The decision is significant because of its location
As residents in Denton voted last week to become the first community in Texas to ban hydraulic fracturing, I found myself thinking about another city far to the south: Galveston.
Fifty-nine percent of voters in Denton, northwest of Dallas, voted for the ban. The decision is significant because of its location. The process we know today as fracking was developed not far away, in the same Barnett Shale formation that has attracted drilling companies to Denton.
As a production technique, fracking had been used for decades, but it was in the Barnett, in neighboring Wise County, that Houston oilman George P. Mitchell developed the current process of using sand, water and chemicals to fracture shale rock thousands of feet below the surface. That technique, copied and enhanced by others, has allowed the U.S. to slash oil imports, saved Americans billions in fuel costs and lifted an otherwise sluggish economy.
Today, Denton has 272 active wells within its city limits. The city is practically the cradle of the current energy boom, and residents have decided that enough is enough.
This isn't the typical anti-fracking fight, though. There are no videos of residents setting water from their faucets on fire. What set off residents in Denton, more than anything else, was wells drilled too close to homes and a city park. They objected to the noise and the smells and the traffic congestion that comes with drilling projects. In many ways, this is the ultimate NIMBY case.