Wednesday, November 7, 2001

Drilling proposal raises concerns
By James Zwilling
Staff Reporter

Mitchell Energy and Development Corporation has been inundated with calls from concerned homeowners since an Oct. 11 roundtable discussion about a proposal to drill for oil and gas within Fort Worth city limits, said Brian Engel, director of public affairs for the company.

Engel said he expects calls to increase as the City Council begins discussing the guidelines presented in the proposal at its November meetings.

Mark Whitley, vice president and general manager of the North Texas region of the Mitchell Energy and Development Corporation gave a short presentation explaining the natural gas drilling operations and showed examples of recent drilling in Denton and Wise counties at the roundtable discussion.

Whitley said the oil and natural gas proposal is important to his company because it would be financially beneficial.

“I’m not going to lie to you,” he said. “There is a lot of money in this for us. It’s the business we’re in. But we are not in the business of taking what isn’t ours. That’s why we intend to drill on land that we purchase.”

Whitely said the proposal is important because it allows these companies to use the resources available.

“Texas has always been a Mecca for oil and natural gas drilling,” he said. “But eventually these supplies run out. It’s time to look at other locations, like within city limits.”

The guidelines were proposed by the City Attorney’s office after several oil and gas companies requested permits to begin drilling, Assistant City Attorney Sarah Fullwider said. Fort Worth had never had any such requests, and therefore had no guidelines, Fullwider said.

City officials, oil and gas company executives and representatives from both the Texas Railroad Commission and local neighborhood associations gathered for the round table discussion which addressed compensation for homeowners.

“Most of the concerns that have been expressed to us by community members are much the same as we fielded at the discussion,” Engel said. “People are concerned about safety, compensation, the environment and mineral rights.

“As far as safety and the environment goes, we can only tell people that we are using the most state-of-the-art equipment and that we will do everything we can to educate neighborhoods about safety and the environment.”

Engel said compensation for homeowners is something the company is looking into, but it probably will not be an issue.

“The places that we would like to drill for oil and natural gas are undeveloped land,” he said. “This is land that we would purchase and drill before anybody lives there. If they choose to live there, they are going to know that drilling has been done.”

Engel said that in the unlikely case that they begin drilling in developed areas, they would consider some compensation which could range from monetary compensation to building a park for community residents.

Engel said many of the residents he has talked to are a little confused about the mineral rights because they think they may own them.

“That isn’t the case,” he said. “Whichever development company purchases the land will have the mineral rights to that land. If there is privately owned land, it may be a different story, but again, we aren’t likely to drill on land that doesn’t belong to us. It wouldn’t be in our best interest.”

The City Council will discuss the oil and gas drilling proposal at its 7 p.m. Nov. 20 meeting at Fort Worth City Hall, 1000 Throckmorton St.

James Zwilling
j.g.zwilling@student.tcu.edu