French energy company Total Energy is trying to get Arlington City Hall approval to drill and drill three more wells near a daycare center.
In a petition, 69 parents with children attending the Mother Heart Learning Center called on the city council to consider their children’s health when voting on the overall energy permit. Child day care workers have also signed the petition.
The city council will decide on the approval after a public hearing on Tuesday at 6.30 p.m.
“The playground is directly north and in the wind direction of the drilling site. Toxic emissions will blow over the fence and put our children in danger, ”the petition says.
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The parents also cited studies in their petition pointing to the health risks associated with drilling and fracking. One showed high rates of asthma in children and an increased likelihood of hospitalization for asthma-related surgery. Other indicated carcinogens from fracking may increase the risk of childhood leukemia.
More than 400 people also signed a separate petition to the town hall against the permit application.
This won’t be the first time Arlington City Council has taken up the issue, however. Total also asked for the approval of the three additional wells at the site last year, but this application ultimately failed.
Total didn’t respond to the observer’s request for comment, but Kevin Strawser, the company’s senior manager for government relations and public affairs, did answer questions about the location at a city council meeting last year.
During the meeting, Strawser was asked what the company is doing to monitor air quality. Strawser said the company is leaving this to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, but drilling with electric instead of diesel drills and checking for leaks monthly, which helps control pollution.
“There is no better in the business,” he said, according to the Mother Jones publication. “I appreciate the residents around the site and especially the school north of us. And I have the feeling that we have lived together there for the past 10 years without any problems. ”
At the time, the council rejected the company’s motion with a 6: 3 vote and referred to the dangers for the children in the daycare center and the people in the area.
But some new councilors have since taken seats in the town hall.
“Total is rapidly expanding drilling in vulnerable neighborhoods and exposing children in Arlington to highly toxic emissions,” said Ranjana Bhandari. Bhandari is a longtime Arlington resident and the director of a conservation group called Liveable Arlington.
“It’s a terrible burden everywhere, but it’s especially damaging in this part of Arlington.” – Ranjana Bhandari, Liveable Arlington
tweet this “This is a test case to see if the new city council will protect the community or allow an outside drilling company to expand fracking near our schools and daycare centers,” she said. Four of the council members who voted no last year have now retired.
Bhandari said they expect a good result tomorrow but it’s still up in the air. “We hope our leaders in our church won’t take it, but who knows?” She said.
She believes the demographics of the community influenced the city council vote last time around. She said most of the children in the daycare are black and Latinos. The neighborhood is made up of 40% blacks and 20% Latinos. The poverty rate is 25%. One in three children lives in poverty and there is an increased rate of pediatric asthma.
“This is a terrible burden everywhere, but it is particularly damaging in this part of Arlington. And people don’t have the change, ”said Bhandari. “They leave their children in this wonderful daycare while they go to work, and they want their children to be safe. This is a terrible predatory thing that Total wants to do here. ”
Total is not just trying to open a store near Mother’s Heart Learning Center. “As of 2018, they have applied to three daycare centers in Arlington,” said Bhandari.
Total eventually received seven new gas drilling permits for an existing location near an Arlington preschool called the Childcare Network. Last November, Liveable Arlington’s Tammie Carson recorded a 10-second video of smoke rising from the construction site.
According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Arlington’s 2019 Gas Drilling Ordinance has been updated to require companies to use electrically powered rigs or obtain a diesel rig waiver if they want to drill within 600 feet of protected buildings. The smoke indicated to Carson that a diesel rig was being used on the site. TEP Barnett, the Fort Worth office that operates the site as a whole, did not have permits for a diesel rig, so the site has been temporarily closed.
Bhandari said she tried to ask Total why they want this site and others near preschools but never got an answer. “You never said what the appeal of drilling next to toddlers,” she said.
Perhaps there is something about the site that makes it more conducive to such an operation. But Bhandari said, “I care more about the people around him, especially the little people.”
Arlington is home to an additional 50 gas wells and hundreds of wellheads, according to an analysis by Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting for Mother Jones. According to the analysis, more than 30,000 Arlington children attend public schools within half a mile of wells. Around 7,600 infants and children attend private day-care centers in this area. The majority of the public school population are colored children and most of them live in poverty.
Analysis by the Center for Investigative Reporting found that more than half of the city’s public schools and daycare centers are located within 800 meters of active gas production sites. Additionally, eight daycare centers fell within the city’s standard backlog for the locations, which is 600 feet.
France, where Total is based, banned fracking in 2017. “The setback in France is the size of the entire country,” said Bhandari. “So I don’t understand why you don’t understand that this is not right.”
She added, “It seems pretty simple to me. It is a highly polluting process. It has been linked to asthma, birth defects, and leukemia. Find another place. ”
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