in the air you breathe, or a lot fewer gas wells next to your neighborhood.

In 2014, Downwinders at Risk will be 20 years old. We have no idea how we'll change history in the next 12 months, but we do know that we will change it, because we'll keep showing up trying to change it. And persistence is very much part of our success.

We're going to follow-up the Dallas ordinance with the passage of the nation's first local air pollution off-set rule that can plug the loophole the gas industry uses now to escape Clean Air Act requirements to balance their impacts in smoggy areas. We're going to think about whether we can deploy the same coalition model that worked so well in Dallas deeper into the Shale. We're going to keep trying to prevent the City of Frisco from building a permanent toxic waste landfill in the middle of town. We're going to be trying to use a new DFW clean air plan to get new pollution controls for cement plants, coal plants, the gas industry and other large sources.

We're 100% local. Our board all lives here in DFW. Our entire mission is devoted to making air cleaner in DFW. We're completely dependent on local sources of funding. That means people like you. If you don't support us, then we can't pay our staff person to show up. And when he doesn't show up, the system isn't nearly as citizen-friendly.

We think this last year's worth of headlines from the Dallas Gas Wars and the Frisco lead landfill fight is our best case for asking for your tax-deductible donation before the calendar year ends. We need your help to keep making those kind of headlines. We promise to do our part. Please consider a contribution to Downwinders of at least $84 to sponsor a day's worth of DFW clean air organizing. All you have to do is fill out the secure online form by clicking here. We not only really appreciate your support, we can honestly say we can't do our work without it. Thanks.

Coming to A Cement Plant Near You? Burning Fracking Fluid

Fracking Fluid PondA Canadian LaFarge Cement plant wants to start using fracking fluid to replace fresh water it uses in its manufacturing process. 

The company's Brookfield plant in Nova Scotia is an ancient "wet kiln" that uses approximately 35 million liters of water from a near-by lake to produce cement. Fracking fluid that has been run through a reverse osmosis filtering process would be used as a parital substitute for this fresh water.

According to the local newspaper account, a LaFarge PR spokesman is quoted as saying “It’s safe enough to drink. The contaminants have been removed and the recycled waste water exceeds government guidelines to be released in the environment.”

But funny thing. Despute that assurance of safety, when the company ran a full page ad announcing its plans to use waste water, it forgot to mention that it was waste fracking fluid. Maybe because there's a moratorium on fracking in the Province while a review of its safety and public health impacts are investigated.

Local municipal Council Member Doug MacInnes said he spoke to the LaFarge plant manager about the ad.“He explained to me that it was worded that way so that it wouldn’t get the public upset."  According to the LaFarge manager,  "I think there is a negative connotation with fracking."

So where is the waste fracking fluid coming from? From two local holding ponds that have been containing the leftovers of three wells way back in 2007 and 2008. About 14 million litres of fresh water was used. When this water was regurgitated by the wells it was poured into the ponds. Many observers believe that although this first step is only a pilot test, LaFarge wants to begin importing fracking fluid from Canada's large oil and gas plays.

 

When it was burning hazardous wastes in its own wet kilns in Midlothian from 1986 to 2008, TXI Cement also charged companies for disposing of their industrial waste waters, which often contained Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs),  heavy metals, chlorine and other contaminants. Back then, it was called "recycling" and was defended by TXI as a way to reduce fresh water use, and costs. TXI used the "Long, Hot and Good For America" argument it always used to defend the burning of waste – that the high temperatures of the kiln destroy all the bad stuff. Only that's not true. Metals don't burn. Chlorine doesn't burn. And Dioxin can actually be created when plastics are burned.

 

And there was another problem unique to the disposal of wastewater.  The contaminants, especially the VOCs, were being lost to the atmosphere long before the water reached the plant's kilns with their 2500 degree temperatures – the rising heat stripped the pollutants out of the water and sent them up the stacks, causing an increase in pollution. For these reasons, EPA forced TXI to quit using industrial wastewater as a substitute for fresh water even before the wet kilns shut down permanently in 2008 and waste-burning was halted.

 

With fracking waste water, you get all these kinds of pollutants plus the added threat of radioactivity, of which there is no mention in any of the coverage about the LaFarge proposal. "Natural radioactive elements" as well as ones used in the drilling process have been known to contaminate fracking waste. Reverse osmosis won't be able to fix that.

 

We've written about idea of oil and gas fracking fluid flowing downhill to the cement plant industry – the least regulated option –  for disposal, most recently when it came up in Saudi Arabia. Now it's jumped the pond and has landed in North America. How long do you think it'll be before you see a cement plant near or in a US shale play that will propose the same thing?

 

One of the practical concerns of citizens over the plans of the LaFarge plant is the effect corrosive fracking fluid that's full of salt has on an industrial process dependent until now on fresh water.

 

The local Colchester County Council. is planning to send a letter of concern to Lafarge, the minister of Environment, and the local Department of Environment office. Last summer, council rewrote its sewage use bylaw and rejected an application by a local firm to dispose of treated frack waste through the municipal sewer system because of potential dangers to the environment. That same firm is the one that says it will filter the fracking fluid before sending it to LaFarge.

What Would A TXI Sale Mean to DFW Air?

TXI For SALEAccording to the Dallas Morning News, TXI Cement is up for sale with at least two possible buyers, Vulcan and Holcim, mentioned in last Friday's story. Along with kilns in California, the company's Midlothian and Hunter, Texas cement plants are on the block as part of the deal.

As the news reports note, the timing is a little strange in that the construction industry, the barometer for all things cement, is only now rebounding out of its Great Recession doldrums, and TXI's profits are nowhere near it's pre-collapse heights. It could be that the latest generation of the Rogers' family to run the firm isn't all that interested in keeping it running, or that the two largest and restless corporate shareholders, who now own 51% of the company, are anxious to deal.

Of the two suitors listed in the News article, Holcim is one of the industry's international giants that has the large cash reserves, while Vulcan is smaller, US-based, and considered more of an Aggregates business with some cement plants in Florida.

On the other hand, Holcim already operates a huge cement plant across the street from TXI in Midlothian. It's hard to imagine the company needing to double its manufacturing capacity in DFW. But perhaps TXI's California market share makes the deal look attractive as a whole and the Midlothian plant would be spun off to a third party. For Vulcan, it looks like a way to go from a regional powerhouse to a national one by buying plants in two large, influential state economies.

Holcim is a leader in the new waste-burning revival within the cement industry. Its Midlothian cement plant already has a permit to burn a long list of industrial wastes, although it's not as long as TXI's. During the economic downturn,TXI was given permission by Rick Perry's TCEQ (without public notice or participation) to burn a variety of new wastes like car "fluff" and plastics , but reportedly didn't have the capital to build the infrastructure needed to convey the wastes to the kilns. A new owner like Holcim might have the cash to fix that, and fixing that would mean lots more waste-burning.  Buying TXI's Midlothian plant would mean buying its waste-burning permits as well, opening up new waste markets for Holcim without having to go to the trouble of a permitting process.

If Vulcan or some other middle-size player buys TXI, you can be sure they'll run the plants 24/7 as much as possible to recoup their investment and take advantage of better economic times. More production equals more air pollution, even with more modern controls forced by recent clean air plans and citizen campaigns.

But it's also possible to imagine a scenario where Holcim buys TXI, uses it's Midlothian limestone quarry to add to its own local reserves, but doesn't necessarily have the incentive to run both cement plants into the ground to justify the purchase price.

A sale of TXI by the Dallas-based Rogers family would be milestone in the industry, and in North Texas. TXI opened its first cement kiln in Midlothian in 1960. You can still see it there on Hwy 67, along with three other, older "wet" kilns that operated for 48 years before being shut down in 2008. They're all scheduled to be demolished later this year, leaving only the circa-2000 TXI Kiln #5 as a landmark. The times, they are a changin'. Stay tuned.

 

Dallas Council Passes 1500 Foot Setback and Rest of Draft Ordinance

we-wonIt was rumored to be a done deal as of last week. Today it actually is.

By a vote of 9 to 6, the Dallas City Council voted to endorse the new gas ordinance drafted by its City Plan Commission, including its 1500-foot setback requirement for wells and compressor stations.

The only change to the Commission recommendations came in a procedural tweak that now requires six votes to stop a variance being rolled back to a minimum of 1000 feet instead of four.

Oak Cliff Council Member Scott Griggs made the motion to approve the Plan Commission recommendations. Before his motion could be voted on however, East Dallas Council Member Sheffie Kadane made a substitute motion to reduce the required setback to 500 feet. This was the stark choice that faced the Council.

They chose wisely. 1500 feet matches the most protective buffer zone current restrictions in the Barnett Shale. It's more than twice as far as the 600 foot setback on the books in Fort Worth. Even the new Dallas minimum of 1000 feet is 400 more than Forth Worth's maximum. Much of todays' public hearing testimony touched on health effects felt by Shale residents who had lived from 300 to 1200 feet from wells.

Along with the defeat of the Trinity East permits earlier in the year, passage of the Dallas ordinance represents the biggest recent victories of urban fracking opponents in the Barnett Shale.

Not only is there a brand new "Dallas Model" to compete and contrast with the "Fort Worth Model" that industry loves to tout, but there's a brand new feeling that environmentalists actually have some clout in city politics in Dallas for the first time.

Congratulations to all those who worked so hard to see this result happen against so many obstacles over the last four years. Well done.

Beginning at 1pm Today, Walk the Last 1500 Feet With Us

summitIt's been four years since the first Dallas City Plan Commission meetings on pending gas permits. It's been three years since the Dallas Gas Drilling Task Force was formed. It's been 12 months since Mayor Rawlings' announced he was fast tracking the Trinity East gas permits. It's been 10 months since the Dallas Observer published former City Manager's embarrassing secret deal over park land drilling between herself and Trinity East. It's been seven months since Suhm announced her retirement. It's been four months since the Trinity East permits went down in defeat. It's been three months since the Plan Commission passed its draft of the new Dallas Gas Ordinance, including a provision for a 1500-foot setback. What a long, strange trip.

Today, we're down to the final public hearing and the final council vote on that new ordinance. The only mystery left is whether that 1500-foot setback will remain in place or be whittled back to allow drilling as close as 500 feet to homes. It's the difference between matching the most protective buffer zone in the region, or following the lead of the most permissive cities in the Shale like Fort Worth.

We're poised to win one of the biggest victories against the gas lobby in North Texas since urban drilling began in 2006. We're on the verge of creating a new model for cities, one that better incorporates the newest science and technology.  All it takes is one more push, one more vote.

Many of you have been with us every step since 2011. Many others have fallen in along the way.  We're asking all of you to walk that final 1500 feet with us today. Come down to City Hall at 1 and participate in the news conference in the Flag Room on the 6th floor just outside the Council Chambers. Speak for the allotted three minutes at the public hearing on the gas ordinance that will follow, witness history, and then come to what we hope will be a victory celebration at Lee Harvey's afterwards.

Don't let the last four years be in vain. Come on down to City Hall and help us finish the job. Thanks.

Better Living Avoiding This Chemistry: An Industrial Toxic Primer

Haz mat suit - picnic tableEven though this EcoNews article is about air poisons that result from fossil fuel production, it applies to just about any combustion source, including cement plants, manufacturing plants, vehicles, and so on. It's a pretty good top ten list, although you wonder why Dioxins and Furans got left off, since they're toxic by the gram instead of pound. Also missing is Particulate Matter as a stand alone threat, although it gets a shout out as a by-product. Nevertheless, these are the among the most dangerous pollutants that have caused and are still causing a lot of problems in North Texas and elsewhere:

1. Benzene

Benzene is a well-established carcinogen with specific links to leukemia as well as breast and urinary tract cancers. Exposure to benzene reduces red and white blood cell production in bone marrow; decreases auto-immune cell function (T-cell and B-cells); and has been linked to sperm-head abnormalities and generalized chromosome aberrations.

Benzene is one of the largest-volume petrochemical solvents used in the fossil fuel industry. It is a major component in all major fossil fuel production: oil, coal and gas. People are exposed to it from inhaling automobile exhaust and gasoline fumes, industrial burning such as oil and coal combustion, and exposure to fracking fluids.

There's a recent Emory University study concluding that risk for leukemia fell with every mile between a person's home and facilities that release benzene.

2. & 3. Sulfur Dioxide (SO2) and Nitrogen Oxides (NOx)

Sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) are two primary examples of particle-forming air pollutants (particulate matter). Particulate matter is known to contribute to serious health problems, including lung cancer and other cardiopulmonary mortality. SO2 and NOx are both highly toxic to human health, and contribute directly to thousands of hospitalizations, heart attacks and deaths annually.

SO2 is particularly dangerous for children. Studies correlate SO2 emissions from petroleum refineries—even in lower exposure levels over time —to higher rates of childhood asthma in children who live or attend school in proximity to those refineries. Similarly, small particles of NOx can penetrate deeply into sensitive lung tissue and damage it, causing premature death in extreme cases. Inhalation of such particles is associated with emphysema and bronchitis.

4. Petroleum Coke (Pet Coke)

Pet coke is a by-product of oil processing that's also used as a fuel. It's a heavy dust which resembles coal. It's burned in power plants and cement plants. It contains dozens of dangerous chemicals and heavy metals, including chromium, vanadium, sulfur and selenium. It's a huge contributor to particulate mater and NOx and SOx formation 

5. Formaldehyde

Formaldehyde is a carcinogen with known links to leukemia and rare nasopharyngeall cancers, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Formaldehyde is highly toxic regardless of method of intake. It is a potent allergen and genotoxin. Studies have linked spontaneous abortions, congenital malformations, low birth weights, infertility and endometriosis to formaldehyde exposure. Epidemiological studies link exposure to formaldehyde to DNA alteration. It is also contributes to ground-level ozone.

Independent studies,  have detected dangerous levels of formaldehyde in both wastewater and ambient air emissions from fracking operations. One researcher, with the Houston Advanced Research Center, said reading from one test site in North Texas, “astoundingly high,” and, “I’ve never heard of ambient (formaldehyde) concentrations that high… except in Brazil.”

6. Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs)

In actuality, this is not a single listing—polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) is an entire class of toxic chemicals, linked together by their unique chemical structure and reactive properties.

Many PAHs are known human carcinogens and genetic mutagens. In addition, there are particular prenatal health risks: prenatal exposure to PAHs is linked to childhood asthma, low birth weight, adverse birth outcomes including heart malformations and DNA damage.

Additionally, recent studies link exposure to childhood behavior disorders; researchers from Columbia University, in a 2012 Columbia University study, found a strong link between prenatal PAH exposure and early childhood depression. Infants found to have elevated PAH levels in their umbilical cord blood were 46% more likely to eventually score highly on the anxiety/depression scale than those with low PAH levels in cord blood. The study was published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

7.  Mercury

Mercury is a dangerous neurotoxin emitted from coal-fired power plants and any other combustion source using coal for fuel – like the Midlothian cement plants. It damages the brain and the nervous system either through inhalation, ingestion or contact with the skin. It is particularly dangerous to pregnant women and children. It is known to disrupt the development of the in-vitro brain. In low doses, mercury may affect a child’s development, delaying walking and talking, shortening attention span, and causing learning disabilities. High dose prenatal and infant exposures to mercury can cause mental retardation, cerebral palsy, deafness and blindness. In adults, mercury poisoning can adversely affect fertility and blood pressure regulation and can cause memory loss, tremors, vision loss and numbness of the fingers and toes.

One out of every six women of childbearing age in the U.S. have blood mercury levels that could be harmful to a fetus, according to EPA reports. The EPA estimates that  300,000 children are born each year at risk for significant development disorders due to mercury exposure.

8. Silica (Silicon Dust/Sand)

Crystalline silica (“frac sand”) is a known human carcinogen; breathing silica dust can lead to silicosis, a form of lung disease with no cure. This is a hazard in the cement industry and threat to those living downwind of cement plants, and now it appears to be one for natural gas roughnecks and adjacent homeowners as well.

Silica is commonly used, in huge amounts, during fracking operations. Each stage of the process requires hundreds of thousands of pounds of silica quartz–containing sand. Millions of pounds may be used for a single well.

The presence of silica in fracking operations, simply put, is a major safety risk with a high likelihood of dangerous exposure. Case in point: researchers from the National Institutes of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recently collected air samples at 11 fracking sites in five different “fracking states” (CO, ND, PA, TX and AR) to evaluate worker exposure to silica. Every single site had measures higher than the NIOSH threshold for safe exposureso high, in fact, that about one-third of the samples collected were even above the safe threshold for wearing a safety respirator mask. This was reported in May 2013 in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene.

9. Radon

Radon is a colorless, odorless, tasteless radioactive gas which causes lung cancer. It is the second largest cause of lung cancer in the U.S. after cigarette smoking. About 20,000 people per year die from lung cancer attributed to radon exposure according to the National Cancer Institute. Further, there is no known threshold below which radon exposures carries no risk.

Radon exposure can come from a variety of natural sources. However, fracking (natural gas) represents a significant new and increased source of radon exposure to millions of citizens. Radon is released into local groundwater and air during fracking operations. It also travels through pipelines to the point of use—be it a power plant or a home kitchen.

The science behind radon release and exposure is complex but explained well here by Christopher Busby, the Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, who warns that radon dangers from fracking “have not been addressed properly (or at all) by the environmental impact statements published by the operators, or by the Environmental Protection Agency in the USA.”

10. Hydrofluoric Acid (HF) / Hydrogen Fluoride

Hydrofluoric acid (HF) is “one of the most dangerous acids known.” HF can immediately damage lungs, leading to chronic lung disease; contact on skin penetrates to deep tissue, including bone, where it alters cellular structure. HF can be fatal if inhaled, swallowed, or absorbed through skin.

The senior laboratory safety coordinator at the University of Tennessee said, “Hydrofluoric Acid is an acid like no other. It is so potent that contact with it may not even be noticed until long after serious damage has been done.”

Hydrofluoric Acid is a common ingredient used in oil and gas extraction.

Numerous studies, including recent ones conducted by both The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) and the United Steelworkers Union (USU) cite the oil industry’s abysmal safety record as a high risk factor for a major HF accident; over the past decade, more than 7,600 accidental chemical releases from refineries have been reported by the industry. In the past three years alone, a total of 131 “minor” accidents involved HF.

Report: Homeowners Close to Frisco Lead Smelter Site Face 15% Drop in Property Values

house For Sale signHomeowners within a half mile of the former Exide lead smelter site and other lead-contaminated properties in Frisco are seeing a 15% drop in their property value from the stigma associated with the toxins, according to a new economic analysis done by an independent North Texas economist hired by local environmental groups.

“There are double-digit negative impacts on the assessed values of all 90 homes,” concluded Dr. Bill Luker, Director of Denton-based Terranovum Solutions, who was asked by Downwinders at Risk and Frisco Unleaded to examine the economic impact of the Exide environmental controversy on surrounding home values.

There’s an average negative discount of $24,613,” stated Dr. Luker. “In other words, if it were not in close proximity to two sources of contamination, i.e., the Exide site and Stewart Creek, the average home would be assessed at about $213k, $24k more than its current appraisal of $189.3k.”  

Dr. Luker said that although the study was relatively small in focus, he was confident of the results and said it pointed to the need by the City of Frisco to do its own more comprehensive economic analysis before it decides what environmental clean-up options to follow.

“The costs we’ve reported, while substantial for many homeowners, will be unquestionably dwarfed by the magnitude of those from the discounting of residential and commercial property values, and the negative effect on local personal income, employment, average and median household income, and ultimately, lost tax revenue for local government….”

Downwinders Director Jim Schermbeck called this economic impact a hidden “toxic landfill tax” that was already being assessed on the community now, in contrast to what some Frisco City Council representatives have said would be a necessary property tax increase to pay for a complete clean-up of the Exide property.

“City Hall may not want to talk about it, but there’s a heavy tax already being paid by Frisco property owners for being located in proximity to Exide. That tax will only increase and spread if a temporary clean-up of Exide is turned into a permanent landfill site for its toxic wastes.”

Monday at 5 pm was the deadline for government entities to put in their claims against Exide in the east coast bankruptcy court hearing the company’s case. Frisco City Hall has insisted that leaving a 40-acre toxic waste landfill behind on the Exide property will allow for normal economic development and a 4cheaper clean-up bill.  The City has only asked the court for approximately $20 million for that option, versus the $135 million for a full clean-up.

But the city has yet to release an itemized accounting of their consultant’s cheaper estimate and this new report casts doubt that normal economic development can ever take place in the presence of so much toxic contamination. 

According to Luker, “Re-development of the Exide site and surrounding property cannot occur if environmental remediation is viewed by the market as neither thorough nor complete. The net result of years or even decades of contamination will not only continue to depress values for both residential and commercial property, but will also hold down the growth of local private employment and levels of personal and household income. All of these factors will contribute to the indefinite perpetuation of economic underdevelopment in the center of Frisco.”

Schermbeck agreed. “This report is just the tip of the iceberg of likely economic problems caused by the City’s choice to allow a hazardous landfill to dump wastes improperly stored in Frisco to begin with . The total costs of keeping toxic waste in the middle of town could easily run into the billions in terms of lost taxes and lost economic opportunities. It’s in Frisco’s best interest to tally those costs up before they decide that it’s cheaper in the short run just to bury it in place downtown.”

He pointed out that it was Frisco Unleaded members who had already approached state legislators about redirecting state battery fees from general fund accounts to the Exide clean-up, something that Frisco City Hall had not yet committed to, despite tapping those funds during the last legislative session. “With state help you could totally remove the source of this economic stigma. You wouldn’t have to settle for a hazardous wast landfill in the middle of town. But the City won’t commit to this strategy.”

Schermbeck and Frisco Unleaded members have been criticizing the Frisco City Council for accepting the landfill option too quickly in light of so many unknowns of cost and contamination threat. They’ve asked for the city to release it’s own detailed consultant’s report on the different clean-up options, but so far City Hall has refused.

“There is a rush to judgment taking place within Frisco City Hall about the Exide site that’s totally at odds with the facts on the ground,” said Schermbeck. “This new study should be a big red flag to the City Council about its current course. The long term costs to the city ‘s economic growth may be larger than the short-term savings it thinks it will accrue by taking what looks like a cheaper option.”

You can download Dr. Luker's summary here.

Methodology: Dr. Luker’s economic analysis is a summary of impacts on property values of a sample of 90 homes in close proximity (between 3000 and 3600 feet) to the former Exide Corporation’s lead smelting operations in what is now downtown Frisco, TX. It uses reliable estimates drawn from the very broad and deep empirical literature on the statistically and commercially significant negative economic impacts of closely similar brownfield sites on residential property values in their immediate locale. For the year 2011, findings from that literature were used to calculate the negative impact on the assessed property values of 90 homes, a 3 percent non-random, spatially bounded sample from a population of 2782 homes identified within .5 to 1.5 miles of Exide-Frisco.

Don’t Miss the Big D Finale to the Dallas Gas Wars On Wednesday

Curtain rising - or falling on drilling rigIt All Comes Down To This Last Public Hearing and Final Vote on a New Drilling Ordinance 

Beginning 1:00 PM
THIS WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11th
6th Floor Dallas City Hall

Participate, and (with any luck) Celebrate…..Over a Year of Constant Activism…….Over Three Years of Constant Organizing…….The Defeat of the Trinity East Permits………The Passage of Protective Dallas Gas Ordinance

After the Vote at City Hall. Come Raise a Glass with us at Lee Harvey's Bar, at 1807 Gould St.

THIS WEDNESDAY'S SCHEDULE

1:00 pm
Citizens' Press Conference
with special guests

1:30 pm
Final City Council Public Hearing on Gas-Drilling
ordinance

Following the Public Hearing, the City Council will have its final vote on the ordinance 

Following the Council's vote, we'll reconvene at Lee Harvey's, the official bar of the Dallas Gas Wars.

Even if you Don't Live in Dallas, You Can Help Us Bring the REAL Barnett Shale to the Public Hearing on Wednesday

One of the constant refrains of our opponents on the Council is that drilling has been "going on for years in the Barnett Shale with no apparent harm." In particular, they love to use Fort Worth as a model for how Dallas should regulate gas drilling.

We know many of you have a different story to tell because you've experienced drilling up close and personal, or have family or friends who have.

The Dallas Residents at Risk alliance has put out a call for Wednesday's public hearing on the new gas ordinance that will proceed the final vote.

We're asking residents of the Barnett Shale who've been harmed by drilling to submit their testimony to the Dallas City Council.

You can do this directly by coming to the hearing Wednesday afternoon and testifying yourself, or you can submit you testimony to us at info@downwindersatrisk.org and we'll ask a Dallas resident to read it into the record for you.

We'll have these first-hand statements available for Dallas residents who want to help read them into the record at the 1pm press conference preceding the public hearing.

Our goal is to paint a more realistic picture of what it's like to live with gas drilling and production on a daily basis before the final vote on a new Dallas gas ordinance is taken. Please help us paint that picture.

How The Vote Looks as of Monday

Whatever happens on Wednesday, it'll be a close vote. There are still six votes against the new ordinance, and six votes for it. Mayor Rawlings, and Council members Jennifer Staubach-Gates and Dwaine Caraway are all officially undecided and hold the key to victory for either side. We must have at least 8 out of the 15 members vote with us to win.

Thanks to you, each of these three officially-undecided council members has received hundreds of e-mails supporting the new ordinance and its 1500-foot setback over the past week or so. We understand that they may be having an impact, along with phone calls, visits, and everything else residents are doing to try and persuade these three Council members to do the right thing. (If you still want to reach them here's their contact info.)
 
Thank you for doing all that you've done. We couldn't have gotten as far as we have without our army of citizen-lobbyists. But now we need your butt in a seat one last time at City Hall on Wednesday to close the deal.  Please come if you can. Thanks.  

D-Day Minus 7: Dallas Gas Ordinance Countdown

Considering how little public notice there was, yesterday's Dallas City Council "public comment time" on the new gas-drilling ordinance was well-attended by residents supporting the Plan Commission Draft. Over two dozen people spoke in favor of the CPC recommendations, including the 1500 foot setback, and/or stronger language for parks and flood plains. Murky statements by the Mayor about whether speaking this week would disqualify you from also having your say at next week's public hearing immediately prior to the final Council vote kept other residents from going to the podium.

True to whatever consultant's media training rule book they're following, industry representatives waited until they thought citizen testimony ended to make their condescending case that citizens were relying only on fear and didn't really understand the fracking process. The problem with this strategy is that you have to pretend the previous 45 minutes of citizen testimony never happened, since it's always replete with references to new scientific studies showing increased health harms from fracking, or another connection with earthquakes, or just strange foamy crap falling out of the sky into your yard from the rig down the street. It turns out the industry folks are the ones who don't really know the process.

And as fate would have it, citizens weren't through testifying. Right after telling the City Council how much West Dallas would lose out by not embracing fracking in its neighborhoods, up popped a West Dallas resident who said she wanted nothing to do with the industry, no matter how much money was involved. After another industry spokesman again said supporters of a stronger ordinance were just imagining harms they weren't really there, Sierra Club member Molly Rooke gave a devastatingly effective presentation on exactly how real harms to real people had forced her own group to acknowledge the dangers of gas pollution after initially endorsing natural gas as an entirely green fuel.

Unlike the staff briefing of two weeks ago, which allowed industry supporters on the Council to bloviate at will over what a crime it was to limit drilling in Big D, nobody behind the horseshoe did any talking except the Mayor, who was perfunctory in his opening and closing remarks and didn't give any clues as to his position on the CPC draft. According to Rawlings, it was his idea to have this "public comment time" prior to the final hearing so there wouldn't be the pile-up there was during the Trinity East vote, where you felt more like you were a cog in an assembly line instead of a citizen participating in one the small pageants of American democracy.

At the end of the meeting, Texas Campaign for the Environment members unfurled a banner urging Rawlings to "Be Strong," which was quickly confiscated by the City Hall Police Rapid Protest Response Team. Here's the Dallas Morning News' muted coverage of the event.

Because of the weather, Dallas Residents at Risk is waiting until next Monday to gin up a final push for passage of the Plan Commission draft going into Wednesday's final public hearing and vote beginning at 1 pm at City Hall. Please stay tuned for details about how you can express your public support and send a message to the Council to pass a strong ordinance. We know we sound like a broken record, but if you haven't sent a quick e-mail to the Mayor yet, you can click here and do so within a minute pretty painlessly. If you want a short explanation of what's going and what votes are where, you can read this previous post and get caught-up.

We have only a week to make sure our last year's worth of hard uphill slogging through corruption, double-dealing, and aggressively ignorant bureaucracies is not in vain. Please help us make it the last 1500 feet.