Denton Police Department officials said they arrested three more protesters at a natural gas drilling site Tuesday, bringing the total to six arrests in two days.
Dozens of protesters arrived at the Vantage Fort Worth Energy site on Nail Road at 6:30 a.m. for a second day of protesting.
“The industry and the state have been working together to force fracking on this community,” said protester Jonathan Adams. “We don’t want it here. We don’t want it in our city. We don’t want it in our city limits.”
Residents in Denton banned fracking in November, but that was overturned by a new bill in the legislator.
Rodney Love, Elida Tamez and Jonathon Vann were arrested Tuesday. The protesters we spoke with said there was a reason some of them had to be arrested.
“We feel like this company and several other companies have been breaking the law for a very long time in Denton,” said Adams, “Whether it’s been dumping chemicals into creeks or violating setbacks that were in place, and we feel like the police have just not enforced that here. At most they receive a slap on the wrist, and when people are here protecting their community stopping a truck from going to work, and continuing this devastating process known as fracking. We just see it as people taking justice into their own hands.”
The Denton police say they gave every opportunity to the protesters to voice their concern in a legal way.
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“They were trespassing on the property,” said Denton Police Department spokesman Ryan Grelle. “The property owners, Vantage, asked them to leave yesterday, as well as today. They refused. We came out and again requested they leave the property, and again they refused, and unfortunately three more got arrested for criminal trespassing.”
The protesters said they are not sure if they will be back to the site, but say this is one of the only options they have now to fight fracking.
“Right now we just see this as one part of the fight,” said Adams. “Where a lot of people are feeling defeated after HB40 was passed, and we feel like we have went through every legal avenue at that point to stop fracking in our city, and this is just the next stage of the fight.”
Vantage Energy vice president of development, Seth Urruty, released this statement in response to the protest:
"We resumed operations today in Denton. We recognize and appreciate the rights of all citizens to peacefully assemble and to express their opinions openly. We are grateful to the City of Denton Police Department for helping keep the protesters safe.
Open communication has been central to a productive working relationship with the City of Denton. Since the ban went into effect in 2014, we have maintained regular dialogue with City officials, presented path-forward alternatives and last week followed the City's guidelines in communicating our plans to resume work on June 1st. We are proud of the work we do, and look forward to operating in concert with the City going forward."
