APPLAUSE!! Happy 3rd Anniversary to the Westchester Gasette.

We launched the Westchester Gasette blog on September 8, 2010. It's been a very wild and often strange ride.

Click here to see our very first blog post exactly 3 years ago today.

It's simply a video about land farming elsewhere in North Texas created by Texas Sharon.  It features a very nice, soothing song. 

Thank you for joining us for this journey into gasland over these past 3 years. There's lots of water under that bridge.

Or rather (thankfully) lots of water remaining behind the Joe Pool Lake Dam.

Amen.

City Council to Approve Padsite, Only??

Constructing a pad site that may never have drilling??
Seriously??!

 The Dorchester Levee, Grand Prairie, TX

Click Here for Page 183 of the Grand Prairie, TX Agenda Details for the January 15, 2013 Meeting:

AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF GRAND PRAIRIE, TEXAS ALLOWING FOR
PADSITE DEVELOPMENT AND CONSTRUCTION AT 2200 LOWER TARRANT
ROAD TO NEWARK E&P OPERATING, LLC.

Click Here for Page 191 of the Agenda Details:

 Attachment A Special Specifications

 – Newark E& P Operating, LLC. –

Race Partners Padsite 

1. Since this drill site is proposing to include horizontal drilling that crosses beneath the Dorchester Levee, the City is requiring third party geologic and geophysical review to ensure the integrity of the existing levee. The information below and third party review will be required prior to any drilling activity. The cost of this review will be the responsibility of the applicant. 

2. Prior to drilling, the applicant will provide any detail geologic, seismic and geophysical data and information in the subsurface of the vicinity of the well and laterals that will allow a third party evaluation of any subsurface fracture (e.g. faults and fractures and their potential for being reactivated and generating earthquakes) as part of this drill site. At a minimum this information shall consist of bore hole logs, hydraulic fracturing parameters, geologic and hydrologic characteristics of the rock above and below the fracture zone and seismic and geophysical survey data.

3. Prior to the initiation of any construction activities that are governed by federal floodplain regulations, the applicant shall provide the City copies of valid U.S. Corps of Engineer permits, a Corridor Development Certificate, and obtain a City of Grand Prairie Floodplain Development Permit that covers any planned activities.

Last we heard, there is a Moratorium in place on drilling operations within 3,000 feet of ALL water retention facilities owned and/or operated by the US Army Corps of Engineers in the City of Grand Prairie, TX.

Click Here to Read About that Moratorium.

However, it appears that the Dorchester Levee is owned by the City of Grand Prairie, TX??  So, we suppose it's OK to drill/frack under it?? Or to put down the concrete just in case!?? 

C-R-A-Z-Y and Dangerous!! Amen.

Click Here to Read About Dallas County, TX Levees and their "intense scrutiny."


And Click here to read about Earthquakes/Seismicity in the Gas Patch. They Are NOT a Myth!!!

Baldwin Hills Dam Failure in 1963 **Update**

It was never going to fail.

"In 1951, when it was built in Los Angeles, the Baldwin Hills Dam was hailed as a $10 Million Dollar State-of-the-Art Engineering Masterwork."

According to the above video. shown on Australian TV in 2010, it started with a pencil-thin crack. Watch the video. The History Channel has done a magnificent job of detailing what happened on December 14, 1963 in Baldwin Hills ~ while our country was still recovering from the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

5 people died. 65 homes were destroyed.

600 oil wells were located in the Inglewood Oil Field on the eastern edge of the Dam. And not only that, as the investigators discovered at the time, the oil was being extracted from these oil wells using a method of extraction that involved injecting water into the ground around the well at very high pressure. Back then, it was called, "pressurized extraction."

Investigators concluded that seismic activity was the "hidden factor"  in this dam's failure.  This was 1963.  In 2012, seismic activity has been an everyday occurrence around North Texas.  

Even yesterday (June 23, 2012), there was another recorded earthquake near Cleburne, Texas ~ the 3rd one in North Texas since June 5th.

Dam. Dam. and Dam.

Moratorium on our Joe Pool Lake Dam. Amen.

Click here to read the March 28, 2012 story from the Fort Worth Star Telegram about "Improvements to the Dam." (There's a mistake in the story ~ the City of GP's Moratorium is through January 2013 and will be extended as warranted.)

**Update**: From the comments

Click here to see a current community blog from Baldwin Hills. These pictures are horrific.

Zone of Deception

"Ordinance providing for a moratorium on the conducting of any natural gas drilling and fracturing activities within 3,000 feet of any dams and other water retention structures owned and/or operated by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE)."

See the stories about this here, here, here and here.

See the City of Grand Prairie Agenda for today, Tuesday, November 15, 2011, Page 3. The Agenda wasn't available for viewing online until MONDAY afternoon. Surely that wasn't on purpose. We don't want to think that.

Clearly, there's a disconnect here. We expected that the City of Grand Prairie would not even be considering a gas gathering pipeline construction out to the Corn Valley Pad site due to the Moratorium. The site is under review and study by the United States Army Corps of Engineers.

It begs the question ~ Does USACE know about this??? Do they care?

Was the Moratorium Ordinance simply a stunt? Or maybe the City Manager is just feeling really good right now since he just received a strong endorsement via a BIG raise from the City (the motion was seconded by our own City Councilman Shaleionaire Ron Jensen at the last City Council Meeting).

November 1, 2011 Minutes Page 5

Renewal of City Manager's Contract

Mayor Pro Tem Swafford moved, seconded by Council Member Jensen, to extend the City Manager's contract to October 31, 2012, increase the City Manager's base salary 3%, and to provide the City Manager with a 5-year CEO Retention Plan with a $30,000/year incentive, both effective October 1, 2011.  The motion carried unanimously.

Ayes:

Mayor Charles England; Mayor Pro Tem Jim Swafford; Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Ruthe Jackson; Council Member Richard Fregoe; Council Member Greg Giessner; Council Member Mark Hepworth; Council Member Ron Jensen and Council Member Bill Thorn

 Wow! That's a BIG raise.

But we're more shocked by this latest development for a vote on the Gas Gathering Pipeline to Corn Valley. But then, this is gasland. Nothing is real. Nothing is honest. And sadly, nothing will ever be the same again. 

From the Agenda Packet:

Analysis

 DFW Midstream Services, LLC has requested permission to place gas transmission pipelines along and across portions of Lakeridge Parkway, Matthew Road, Prairie Lane, Polo Road, Robinson Road, Barn Owl Trail, High Hawk Boulevard and tracts of City owned land in the High Hawk at Martins Meadow Addition.
 
A license from the City is needed to allow DFW Midstream Services, LLC to extend gas gathering pipelines from an existing line at the Barnes Assembly well pad site near Matthew Road and Fish Creek to the Crystal Paradise well pad site near Lakeridge Parkway and Great Southwest Parkway; and to the Corn Valley well pad site near Camp Wisdom Road and Carrier Parkway.
 
The license agreement is for a term of twenty (20) years with a nine (9) year renewal option. The fee during the renewal option period is to be adjusted by the increase in the Consumer Price Index.

DFW Midstream Pipeline Map to be Voted On Tuesday Night, November 15, 2011.

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???