Max Anderson FilmOriginal article here
Austin, TX – A group of about 40 concerned citizens from across the state gathered at the South gate of the Texas Capitol on Monday evening to hold an overnight vigil against a bill which threatens municipal ordinances that protect property, public safety and the environment.
Click here to view all the photos from Monday night’s rally.
Concerns about House Bill 40 and companion Senate Bill 1165 prompted citizens from across the state to protest what they say is an anti-democratic attack on basic Texas values, like local control.
Protesters from Texas Campaign for the Environment, Texas Sierra Club, Public Citizen Texas, National Nurses United, and Environment Texas held signs, chanted, and erected an 18 foot mock fracking rig with a flare to protest HB 40, which will be up for debate and a vote in the Texas House on Tuesday, April 14. Even with amended language in the bill, it would still take away local governments authority to protect citizens and property from oil and gas development in urban and suburban areas.
HB 40, if passed, would drastically limit the ability of local governments to regulate oil and gas extraction activities, including hydraulic-fracturing or fracking. This comes on the heels of a big win in Denton last November when citizens voted overwhelmingly, 59 to 41, to put a moratorium on the practice of fracking within the city limits.
The state of Texas has challenged Denton’s ban, both through the Texas General Land Office, and the Texas Oil and Gas Association. But, now the Texas Legislature is seeking to preempt local control protections for our health and safety. Ellen Friedman from the Austin Climate Action Network said, “The pro-corporate legislators act against the interests of the state citizens and the common-good.”
The bill, HB 40, would allow cities to regulate surface activities, such as noise, lights and truck traffic. But, if the bill passes, municipalities would no longer be able to regulate subsurface activities or establish a minimum distance between fracking wells and school, hospitals, businesses or homes.
Austin local Krissy O’Brien is against HB 40 because she says local government is best equipped to handle the needs of a city when it comes to health and safety.
“The people of Denton have spoken,” said O’Brien. “They voted to keep fracking out of their city.”
Robin Schneider, the Executive Director of Texas Campaign for the Environment, is also concerned about the attack on local control and helped organize the event.
“People have spent years of their lives to protect their communities from real dangers of oil and gas drilling, especially in urban areas,” said Schneider. “And this bill will wipe out those ordinances and make it dicey to amend ordinances, and intimidate cities that haven’t put ordinances in place. It’s a real problem.”
The threat that the protesters worry about is substantial. Just this past weekend in Arlington, Texas a “very serious” mishap caused 115 people to evacuate their homes when pressurized water began to back flow out of a fracked well. Local officials were concerned that natural gas could leak and catch fire. The well took two days and three attempts before it was successfully plugged.
Dallas resident and Program Director at Texas Campaign for the Environment, Zac Trahan, said that if the bill passes it would overturn not just Denton’s fracking ban, but other local control ordinances in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and across the state. Trahan said, “HB 40 gives the industry the tools they need to overturn any ordinance that they deem unreasonable.”
The Program Director for Texas Campaign for the Environment’s Austin office, Andrew Dobbs, said the rally Monday night is about bearing witness to what is happening with this bill, and the implications for communities around the state to protect themselves from harmful activities related to the oil and gas industries.
“It’s about saying we were here,” said Dobbs. “We stood up to this. And five, 10, 20 years down the line when, if this bill passes, the real fruits of it come to bear, and communities are being wrecked left and right, and somebody’s saying, ‘I didn’t know. Who knew? How come nobody said anything?’ We can say, ‘no, that’s not true.’ We did. We spoke up. We spoke the truth. We bore witness, and we’re here today to continue fighting on this.”
Tags: oil and gas drilling
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