CITIZENS, CITY COUNCIL OPPOSE DRILLING AT LAKE SOMERVILLE
A full house of people packed city hall today (Thursday) during the Brenham City Council meeting, voicing concern over the proposed petroleum drilling at Lake Somerville.
The city council passed a resolution opposing the auction of federal property around Lake Somerville, which the Bureau of Land Management is planning to offer for oil and gas leasing.
The resolution states the loss or contamination of the fresh water supply would be catastrophic for the “residents, businesses, schools, nursing homes, and the only hospital in Brenham and Washington County.”
The resolution asks the Bureau of Land Management to pull the Lake Somerville land from the auction.
“The City Council recognizes the importance of oil and gas drilling and production activities to the economy of the State of Texas, but believes that the proposed activities must be assessed in relationship to other important Texas values such as protection of clean drinking water supplies” the resolution reads.
“They use highly toxic chemicals in their drilling process” said councilman Danny Goss. “These chemicals go down below the surface but then come back up, and where they end up is in these makeshift ponds near the drilling site” said Goss.
Sally Clinton, a representative from the local chapter of Texas Rural Voices, says it’s a risk not worth taking:
Assistant City Manager-Utilities Lowell Ogle said that while the formal protest period has ended, the council wanted to pass the resolution regardless.
“We got notification pretty late about the deadline for official protest” said Ogle. “That deadline was missed, but we want to pass a resolution by city council stating our position and to get on the record and submit it to the proper authorities.”
The notification process was another point of contention during the meeting, with many citizens asking why the formal protest period wasn’t announced.
“There’s no notification requirement” said Ogle. “We usually hear about it a week before through the grapevine.”
He went on to say that the lack of notification was an issue the city is planning to take to the “appropriate officials.”
Senator Lois Kolkhorst sent a letter to the Bureau of Land Management in November, urging the agency to postpone any decision until the citizens and local officials in the area are given the opportunity to review and comment on the proposal at a public hearing held in the local area.
Clean water is essential for the good health of our community. It is not no for making a disastrous decision to everyone’s health it is NEVER !!!!!!!!!
Even a bird knows better than to foul its nest!
Amazing the stance activist take. They have been doing this around lakes and water supplies for years without issue. I guess if it really is that big of deal it wont apply to all of the private land owners digging/fracking wells right now next to where the proposed land is located.. Just amazes me…. oh and it might disturb a sleeping squirrel, cant have that either.
Evidently you have missed the stories of drill site accidents and damage to land, animals drinking water, people. If an accident occurred and spoiled the water, the value of your land goes down the drain, so to speak.
you need to research and not listen to what someone has told you.
If you read all of the reports of water wells or surface water being polluted by oil well drilling and completion in Texas, you would no there are none.
I have worked for over 40 years in this same area and have never heard or seen one well that has affected any surface water or well.
I would suggest that you check with the EPA, TCEQ, and the Texas Rail Road Commission about you outrageous accusations.
In Oklahoma. there is a very good chance that water disposal wells, of great magnitude and volume, can cause earthquakes along faults. That is because they can dispose of more water per hour into the faults.
I would venture that you have not relied on educated and scientific proof. Believe it or not, everything you read on the Internet is not right. Before you worry about these oil wells, I suggest you look into the things you do at home to pollute our water, I would bet there are many you don’t know about.
Bet you would take the $2500 per acre, if you owned any land to lease!!
There was drilling in the 70’s and 80’s. This is fracking around and under the lake. The process currently in use was first developed by an engineer working for Mitchel Oil in 1998.
I grew up here, and that is WHY I am in the photo. Brenham citizens have worked hard to make this a great community. With every well that is drilled, the odds are reduced for a catastrophic accident, and this town will pay dearly. Not a risk worth taking.
Good. I like reduced odds of a catastrophic accident.
I am just curious. Having grown up in Brenham, I remember in the 70s and 80s there was a huge amount of drilling around Somerville and there was no impact to the lake water quality, but a huge positive impact for business around the area including Brenham and Somerville. Other than seeing a bunch of people in the picture that I do not remember being here from back then, what has changed?
Fracking…I went into a Dairy Queen in West Texas a few years ago while coming home from vacation with a sick child. I asked for water and the lady at the counter replied, “Darling, we don’t drink the water around here.” This is due to fracking…it’s completely contaminated. Is that what we want for Brenham? How’s that going to look for our tourism industry?
Fracking!
How do you know that there was no impact on water quality?Communities in this country are constantly finding out that oil and gas corporations have destroyed their water supply after years of not realizing the negative impact of any of the drilling.
And let’s just say they open this land up to oil and gas. I find no comfort that a government controlled by conservative ideologues will protect me from the very industry that they are beholden to. We would likely be drinking contaminated water for quite a while before it was even made public.
No thanks
So what your saying is that you are not comfortable drinking water out of resources throughout this country, and you have, with lines running through water bodies unbeknownst to you that have added lines only through conservative presidencies? So democratic presidents have allowed no lines in any water bodies and no energy money has flowed through any democratic representative candidate?
I’m not for this either but don’t be blinded by your partisanship. Don’t confuse government with private interests to your benefit if your trying to make a legit argument.
To answer your question. No, I am not entirely comfortable with drinking water anywhere in this country and that goes on a long list of things that this country fails to do adequately that keeps me cautious.
Also, not once did I say that only Republicans are beholden to corporations. I said conservative, which can be Republican or Democrat. Many conservative Democrats are just as bad as their counterparts when it comes to environmental policy. I wasn’t attaching a party to the ideology. However, right now it is the Republican party that is moving this country toward anti-science/anti-environment policies that has me especially worried about the wisdom in putting Brenham’s water supply at risk.