On Tuesday, September 1, picketers stood outside Denton's City 
Hall, as the city council was scheduled to consider whether to allow drilling near McKenna Park in the Rayzor Ranch Development. This was the third such demonstration organized by the International Socialist Organization.
Charlie Grand of the International Socialist Organization, told the North Texas Daily that the demonstrators were protesting because " profit is superseding human rights." Grand feels it is wrong for Ranger Resources, the drilling company which is seeking permission to drill, and not the property owners to own the mineral rights.
John Cabrales, a spokesperson for the city, said "Texas law really sides on the side of the mineral rights owner. If you have the mineral rights, sometimes your right to access those minerals supersedes a landowner's. If the city denies or moves the drilling site, they could face a large lawsuit from Ranger Resources, with whom the city already has a contentious history. In 2008, the city sued Ranger Resources, claiming that they underpaid royalties by at least 400,000 on three wells at Denton Airport.
Sammie Haren, who owns a home six houses from the proposed drilling site owns the mineral rights under her home. "I'm not going to trash the environment, or endanger people's lives for a buck, Haren told the North Texas Daily.
Sharon Wilson of the Texas Oil & Gas Accountability Project said "They can easily move it farther away. Current horizontal drilling technology allows drilling to be carried out from greater distances than the proposed site."
Democracyinaction.org reports that gas drilling can result in "toxic emissions, water contamination, water disposal issues, safety concerns and noise issues." along with health threats and declining property values.
Denton's daily paper, the Record Chronicle reported that gas drilling, using high pressure water to "frac" or free the natural gas from the shale, brings not only natural gas to the surface, but also technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material, or norm. The norm being brought up from the Barnett Shale is mostly radium 226 and radium 228, with smaller amounts of uranium. Both radium isotopes produce alpha and gamma rays, along with radon, the second leading cause of lung cancer in humans. The norm either coats oilfield equipment, hangs in suspension in the water, or settles out of the water to contaminate soil. One hundred forty wells in Texas have been decontaminated since 2004, 25 of them in the Barnett Shale.
Around 5:00, police told the demonstrators that the issue of drilling would not be voted on, on that day.
There is also active resistance to drilling for gas in Fort Worth and Flour Mound.
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