Council Member Angela Hunt Spells Out Demands for City's Gas Drilling Task Force

LIV

so glad someone is being a 'do-er' ... let's hope it lasts

abuckley1970

Hats off to Angela for this one. I just wish she had run for mayor...maybe next time.

Brown Bess

I hope someone asked the mayoral candidates about this tonight.......

Iwasthere

They did. All BUT Scott Griggs tapped danced around it. Scott was clear, concise and for a moratorium/task force.Dave Neumann BS'd his way and said nothing.

Julian Fernandez

I wholeheartedly support Councilwoman Hunt's plans for the City of Dallas Gas Drilling Task Force. This step is a grave one and should be decided by a group composed, as Ms. Hunt suggests, of environmental experts and ordinary citizens. Hydraulic fracturing is not environmentally sustainable and there are many dangers inherent to the process.

I strongly urge my councilman, Dave Neumann, to move quickly to create this Task Force and not to hold the interests of the Energy Industry above those of his constituents. My support of him in any upcoming election will depend entirely on his actions in this matter.

Marc

Julian, I sincerely hope that you are not holding your breath for Dave Neumann to take a public stand for or against gas well drilling in District 3. So far, he has carefully avoided taking ANY side, and has managed to sit on the fence while others fought the battles in the trenches. You can expect that behavior to continue.

Right now, Neumann has but one agenda - getting re-elected. Having met and worked with Scott and Marianna on this critical issue I can assure you that he does understand the human safety and health issues, then environmental issues, the property values issues and everything else that jeodardizes the welfare of citizens of District 3 and the entire City of Dallas for the financial benefit of energy corporations and their shareholders.

Personally, I think that we should pass laws that demand that at least one energy company EXECUTIVE and his family live within 300 feet of every well they drill for a period of at least one year. If that were to beciome a law, then there would be no drilling because those guys already know the dangers and risks. But, it is not profitable to tell you and me what those risks are because then we would oppose all drilling and companies like ExxonMobil (which owns XTO Energy) would be deprived of their wealth. Major corporations are not going to let incidental things like human health and safety, clean water and air, unpolluted soil, etc. get in the way of corporate profits.

Until the average citizen awakens, gets off his lazy ass and gets involved in this issue we are going to keep fighting an uphill battle to stop this insanity. Unfortunately, I expect the average citizen to be more interested in who teh Rangers will retain from last season, how far the Cowboys will go under Garrett's first year as head coach or who wins an Oscar tomorrow night. I am hoping that "Gasland" wins in teh documentary category.

If you want to make a difference, then go to http://fracdallas.org, read the information, wtch the videos (but not all in one sitting), and then contact us about getting involved in this fight. We need all the help we can get to keep delivering a message to our city council.

Never forget the old adage - the squeaky wheel gets the grease. We need to constantly make noise before our city council and the City Plan Commission to stop gas well drilling in our highly populated urban area.

Julian Fernandez

This past Saturday, Dave Neumann made the mistake of knocking on my front door while campaigning on my street. We spoke on my stoop for about 15 minutes. He does not support Ms. Hunt's plan for a drilling task force. His reasoning is bogus. He spouted at least five half-truths and untruths about hydraulic fracturing. I called him on each.

I told him that he should pay attention to this issue and his constituents concern about this because, "some people might see your footdragging and stonewalling on this issue as a ploy to do nothing to regulate drilling in Dallas until after you are safely re-elected and then to give XTO everything it wants." No reply was forthcoming.

Will Evans

Ray, You need to watch these guys and the relationships they make with the O&G industry. Look what happened in FT. Worth with Moncrief - he set himself up good at the taxpayer's expense. It seems like Ms. Hunt is best ally so far. You need to get her to run for Mayor.

Ihavequestions

She has decided not to do that. She has chosen to spend her last term in her district.Actually, it is a good thing anyway. The City Manager(Mary Suhm) actually runs the city and whomever wins the election has to hand his manhood over to the city manager in order to survive. Angela rocks.

Snookie Pie

Dave Neumann will probably be out the door come May 14 election.

I expect Scott Griggs will win that seat away from Liar-Liar Leppert's good buddy, Neumann

Ihavequestions

we can only hope, snookie

Wes

It's about damned time this got started. Dave Neumann promised it a month ago, but has taken no action since then to even begin the process. It was a ploy by Neumann who hoped to just kick this issue down the road until after the city council election in May.

We need a REAL task force to study a REAL problem and re-write a horrible ecuse for a gas drilling ordnance that was written long before the truth about gas drilling was publicly known (though industry has know the truth for a very long time and chcose not to share it because the truth is not on their side.)

We also need new council members who actually are concerned about their constituents rather than current or future corporate campaign donors.

Raymond Crawford

This is a great thing for Ms. Hunt to take a leadership role in the very real concern for gas drilling in the city of Dallas. There are too many unanswered questions regarding gas drilling anywhere and our current gas ordinance that was written back in 2007 is based on 2007 assumptions. Drilling under the current Dallas ordinance with knowledge based on 2007 is 'flat earth' these days. With one exception, that horizontal drilling with chemicals from Halliburton has the potential to harm us all. As of today, if a rig were permitted, it would be 300 feet from your back door. Let's see, that's about 4 Dallas home lots away?

There are too many facts, spills, leaks, explosions in areas of gas exploration on a weekly basis, for cities around the country to ignore this very real problem. Shale gas(there is nothing natural about it) is a fossil fuel that does burn cleaner. That is not the problem. It's the process of getting the gas out of the ground with very loose regulations that are the problem. The current Dallas air is one of the worst in the nation and not improving. None of this can be summed up properly in a sound byte. It takes some reading, watching and studying the issue to absorb all of the facts. Are we ready to do that? Our lives depend on it.All of Dallas needs to support Ms. Hunt in her role as a leader in this very important issue.