5-2 Chesapeake Loses. We Win. (Finally)

It was a late vote. Thank you, Mayor England, for leading the City Council in support of the DENIAL of the Lake Parks Pad Site.

Chesapeake's Grand Prairie Liaison, Laura Patton, spoke for at least 15 minutes and pushed back hard against Environmental Services' recommended DENIAL of this Permit for up to 20 wells at the entryway to Joe Pool Lake.

Sometimes, leaders just seem to come to their senses. We are grateful that maybe, just maybe the tide is turning in Grand Prairie. The large landowners who leased the tracts of land to Chesapeake came to City Hall Tuesday night from all over the state. They each one came to the podium to explain how important it was to have their minerals mined out of the Earth at this moment in time. They invoked their family roots in Grand Prairie, God and how they had inherited all this farmland that "deserved" to be drilled for shale gas because they knew it was what their grandmothers and grandfathers would want for their heirs.

Well. Not yet, anyway. Mayor England thanked them all for coming to tell their stories and that he remembered their families from days gone by...but this pad site just wasn't going to happen so close to beautiful neighborhoods so near the lake.

Thank you, Mayor England, City Staff and the other 4 City Councilmen and Women Councilwoman who voted for DENIAL. It was a good evening at City Hall.

Update:  Councilmen Jensen and Swafford recused themselves for conflicts of interest. (Leases have been signed with Chesapeake by both City Councilmen.)