In Texas, a Fight Over Fracking

[WestVirginiaRebel]

NY Times:

DENTON, Tex. — Many Texans have long held the oil and gas industry as dear to their hearts as a prairie range full of feeding cattle. Now suddenly that love is being tested here in a local election, where a grass-roots campaign against gas producers has pushed the industry into a corner.

 

The battle is over a proposed city ban on hydraulic fracturing — the technique of blasting shale rock with water, sand and chemicals to dislodge oil and gas, often called fracking — in a referendum on Nov. 4. No city in Texas has ever come close to passing such a measure.

 

But in this college town of 130,000 outside Dallas, the producers find themselves in an uphill battle against a diverse band of doorbell ringers and lawn-sign distributors who are working day and night.

 

The debate in Denton echoes themes heard in communities around the country, pitting economic arguments like job creation and school funding against quality-of-life and environmental concerns like noise, traffic, fumes and fears that fracking might endanger local water supplies.

 

The opponents are being led by a home care nurse, who has already moved once to get out of the way of local drilling, and a young philosophy professor. Their committee treasurer is a jazz drummer.

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Ah, yes-the fracking "experts," like Matt Damon...