Here is how the Oklahoma City Public Meeting Went

This is the Public Meeting on Pedestal Oil's proposal to drill wells (including fracking) south of Lake Hefner in Oklahoma City (OKC).

http://kfor.com/2014/12/16/public-meeting-on-proposed-oil-exploration-and-fracking-at-lake-hefner-this-thursday/

First of all I do not think that they could possibly have found a smaller venue for the public meeting with worse parking. They ended up having a second meeting at 7PM. I missed some of the Presentation by Pedestal Oil. I will say I only heard one guy outside that seemed to favor the drilling. Everyone else was overwhelmingly opposed to the drilling.

What was interesting was that a woman form Oklahoma Water Resource Board stated that if a Contract was executed it would be done as a sole source contract because Pedestal is the only oil company that has approached OKC. First of all, just because only one vendor talks to you that does make it a sole source contract. A sole source exists when you only have one vendor that can provide a goods or service. In an oil state it would be difficult to sell that idea that there is only one oil company out there. I don't know what law(s) OKC follows for Procurement purposes and tend to find out. If they follow the State Statutes then they have a problem because if 100% does not meet the criteria of a sole source contract.

There was a retired epidemiologist that had great comments regarding the carcinogenic issues relating to the drilling based upon the chemicals that will be used. The City didn't really address how any contaminated water would be disposed of. It did come out that the source of the water to be used in fracking would be Lake Hefner, one of the major water sources for the OKC Metro area. So not only is there a potential risk to the water source, they will tap into it, and we live in a drought state on year round water rationing (for outdoor water usage).

A woman asked if home owners would be recompensed for any drop in home values or water main issues that result from any drilling.

People commented on how fast they seem to be pushing this through, the extremely short notification for the public meeting, the extremely poor location and the lack of transparency. We were told about all these documents that were posted on their website and one woman commented that when she went to look at them she got a 404 notice, document not found.

People were clear that they don't want it. OKC is not the most attractive cities overall and Lake Hefner is one of the nice areas and they don't want it marred with the drilling. They are concerned about earthquakes, damage to the water supply, noise, and expressed the feeling that it seemed like we were being run right over.

One woman flat out asked: As citizens, what do we need to do to make sure that this does not happen.

I have my work cut out. I have already emailed the OKC Mayor and City Council members. I have more emails to write and questions to submit. I am going to further investigate if there are any potential procurement violations (i.e. sole source contract).