ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — On an outdoor playground at a North Texas daycare center, preschoolers who laugh silly walk into a playhouse. Children spin on tricycles.
Upstream, Total Energies pumps herbal gas. The French electric giant needs to drill 3 new wells in the assets near the Mother’s Heart Learning Center, which basically serves young black and Latino people. The wells would be about two hundred meters from where the young people play.
The prospect raises fears among families and the surrounding community. Living too close to drilling sites has been linked to a variety of fitness hazards ranging from asthma to neurological and developmental disorders. Texas has made it difficult for localities to respond.
On Tuesday night, the Arlington City Council will rule on Total’s most recent drilling request. Last year, the council rejected Total’s request at a time when Black Lives Matter protests after the killing of George Floyd through police led many American communities to make a closer decision. Take a look at racial disparities. But with some changes in the city council, many citizens are worried that this time Total will succeed.
“I’m looking at my little one,” said Guerda Philemond, whose 2-year-old daughter attends daycare. “There is a lot of land, an empty area that they can drill. It doesn’t have to be in the garden of a nursery. “
Total declined an interview request, but said in a statement that it has been operating near Mother’s Heart for more than a decade without any protection considerations expressed through the city of Arlington.
“We pay attention and perceive the considerations of the local communities with whom we interact on a regular basis to ensure that we function in harmony with them and with local authorities,” he said.
The clash in Arlington comes as world leaders commit to burning fewer fossil fuels and transferring them to cleaner energy. However, the world’s dependence on herbal fuel is expanding and declining.
As a result, there will likely be more drilling in Arlington and other communities. And young people who spend time near drilling sites or herbal fuel distribution centers, in neighborhoods critics call “sacrifice zones,” will likely face an upcoming threat of upcoming neurological or learning disorders. Scientific studies have shown that threats to public fitness related to those sites come with cancers, asthma, respiratory diseases, rashes, center disorders, and intellectual fitness disorders.
Most of the wells Total has drilled in Arlington are near Latin American communities, black or low-income, just a few hundred yards from homes. Density is high in neighborhoods that many other people of color call home.
When asked about the discovery, Total has yet to respond, said that “its decisions about long-term drilling are based on geological data. “
“America is separate, as is pollution,” said Robert Bullard, director of the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University. “Dirty industries, and what planners call locally unwanted land uses, have followed the trail of the least resistance. Historically, those are deficient communities and communities of color. “
At the nursery, owner Wanda Vincent collected signatures to ask the city council to reject Total’s drilling request; fears that the political winds in Arlington have shifted and that the board will approve Total’s new application.
“The world was facing what happened with George Floyd,” he said, you know, doing better racially. “And I was encouraged. But you know what? Nothing has replaced since then. “
Some states have acted to keep hydraulic fracturing away from residents. Last year, Colorado required new wells to be drilled at least 2,000 feet from homes and schools. California has proposed a 3,200-foot limit.
In Eastington, the drilling is intended to be located no less than six hundred feet from daycare centers or homes, but corporations can apply to the city council for an exemption to drill up to three hundred feet.
France, Total’s home country, bans hydraulic fracturing, however, this is largely symbolic because there is no significant source of oil or fuel. this liquid fuel is then shipped, exchanged and refueled to LNG terminals around the world.
Fuel wells next to Mother’s Heart make up a small fraction of Total’s global operations. However, the company firmly maintains its drilling plans there despite the resistance of the network.
In Arlington, corporations that are rejected for a drilling permit can reapply after one year. Some Arlington board members said they are concerned about prosecution if they don’t allow drilling because Texas law prohibits localities from prohibiting, restricting or even regulating oil or fuel operations in limited circumstances. .
“Nobody has a production ban unless they have an entry ban, because it created Arlington extraction colonies for countries like France, and they passed on to us the environmental cost, the human cost,” said Ranjana Bhandari, director of Liveable Arlington, the leading organization in opposition to Total’s drilling plans.
Total has drilled closer to Barnett Shale population centers than corporations for more than 8 years, according to S
Some in Arlington have benefited from drilling. “It allowed us to do ministries that we might not have done,” said Jan Porter, an alumnus of Cornerstone Baptist Church who collects royalties by allowing Total to drill into his land.
Others the result.
“Why don’t you stand up for my young people, all the young people who will suffer in the future?”said Rosalía Tejeda, whose circle of relatives lives near the Heart of the Mother. “I mean, it’s crazy to me. “
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AP members Angeliki Kastanis in Los Angeles and François Duckett in New York contributed to this report.
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