Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Land Use Energy topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Council includes data‑campus drilling setback in consent approvals; distance not specified
Summary
Grand Prairie staff described an amendment to gas drilling and production regulations that would create a setback from data campuses (clusters of data centers). The council approved the related agenda item as part of the consent agenda March 18; staff did not state a setback distance during the presentation.
Grand Prairie — The Grand Prairie City Council approved a change to the city's gas drilling and production regulations in the consent agenda March 18 that establishes a setback from “data campuses,” staff said — though the precise distance was not read into the record.
Why it matters: The change seeks to limit how close operators can place drilling activity to clusters of data centers described in the ordinance as “data campuses.” Data centers house servers and critical electrical infrastructure; operations near those facilities are a planning concern for property protection and operations.
Staff explanation and public questions Cindy Mendez, public health and environmental quality director, told the council that “a data campus is actually data centers multiple on a certain acreage of land. So we're not just talking about 1 data center. It's really like a data cluster,” and that the proposed amendment would set a setback so “they can't drill within a certain footprint … of the data centers.”
When asked whether wells could still produce gas from under a data campus, Mendez said they could: “Now they could get gas from under the data campus… This is just setting how close they can drill to the data centers.” The presentation did not specify the numeric setback distance; the ordinance language and packet materials posted online contain the details.
Action and next steps The amendment was included in the consent motion that passed 8–0. Staff said operators would still need to seek permits as required by the city's permitting process; specific implementation steps and exact setback dimensions are recorded in the posted packet and ordinance language.
Ending: The item was approved as part of the consent agenda; staff identified data campuses as multiple data centers on a single acreage and described the change as a proximity restriction rather than a prohibition on production from deeper subsurface resources.
