Attention Flower Mound Residents Living Near Hilliard Airfield

We received an e-mail from a concerned resident telling us that Cherokee Horn and Titan Engineering are going door to door asking for residents to sign a statement that they are okay with the setbacks and variances being requested on the Hilliard Property.

Please beware and do your homework. You may be signing away your right to protect and defend yourself should an accident happen in the future.

Where??

If you click on the image above, it will expand so that you can see it a little better.

Here is an image taken from google maps showing the two proposed drilling sites (marked with an X) and the area that is within 1000 ft from the proposed site. Remember, The Flower Mound Oil & Gas ordinance requires a 1,000 foot setback from residences. This setback can be decreased to 500 feet if a) the resident agrees to a waiver or b) if the Flower Mound Oil & Gas Board of Appeals approves a variance. Also, if the homeowner signs a lease and the Oil &Gas Board approves the variance, the setback can be reduced to 300 feet!!

We are estimating the exact location of the drilling sites. Since the oil and gas developers can not or will not provide us any specifics, we have to make an educated guess based on the limited information being shared. (They also can't tell us exactly how they are getting access to the drilling site or exactly how they are going to get the gas out - but that is an entirely different post.)

Please remember that even if your house is not represented here, you are still impacted. If this drilling site is allowed to move forward, it will certainly pave the way for additional sites right next to our neighborhoods or even in our neighborhoods. We deserve more from the developers and we absolutely deserve more from Flower Mound city government. Next time you are out walking your dog or driving down your street, take a look at what is 300 ft - 1000 ft from your front door. Soon, someone may want to put a drilling site there and it could look like this...

What you should know about the Northshore drilling proposal

1. Contrary to information disseminated by Cherokee Horn, it is NOT inevitable that drilling will be permitted at the Northshore site!

· The Flower Mound Oil & Gas ordinance requires a 1,000 foot setback from residences. This setback can be decreased to 500 feet if a) the resident agrees to a waiver or b) if the Flower Mound Oil & Gas Board of Appeals approves a variance. See the current ordinance at:
http://www.flower-mound.com/env_resources/pix/pdf/Oil_Natural_Gas_Ordinance.pdf. [It should be noted that if the homeowner signs a lease and the O&G Board approves the variance, the setback can be reduced to 300 feet!!]

· There are twelve criteria that the O&G Board has to consider in order to approve a variance. These include:
1 - The variance, if granted, will be no material detriment to the public welfare or injury to the use, enjoyment, or value of property in the vicinity
2 - Reasonable access for the Town fire personnel and fire fighting equipment
3 - The impact upon the adjacent property and the general public…are reasonable and justified
(The full list of criteria begins on page 73 of the O&G ordinance, per the link above.)

· What this means is that if those homeowners within 1,000 feet of the proposed drilling site refuse to sign a lease, and if the O&G Board refuses to approve a variance, drilling at Northshore can effectively be stopped as this will reduce the drilling site to a size that is too small to be economically feasible.

2) What can you do?

· DO NOT SIGN A LEASE!!! (Regardless of whether you are located within 1,000 feet of the proposed drill site or not; it’s going to be important to show the O&G Board that the majority of the neighborhood does not support this. Plus, even if the drillers were able to obtain the 500 foot variance, they’d still need a majority of the homeowners to sign leases to make drilling possible—they can’t drill through a “checkerboard”.)

· There’s power in numbers. Work with your neighborhood’s HOA.

· Educate yourself. Here’s some suggested links:
o http://www.earthworksaction.org/pubs/LOguide2005book.pdf
o http://www.fwcando.org/
o http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=4719
o http://www.fwcando.org/docs/drillingmythbusters.pdf
o http://www.fireworld.com/ifw_articles/northtexasblast.php
o http://startelegram.typepad.com/barnett_shale/about_this_blog/index.html

· Don’t be misled by the developers. The potential payments to homeowners will be a pittance compared to the risk to public safety, the potential damage to the environment, and the overall degradation of our quality of life. We are talking about pennies per day!!!!