A new Drilling ordinance in League City was just passed. Council chose to approve a 600 foot minimum buffer for wells to habitable structures, instead of the widely used 1000 foot or more buffer. City of South Lake questions and answers web page about their drilling ordinance and application procedures No matter how you look at it, urban drilling of oil wells in residential communities is incompatible.
Some cities have decided that 500 feet was too close and raised their setback to a 1500 foot buffer between habitable structures and oil wells. Flower mound just raised their oil well setback to 1500 feet.Flower Mound Texas information on Oil Drilling. Why do you suppose League City wants to learn things the hard way?
League City government is not effectively using the tools available to it to maximize the protection to its citizens from invasive industrial uses next to and in residential areas. Therefore our Government and our representatives are failing us as a community. The problem starts with some of our leadership that does not stand up for the best interest of the residential (voting) sector of the population.
I cannot imagine why council would not want approve a more restrictive 1000 foot minimum distance for drilling a well next to homes, churches and schools. As Councilman Phalen said the distance for well drilling could have been adjusted downward when necessary. I certainly don’t understand the comment by a council person that said “A 1,000-foot setback would require a well be in the middle of an approximately 70-acre site — something Becker said would be hard to accomplish” It does not sound that hard to accomplish to me! We are talking about urban drilling here, it is not supposed to be made easy to do. Maybe someone can explain it to me? I would think that if someone is going to drill into the ground and extract minerals for a profit in an urban area, the surrounding property owners should be afforded some reasonable protections.
99% of the residences of League City have surface rights ownership only, with no mineral interests. Without mineral rights, surface owners have a limited ability to restrict drilling. The surface owner's have only have the ordinances of the city such as zoning and the drilling ordinance as the mechanisms to restrict drilling on or near their property. Last Tuesday’s vote fell short of giving the citizens a reasonable measure of protection from chemical and fire hazard, noise, vibration, and intrusion into their quiet enjoyment of their property. I suppose some people want to treat League City, an incorporated residential metro-plex, the same as undeveloped property near Odessa or the Barnett Shale.
Don't get me wrong, I am not against drilling oil wells. I just don't believe that we should allow the drilling of oil wells with the least restrictive conditions allowed under the law right in the middle of the largest city in Galveston County.
This Link is a publication with many good thoughts about best practices for urban drilling.
Best Practices for Oil Well Drilling in Texas
Below, is some interesting reading on the health effects of an oil well fire issued by the Department of Defense.
Oil Well Fires
Southlake Oil and Gas Drilling 411 video
