Thank you Mr. Cook. Double Oak Citizens for Responsible Gas Drilling shares your concerns and we appreciate your support for a common sense approach.
When first proposed, Williams Production Gulf Coast, LP desired to build a compression station on the current pad site on FM 407 and Simmons Road. Now they backed off and amended their plans to reduce the number of wells to 15 and temporarily scratched plans for the compressor station.
Why? Public outrage!
Like in the book of 1 Samuel, David faced the Philistine giant Goliath and with a single shot brought the giant to his knees, we the Davids’ of Double Oak did the same.
For Williams Production Gulf Coast, the end game is to get drilling started before Congress enacts new legislation and Double Oak gas leases expire. Perhaps that’s why the Williams Special Use Permit application was rushed through the P&Z hearing process and the town tried to keep it on the down low; the less resistance the better. Hearing Notices appearing about a week prior to the P&Z meeting gave the citizens of the town little time to digest the situation.
The town needs time to consider all the facts before it decides granting a Special Use Permit. There is no long –term plan for this site; and just as surely as the wind blows into Lantana, Williams will change its position again. We need an independent review by a Petroleum Engineer and Environmental Impact Study.
Despite Williams plans to scratch the compressor station for now, there are still major concerns with this application, and more so than Mr. Cook references in his remarks. These issues will be addressed at the P&Z scheduled for August 16.
Williams Production Gulf Coast recently reported that a second quarter net profit of $185 million. Williams also paid a $402 million after-tax charge related to the restructuring that is building Williams Partners into one of the nation’s largest energy master limited partnerships. In a move to divest some of its holdings into subsidiaries to avoid future tax hits and then engage in the finger pointing game when the environmental laws change and Congress moves to enact environmental legislation.
And by the time this goes to press, the House of Representatives will decide how to apply the lessons learned from the Gulf Oil Spill disaster. They’re going to vote on H.R. 3534, the Consolidated Land, Energy and Aquatic Resources (CLEAR) Act, which also contains two long overdue protections for onshore oil and gas drilling. To those of us living in the Barnett Shale, the Act would eliminate shortcuts and ensuring science-based review of environmental impacts at drill sites like the one here in Double Oak.
Will Evans
www.DoubleOakCares.com
Double Oak, TX
