We have closely clustered communities in this area. With over 60,000 people here in Flower Mound and over 650,000 in Denton County, long distance drilling of laterals longer than 3000' to 5000' would be a huge challenge. Here are a few maps. One of Flower Mound and rural North Texas.
A picture is worth a thousand words.
Flower Mound
Rural North Texas
22 comments:
Oh, I get! Kendra wants us to drill in the lake! That's about the only space that doesn't have houses or schools or churches. I'm sure it will be fine and that Spilliams will be extra careful and not spill anymore.
Actually this map doesn't show all of Flower Mound but it does get the point across. If you look at google maps, you will see that there are very few places to move a pad site 1 to 2 miles away without having it be near homes, apartments, schools, businesses, parks, the lake, environmentally sensitive areas, flood plains and Army Corp of Engineers land.
i saw her post on facebook about the best practices. i thought it was dishonest to try and spin something that is obviously meant for areas that are more rural. we need leaders who are honest and have integrity.
Does the Flower Mound candidate really know what she is talking about or is this more fluff from her campaign rhetoric? Either she did not do her homework or is irresponsible to possibly harm others' health and property values.
He strategy is the difference between not-in-my-backyard vs. not-in-anyone's backyard. Many of us are helping other communities (with less influence) fight this. Kendra seems fine just to keep it out of her yard.
If a major pipeline, (like Atmos, Exxonmoble, whoever) is not close to the drill site/pad, they are not interested. They need to be near a major pipeline. Why do you think they are in the populated area of Flower Mound now and not way-out closer to 377? They like the Atmos pipeline. Length of the laterals does not matter with this strategy. One more thought, Ms. Stephenson can not MAKE a drilling company use longer laterals. She can't make them do anything. In my opinion, it does imply she is receptive to drilling companies here in Flower Mound. Texas law has given O&G too much power and if the new legislation passes, we are all going to feel it! Thank-you Mayor Northern for going to Austin to try to protect us!
Doesn't Kendra realize that if you do gas drilling in the shale that you have to do hydraulic fracturing, and if you do it over a long distance, that just means you're going to be risking contamination of a bigger area? Fracking has not been proven to be safe. Not here, not there, not anywhere.
You know how hard Kendra fought against Hilliard approval. Stop spewing lies on how Kendra thinks about exploring long distant drilling to avoid drilling near homes and schools. Just a few months back folks in Woods at Wellington were busy signing leases. Who do you think will access this land and how long is the lateral? Wish NFL had the spine to stand up against Hilliard permit approval like Kendra!
BTW, publish the scale on your map and stop misleading.
It seems that one of Ms. Stephenson's campaign managers is still trying to justify her statement by confusing people with info on horizontal drilling and directional drilling. Yes, this is being done already. We get it. But that is not what Ms. Stephenson said originally. She would lime to move pad sites out 2 miles and do long distance drilling and fracking. Only a few wells have been done to date. It is costly and hard on the equipment. Which means more chances for problems. Yes, finding a spot that won't impact something would be difficult.
I am sorry, someone just left a comment and I accidently deleted it. I tried to copy and paste it but I deleted that. Having problems this am. Please go back and repost it. :)
While it is true they are trying to use longer laterals, the problem is this. If you move your pad site to be 2 miles from homes and schools, that is already 10,000 feet just to get to the first set of homes and buildings. Then you would need even longer lateral to get under the homes and schools.
Longer laterals open the driller up to problems. As I mentioned before, they can be costly.
Here is an articles about longer laterals.
http://www.slb.com/~/media/Files/smith/brochures/drill_bits/spear.ashx
Again, I am not sure there is really anywhere left in this town you could drill 2 miles without impacting someone.
@ April 26, 11:00 p.m.
I disagree with you. I do not believe people are telling lies about Ms. Stephenson. And the
statement you made about current council is not accurate. Mr. Dixon, Mr. Wallace, Ms. Levenick are the ones that voted against the moratorium that would of impacted Hilliard.
Why does everyone keep forgetting that?
Is 1500 ft setback enough? It seems too close to schools and residences. Since drilling is not going away (not until state and national level mandate come in), the spirit of the long range discussion is to keep drilling as far away from schools as practically possible. If industry can drill far away say from only 5000' - 6000' I still think it is a victory.
Is 1500 ft setback enough? It seems too close to schools and residences. Since drilling is not going away (not until and if state and national level mandate come in), the spirit of the long range discussion is to keep drilling as far away from schools and residences as practically possible. If industry can drill far away say even from only 5000' - 6000' I still think it is a victory. We need to explore practical limitations, I agree! But we should not accept "short-range" drilling either (1500 ft setback = short range).
Okay here is a little gas drilling 101. 1500 feet is the setback for the actual pad site not the distance of the lateral. The lateral is then drilled. My point is this. If you want 10,000 foot laterals so you could access all the minerals that they want at the Hilliard site, you could not start out 2 miles away and reach them. Plus, where is there a spot 2 miles away that you would not impact something like waters of the state, businesses, schools, homes, etc? Kendra's group can post as many maps as they want but it won't change anything.
Yes, we should want to keep drilling away from homes and schools. Is 1500 feet enough? No. Can we get away with more than that? It might not matter if HB 3105 gets through. This would open the town up to being sued everytime they try to enforce the ordinance.
We should be focusing our efforts in Austin like Mayor Northern and the town is. Changes need to be made at the State and Federal level or all municipalities will only be able to go so far.
There is no magic wand that can be waved and all these protections will magically come true. Austin people, Austin!!! Pay attention to who you vote in on the state level next time!
@"Sick of hearing this" - I understand these discussions are intense and appreciate your inputs to consider. Ideas such as this should be ideally debated in settings such as the town's earlier "Oil and Gas Advisory Board". No one is saying long range drilling is a panacea but it is an idea worth exploring and discussing pros and cons of. All ideas have practical limitations and if we consider many angles including the one you mentioned, we might be able to collectively come to a good solution. In fact if these scenarios can be drawn on a board and discussed it will help!
Never shoot down an idea, however absurd it might look. We need to analyze and process the info and provide a consolidated view as part of exploring an idea. At the minimum we would have thoroughly thought through something and perhaps might even find another solution! We need to look at Ms. Stephenson's points in conjunction with her other point on strengthening the oil and gas ordinance as well. If looked like that we see the intent is to make the town safer since we all understand the town cannot do away with drilling!
To the person who commented on how hard Kendra fought against Hillard. Her website states: After consulting with a municipal law attorney to confirm that I had no conflict of interest, I provided advice to friends. Wasn’t Kendra on the Oil and Gas Board during this time? Was the municipal attorney Hempel? The same attorney that was used in the lawsuit against the town. Or was it the FM town attorney? The one that she and her friends (Ginger Simonson, Jody Smith,and Jean Levenick) are so desperately trying to get rid of. Don’t be fooled by the silliness of this debate of long distant vs 1500 ft. This is about Kendra and Ginger’s egos. They wisp about town taking credit for others hard work, acting as they are smarter than anyone else. EGO
@anony 12:03. Never shoot down an idea no matter how absurd it may look? This isn't brainstorming! Kendra's running for Council. She needs to have the experience and judgement to know a stupid idea when she sees one. What she said was stupid. She knows it and so does her campaign, frantically trying to recraft it into something a little less stupid. Pandering to the Jody Smith crowd on development is one thing (high density apts, anyone?) but pandering to them on gas drilling? How naive to expect there wouldn't be backlash from those in the know. Whittaker would have beat her anyway with his experience, civic involvement, and NFL endorsement but now Kendra's practically campaigning for him.
Hold on a minute. Why wouldn't Kendra consult with the town's attorney since it is a Flower Mound Board. Why would she meet with friends to give advice ( on gas drilling I have to assume)? Is this okay?
@anon 3:24: I will leave you with a few thoughts. There are other people in the know who do not believe the idea is stupid. But they are still open to exploring the concept further including duly considering and discussing inputs from others. I was talking about such open discussions (e.g. Setback vs. Lateral) and processes of analyzing (including discussions of concerns/ limitations before making conclusions). They believe at the minimum this idea should be explored. I think this is a fairly open approach that was communicated from the get go.
I was also suggesting people to be open minded about new ideas and not shoot them down without proper discussion with public (and ideally with experts). Even our O and G Advisory Board recommendations had a public input period.
You are entitled to your opinions and conclusions - I understand and respect that.
I encourage viewers of this blog posting to review Ms. Stephenson's website (http://www.kendraforfm.com/) for her view points on this and other topics and to do their own independent research.
With her being on a judicial board and voting on the Hillard case, I wouldn’t think so. It is probably why she quit. After her friends stopped at my house and started complaining about everything the current council was doing. I went to her website. I noticed that she did not say the town’s attorney, she said a municipal attorney. Ginger Simonson used Hempel, a “municipal attorney” to sue the town. Ginger is also Kendra’s campaign manager. What advice did she give them for Hillard? Sue the town... all while being on the town’s O&G Board. Who is telling the lies? Does this sound like an ethics violation to you? Hempel doesn’t think so, but he also took their money on lawsuit with no merit. Oh the web they weave. But the real question is, what do you do when they begin to unravel? In Ms. Stephenson’s case lie, she does such a good job of crafting her message that you have to read between the lines for the real truth.
@anon Apr 27, 10:09 pm:
Mrs. Stephenson is always open for additional questions and there is really no need to read between the lines.
Mrs. Stephenson has elaborated the answer to question 4 in the "Fact or Fiction" section stating that she did not provide support or advice related to the referenced lawsuit.
http://kendraforfm.com/
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