Chesapeake Energy, Barnett Shale, Tandy Hills Park & Don Young in Time

Time Magazine, online, published an interesting article about the new phenomenon of citizen's fighting back against the gas drilling industry's encroachments on their peace and quiet and property.

The article quoted Fort Worth's noted Eastside Rabble Rouser, Don Young. I'll paste the Fort Worth part of the article below. You can read the entire TIME article here.

Don Young went from being a full-time glass artist to spending 50% of his working hours battling the energy companies via his website, FWcando.org (Fort Worth Citizens Against Drilling Ordinance). He first became alarmed at the exploration boom when a prairie reserve near his old, cherished Fort Worth neighborhood was threatened. He began the fight by printing flyers and distributing them to his neighbors, but he soon set up a website to keep the information flowing. It has not only been a clearinghouse for Fort Worth residents concerned about the impact of backyard gas wells, but it also attracts daily e-mail messages from groups across the country, Young says. His site links to other anti-drilling advocates from New Mexico and Wyoming to Pennsylvania, Arkansas and Michigan.

Young says some of his neighbors are attracted by the sort of Texas mythology that is woven into Fort Worth's cultural history, including legends portrayed in movies like Giant with the brooding poor ranch hand played by James Dean turning into a plutocratic wildcatter. But Young and other opponents insist the real Texas — the city's old neighborhoods and tree-lined trails, plus the rolling prairie lands and nearby small towns — are threatened. "The oil companies are acting like it's West Texas here, but it's not," Young says. "We're trying to put a brake on things."

For him the fight is personal, sometimes sadly pitting neighbor against neighbor. Young has turned down a $25,000 signing bonus offered for his own land. With daily headlines proclaiming new exploration moves, Young is now committed to focusing his neighbors' attentions on the impact that the accompanying pipelines and service roads will have. Says Young: "The war is not won by them or lost by us ... yet."