A lot of people in my neck of the woods don’t understand or don’t want to understand the negative impacts natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing has on the environment or our health. But there is one thing that almost everyone understands – property value.
We live in a small community where most people are living the American Dream – we built our homes to stay – the home where we’ll raise our children and then bounce grandchildren on our knee; you know, the home before the nursing home. Make no mistake about it, there is no full disclosure about anything related to natural gas drilling in Argyle or Bartonville, and that is a shame. I don’t know one single person who would build a home and raise their family next to the nightmare that Williams O&G calls the “Argyle Collection Facility,” AKA gas processing facility. Although the Argyle Town council has no moral issues whatsoever with poisoning children or reducing property value. How those criminals council members sleep at night is beyond me.
One year after our friends, the Ruggerios, had a gas company intrude on their beautiful land and put up a drilling rig, their property value dropped 75%. The Wise County Central Appraisal District unanimously agreed, what was originally on the 2010 tax rolls for $257,330, the home and 10-acre horse property are now worth $75,240. The entire situation is completely devastating, only made more tragic when their sweet 10 year-old daughter was diagnosed with asthma.
And if you don’t believe me, maybe you’ll believe the Mayor of Bartonville, Texas, who is at least making an effort to protect his citizen’s property value by trying to stop what could be another collection facility in his town’s ETJ.
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Not to be a downer, but if someone reduced my property value by that much and didn’t compensate me, I’d probably assault the responsible party. Maybe Texans don’t behave that way anymore. Maybe they should.
That sounds like a viable option to me.
Well, I guess I would equivocate a bit. If they have every legal right to do what they’re doing, then the people to complain about are the politicians and regulators that allow it.
But the thing that would really be galling is when the driller says that the toxic chemical that shows up on your lawn or in your water has no relation to the exact same toxic chemical they just pumped into the ground a few hundred feet away. I’m shocked people don’t just go off right then.
T, this is Texas – land of rollover and wham bam thank you ma’am. I just don’t get it.
T – We are going off, but we are up against the energy company’s deep pockets which heavily pad the elected officials campaign coffers. The laws are antiquated and need an overhaul, a Texas Railroad Commission Commission attorney told me that the rules in place for the Barnett are outdated and were designed for vertical drilling. I have been writing, calling, and driving to Austin for five years now. Texans are so wrapped up in political party affiliations and vote straight tickets that we keep getting the same people re-elected. I vote all parties, but like many I know, have a really hard time finding a good candidate, and end up going with the lesser of two evils. Yes, we do go off, but doing it in a civil, proper manner takes longer than it should. I have lived here my entire life, and am appalled and ashamed at the apathy I see around me. What do you suggest?
So true. We had planned on buying in Argyle…but have chosen elsewhere because of drilling.
What Jana said.
Although I’d offer that the apathy is a cover for fear. It’s like the elementary school playground over and over again in adult life. No one gets in between the bully and the kid getting beat up, and sometimes they even cheer the bully, because they all figure that’s the best way to keep from becoming a target themselves.
But it never works that way. The time you bought just eats at your soul until you have no viscera left.
In fact, confronting the bully is the most freeing thing in the world. I still remember coming home as a ten-year-old bloody and bruised, but that boy who was picking on everyone — including girls — never picked a fight in our neighborhood again.
(Yes, it was kind of a rough neighborhood.)
Do as Eleanor Roosevelt advised; do at least one thing that scares you every day.
What Peggy said too. The first time I met Calvin Tillman he told me one of the most important things that I have learned to be completely true. Big energy does not expect us to stand up to them and challenge their practices or the pathetic, inadequate rules they have to adhere to. They will be so shocked , that they won’t be prepared. That was said a few years ago, so they know we are getting much more organized and are changing their tactics. It is up to us to stand up and speak out to get the rules of the game changed. Look at Flower Mound, they went door to door supporting their choice of candidates. I don’t know how you make people care or see the truth, but as the industry slithers closer to more heavily populated areas, the atrocities will be dumped in more back yards. Keep calling, writing, e-mailing, faxing, and visiting your elected officials and tell them you want this changed. Drill Right Texas is a good start. Instead of forwarding that e-mail funny, take time each day to send our officials an e-mail telling them you expect them to support best practices.
Robin– hopefully drilling doesn’t find you, wherever you end up.
Here in southern Indiana, some people bought some land from the county. I don’t know how the county got the land or why they decided to sell, but it wasn’t useful for building on so they sold it cheap. Then the buyer complained that the mineral rights weren’t included, so the county just gave it to them for free. Never mind the county is cash-strapped as it is. The buyer planned to develop natural gas under our coal deposits (that had stopped being mined a hundred years ago). That was five years ago, and no action yet but I’m sure it’ll come someday.
Anyway, cheering you all on from afar. Those companies and their shareholders are stealing from you, and stealing from future generations that will have to clean up the mess they’re making and deal with health issues too.
Since Susan is barely treading water with doing her best to stay running, keeping up with making our community safe, and getting all her ducks in a row, I thought, being her buddy I would update her blog.
Things around here are going down hill fast. When the weather is nice, it’s our American Right to sleep with our windows open. That has been robbed from us. Oh sure, you can, but you will wake up with a nose bleed and then ride the couch for the day. Well, that happens even when the windows are closed. As for me yesterday.
So tread water, survive and get your ducks in a row.
Coffee. Man’s best friend, and best drug ever, and the key component of surviving sulphide contamination so the run can go on.
I only hope that my running buddy is feeling well enough to join me for a 10k run in Keller today down Bear Creek Parkway for time.
We run two different times: bad air time/and clean air time.
And I’ll buy coffee. Shall we wear our vibrams?