COURT'S HANDS TIED IN WESTERN GAS RULING:

Court's Hands Tied in Western Gas Ruling

By Bob Haenel

The Katy Times

Wednesday, December 16, 1992

When residents from the Katy area first filed into commissioner's court in Fort Bend County, it looked like trouble for the home team.

They won the first round, at least for them, which was to successfully solicit support from their county, i.e., commissioners, to fight a proposed natural gas storage facility in their area.

Western Gas Resources, the first proposing the facility, wanted to use the old Fulshear Field, an abandoned oil field, to store natural gas.  Residents complained of the danger that could be created by the facility --millions of gallons of gas stored underneath their homes.)

Unplugged wells of old were a main concern, and residents naturally envisioned plummeting property values along with the danger.

Though they received lackluster backing from Commissioner Alton Pressley of Precinct 3, where the proposed Western Gas gas storage facility is located, the residents won a promise from the commissioners to put up a legal fight, if possible, in the permitting process in Austin.

Whatever fight the county and the residents put up in Austin was to no avail as the project won approval from both the Texas RAilroad Commission -- which oversees gas transmission and storage in Texas -- and the Texas Air Control Board.

By the time the residents returned to commissioners court here Monday, the battle and the war were over.  While the plans continued about safety and property value concerns with the project going through, commissioners had little legal choice but to vote for a single plat to see the project through.

Had they not done so, the county was going to get hit by a lawsuit, guaranteed.

Though commissioners put on a good show, I don't believe they ever doubted the outcome on this matter.  Yes, the vote was 3-2 to grant the plat and the commissioners passed a resolution opposing the gas storage facility, but that resolution has little legal weight.  The bottom line was commissioners recognized their arms were tied.

Those two "no" votes were noble, but they were the most convenient kind of vote in politics.  If that vote would have gone the other way, then the court would have been saddled with coming up with some kind of answer to a difficult question.

What?  Fight it in the courts?  That would be futile and costly.

What this shows us -- and we can use similar battles in Fort Bend County, mainly concerning landfills and residents -- is that property rights aren't what we'd like them to be.

Too many other people have control over projects which greatly impact the biggest investment most of us make -- our homes.

Ironically, the county continues to fight a group of area residents in the same kind of battle, that being the county's landfill in Rosenberg.  It also spent years fighting BFI over a landfill which will be built in East Fort Bend County near Fresno.  I suspect it will get into the fray over a landfill proposed near Pecan Grove. 

As regrettable for the residents as this gas storage facility is, the system failed them; the system in Austin, not here.

(Bob Haenel is the editor of the Herald Coaster in Rosenberg).