[roboneal]

The actual lawsuit isn't against fracking itself. It is to prevent construction of a 160 water tower that would be used to fill trucks with water for fracking and other oil/gas exploration activities and this is in violation of the existing zoning ordinances in the ranching community in which he lives.

While it appears a subtle distinction to those looking for an example of glaring hypocrisy, would it be any different if he (and his other rancher neighbors) were protesting a construction of a 160ft water tower intended for some other purpose?

[kolbe]

When you can afford the best lawyers, you can always find some way to be in the right. He would never directly fight against the right to frack. He needs to find something else that would prevent the fracking without affecting the right that he lobbied so hard to get.

[tokenadult]

I see that there appears to a link in the story that is dead now, which I suppose didn't used to be dead. Is there an authoritative text of the lawsuit pleadings we can all link to and look up, or is this a game of "telephone" ("Chinese whispers") in which each successive person who tells the story makes up more details about what the man is objecting to? Without the text of the lawsuit pleadings in view, I don't want to make up my own opinion about the balance of right and wrong or consistency and hypocrisy in this case.

[DerpDerpDerp]

I don't believe he'd be objecting were it for another purpose, and is instead using this as a technical means to block it.

[cykod]

You do know that there are no communities that have zoning ordinances allowing 160ft water towers, right?

So there's always a variance of some sort involved if fracking is done near any residential community, but I don't think that's stopped the guy or Dick before. I still think the hypocrite card can quite validly be played here.

[roboneal]

So I can just build my own privately owned 160ft industrial structure wherever I want?

[jdeibele]

In Texas? IANAL, let alone a Texas attorney but http://www.bhlaw.net/articles/basics_of_zoning_in_texas.pdf seems to say yes.

[roboneal]

Seriously? IANAL or a Texas attorney either but I can read...

Page 4...Section 211.003..."The governing body of a municipality may regulate...the height, number of stories, and size of buildings and other structures"

[macspoofing]

Sounds like it's about fracking.

[DelightfulScone]

Sorry but infrastructural parts of fracking count as fracking. It's not like people are complaining solely about injection or leaking. Or the constant convoys of diesel vehicles, the expansive works they drive to and from.

In this case one tower is highlighted, but the process the tower is involved in is... Fracking.

Would it be different if it was a municipal water tower? Yes, since the man's job is to promote drilling and pumping hydrocarbons, not piping municipal water supplies. Of course it would be different.

[roboneal]

That's some fairly tortured logic. Legally it has no bearing.

If the lawsuit was judged with your standards, a CEO of a water utility would be a hypocrite for opposing the same water tower being built "for municipal use" next to his ranch.

To dig deeper, do you question the motives of the other parties to the lawsuit - his ranching neighbors and other members of the community? Are they washed with your brush of perceived "hypocrisy" because they happen to live next to the CEO of Exxon?

[manicdee]

Yes, the CEO of a water utility would be a hypocrite for opposing the development of a water tower next to eir ranch. Presumably the CEO of a water utility would understand that water towers are a useful part of municipal water distribution (though they have been largely replaced by pumps these days) and would have been involved in the selection of a location as part of his role in the utility.

On the other hand, a water utility CEO who didn't want that water tower near eir place for aesthetic reasons might ensure that there are multiple sites proposed, then start campaigning on environmental grounds to prevent the necessary roads being bulldozed to the site(s) where E doesn't want the tower: the NIMBY situation can be expressed in terms that everyone else with agree with ("there's a rare butterfly which only breeds in this area. Disrupting the environment would be awful!").

And that's what's happening here: "I don't want a fracking project messing up my backyard, so I'll protest against the stuff required to make that project viable."

The CEO is fully aware of the infrastructure requirements of the project, and if E wasn't concerned about the environmental impacts would otherwise have been proud to have a project nearby because it's a visible sign that the USA is taking responsibility for its own fuel supplies.

[roboneal]

That's a lot of "mind reading" you've accomplished there -- complete with imagined quotes. Quite an accomplishment.

[DelightfulScone]

That is effectively what I was attempting to highlight. No minds read.

On the topic of tortured logic, I would love to know why you don't think the lawsuit[0] is about fracking when it involves water and the infrastructure that supplies it for those activities.

[0] http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/water201402...

[roboneal]

Nice document you supplied. Did you read it?

This lawsuit is about repeated assurances to the MANY plantiffs that the only plans for the property were for "low rise" (below the tree line) water tanks and the company later deciding to violate existing zoning regulations and seek to built the 160 ft water tank.

Your bias on this issue is only exceeded by your laziness.

[DelightfulScone]

You seem to be reaching to put the man on level ground with his peers. He is the CEO of a company that is partially responsible for many such installations sprouting up near other peoples regular homes. The man is complaining about his luxury mansion depreciating in value because of development.

He should listen to Exxon and other energy company lawyers and move away from progress if he doesn't like the smell or sight of it.

[roboneal]

Why are you massively editing your comments hours later? You are a troll.

[DelightfulScone]

I am a lazy troll according to you. I earned this by referencing the free market principles that define the Exxon CEO's home as being in the path of progress. If he doesn't want his 'luxury' (according to court doc) home value to decline he wouldn't build it around natural resources the likes of which he aims to profit personally from to buy things like 'luxury' housing.

This is a situation many have to deal with yet are not news-worthy because they are not personally profiting of the types of ventures that they raise lawsuits over.

You can call me a troll for pointing that out as that is your right but you cannot accuse me of altering my comments to askew context, because that is rubbish.

[roboneal]

I'm calling you a troll for re-writing your comments without even noting the "edit" -- 4 hours later in a lame attempt to refine your propaganda. This isn't Reddit.