Dallas gas drilling opponents say they’ve made a map of possible drilling sites and it’s a lot more than most people think. KERA’s BJ Austin says the map has more than 130 red dots marking tracts leased for drilling.
Zac Trahan, with the Texas Campaign for the Environment says the map is the result of a remark by a member of the Dallas Gas Drilling Task Force that they were only dealing with a handful of sites.
Trahan says members of Dallas Residents at Risk used open records requests to get information about drilling leases on city land. He says the red dots stretch from Royal Lane in northwest Dallas, past Love Field neighborhoods, to the West Dallas foot of the new Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge and south to Mountain Creek and Joe Pool Lake.
Trahan: And this map is meant to be a wake up call, a red alert for the Task Force to pay close attention to its recommendations. It’s not just two sites. It’s all over our city.
Theresa O’Donnell, the city’s development director says the group’s map should not be a big surprise to anyone. She says nearly 200 tracts on 4800 city-owned acres were publicly discussed when the city council approved drilling leases with two companies in 2008.
O’Donnell: So, the fact that we’re seeing this map showing different leases on several different tracts is not inconsistent with that information.
And O’Donnell says having a drilling lease is not the same thing as having the zoning and permits to actually drill.
Trahan says the new drilling map does not show any private drilling leases. The group has discovered 58 of those. The Dallas Gas Drilling Task Force will finalize its recommendations for regulating gas drilling this month.
