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Opinion: A protest in U.S. oil country spells trouble for fracking abroad
Gardendale, Texas, sits on the Permian Basin, the largest oil province in the United States. That makes it an unlikely site of anti-fracking protests and an even more unlikely bellwether for shale gas drilling activity in Europe and Asia. And yet it is.
About 15 residents in the town, population 1,574, are waging an anti-drilling crusade against Berry Petroleum. They have tried to turn Gardendale into an official municipality, which would give them more control over gas exploration and production near their homes. They launched a website to chronicle Berry’s alleged misdeeds, and a YouTube channel with short “Berry Tales” videos. They have, if nothing else, painted a drilling trailer which they playfully call the “Gardenhell scar” and dumped it near a group of oil storage tanks.
Many Gardendale residents I spoke to say they aren’t against drilling, just against Berry’s manner of drilling, which involves fracking — the technique in which water, sand and chemicals are blasted deep underground to break up hydrocarbon-rich rock formations. Their reasons for kicking up dust over Berry’s development plan resemble the complaints of landowners in Pennsylvania and other areas where shale drilling has taken hold: There are too many wells in a small area; the rigs are too close to backyards; the stream of trucks flows all hours of the day and night.
Annalee Gulley, a spokeswoman for Berry Petroleum who works for KGBTexas Communications, declined to comment. Berry created this website to describe its plans and has held community meetings to answer questions and address concerns, participants say.
The residents’ main objection however is largely unspoken: Unlike TV’s oil-soaked Beverly Hillbillies, or the many landowners who became fracking millionaires, the Texans don’t really get paid for their inconvenience and worry.
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/06/19/opinion-a-protest-in-u-s-oil-country-spells-trouble-for-fracking-abroad/?utm_source=WhatCountsEmail&utm_medium=FuelFix&utm_campaign=FuelFixNewsLetter
About 15 residents in the town, population 1,574, are waging an anti-drilling crusade against Berry Petroleum. They have tried to turn Gardendale into an official municipality, which would give them more control over gas exploration and production near their homes. They launched a website to chronicle Berry’s alleged misdeeds, and a YouTube channel with short “Berry Tales” videos. They have, if nothing else, painted a drilling trailer which they playfully call the “Gardenhell scar” and dumped it near a group of oil storage tanks.
Many Gardendale residents I spoke to say they aren’t against drilling, just against Berry’s manner of drilling, which involves fracking — the technique in which water, sand and chemicals are blasted deep underground to break up hydrocarbon-rich rock formations. Their reasons for kicking up dust over Berry’s development plan resemble the complaints of landowners in Pennsylvania and other areas where shale drilling has taken hold: There are too many wells in a small area; the rigs are too close to backyards; the stream of trucks flows all hours of the day and night.
Annalee Gulley, a spokeswoman for Berry Petroleum who works for KGBTexas Communications, declined to comment. Berry created this website to describe its plans and has held community meetings to answer questions and address concerns, participants say.
The residents’ main objection however is largely unspoken: Unlike TV’s oil-soaked Beverly Hillbillies, or the many landowners who became fracking millionaires, the Texans don’t really get paid for their inconvenience and worry.
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/06/19/opinion-a-protest-in-u-s-oil-country-spells-trouble-for-fracking-abroad/?utm_source=WhatCountsEmail&utm_medium=FuelFix&utm_campaign=FuelFixNewsLetter
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