About the Moratorium

The wording of the Moratorium on the City's Web site:

Moratorium on Acceptance of gas well Permit Applications.

~ Grand Prairie, Texas City Council

November 18, 2010

The Corn Valley Pad Site already has 5 wells "permitted" by the Texas Railroad Commission. And they have also been approved by the Grand Prairie, TX Environmental Services Department ~ according to the GP Gas Drilling Spreadsheet, Scroll Down to Page 4, Item 3, (last updated 11.16.10).

So, the Grand Prairie, Texas 6-Month Moratorium will not have any effect on those wells. In addition, the 6-Month Moratorium will not have any effect on other wells already "permitted" and approved by the City through Environmental Services for drilling and then fracking.  That includes wells near the Trailwood neighborhood including Barnes Assembly A and West Carpo.  There are a lot of wells unaffected by the specifics of this Moratorium that will continue business-as-usual under the current Gas Drilling Ordinance.

 (Above) Corn Valley Pad Site (5 Wells Currently Permitted) ~Well 1H Drilled on Halloween~
Grand Prairie, TX
Note the close proximity to the dam. It's been measured at less than 2,000 850 feet.   Of course compared to Fort Worth near I35, Arlington near 360 and Mansfield (Below)...
Good Lord, this is truly a Nightmare of Epic Proportions. 

And then (below), in our very own air and water space, there's Joe Pool Lake. How did this happen? Why did it happen? Drilling in a lake?? All the red circles on the maps represent wells in production...the black lines and blue circles represent "permitted" well bores that may have been drilled, too.

 Joe Pool Lake, Grand Prairie, TXAnd Now We Get a Moratorium???Seriously.  Who Has Been Minding this Store???

Leaseholder Sues Chesapeake in Federal Court

Chesapeake Allegedly Made Unjust Profits of $5 Billion

NEW YORK (Dow Jones) NOVEMBER 24, 2010, 6:21 P.M. ET

--A Texas woman sued Chesapeake Energy Corp. (CHK) Wednesday claiming the company, with the help of its bankers, violated the rights of leaseholders for oil wells by selling minerals without compensating members of joint operating agreements.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan by Mary Linda McCall, claims Chesapeake made as much as $5 billion in unjust profits since late December 2007.

According to the suit, seeking class-action status, Chesapeake "wrongfully retained" the proceeds of those sales for its sole benefit, while failing to adhere to the contractual guidelines with its leaseholders.

The suit hopes to recover "hundreds of millions--perhaps billions--of dollars" due to leaseholders.

[...]

The suit claims Chesapeake and its bankers violated the rights of the non-operating working interest owners. Chesapeake allegedly sold minerals in the ground without their consent.  [emphasis added.}

Click here for the rest of the story.

(Note:  They mean "gas wells," not "oil wells.")

Home for the Holidays

Happy Thanksgiving Y'All!

 Westchester Valley Neighborhood, Grand Prairie, TX November 23, 2010

Yes.  It's a "No Drilling" Sign in the front yard.  How 'bout that? You see, these Westchester homeowners actually "own" the minerals beneath their homes, but neither of these homeowners agreed to lease their minerals.  Still, they have a 3.5 million gallon FRAC Pond 4 yards from their back fences and a Pad Site 537 feet from their back yards. The drill has been grinding and screeching now for 3 weeks while toxic fumes have been spewing out into the once clean air.  All of this just so happens to sit across the street from a segment of the Joe Pool Lake Dam! 

 

Corn Valley Pad Site, 210 W. Camp Wisdom Road Grand Prairie, TX, November 2010

On this day of Thanksgiving, we are reminded that shale gas drilling is  what Chesapeake's CEO Aubrey McClendon really wants for America. It's what the City of Grand Prairie wants for America. It's what Boone Pickens really, really wants for America. But at what price do we continue along this course? 

Corn Valley Rig & FRAC Pond, Westchester Valley
Grand Prairie, TX, November 2010

We count our blessings today.  And pray for all of our neighbors across the region who are now suffering because of this shale gas drilling campaign.  Amen.

Oh, Dam.

BREAKING: Moratorium

6-Month Moratorium on acceptance of gas well permit applications.

 ~ Grand Prairie, Texas City Council

November 18, 2010 

Here's the Dallas News Story:

Click Here

One More Pad Site. 4 More Wells. Happy Holidays!

Proposed Pad Site Right Behind the Hills of Westchester

Grand Prairie, TX

XTO ~ (City of Dallas SUP Application) 

Luminant Lease: Railroad Commission API #113: 30210-30213 

The 60 Minutes Story: Sunday November 14, 2010

UPDATE:  2014. As you can see, this video is no longer available on YouTube. Here's a link to a portion of it, at least. Click Here ~ Gas Drilling Horror Story on 60 Minutes(November 2010 with Tim and Christine Ruggiero.)

 

"You Don't Want to Drink Fracking Fluid." 

                                     ~  Aubrey McClendon, Chesapeake CEO

Thank You Women Veterans

We Honor All Of Our Grand Prairie and North Texas Veterans
Thursday, November 11, 2010

Madoff, the Barnett Shale and Joe Pool Lake

"Lease Dallas County gas rights with New York capital and flip the leases at a profit."

Bernie Madoff ~ The King of Thieves

12:11 AM CDT on Sunday, November 7, 2010

By RANDY LEE LOFTIS / The Dallas Morning News
rloftis@dallasnews.com

...
On its face, the Dallas County venture looked like many others in the Barnett Shale, the nation’s biggest gas field, where companies have drilled an estimated 17,000 wells since 2005.

The party obtaining a gas lease from a mineral rights owner might be just a middleman, hoping to resell the lease to a production company.

...
Court filings do not list the total profit for all participants, but they do specify Conglomerate Gas II’s share: more than $3.34 million. [emphasis added.]

Read the rest of the story here.