Crowd Rallies for Clean Water as Norman Committee Considers New Drilling Rules

• Logan Layden
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  Logan Layden is a reporter and managing editor for StateImpact Oklahoma. He is a native of McAlester, Oklahoma and graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 2009. Logan spent three years as a state capitol reporter and local host of All Things Considered for NPR member station KGOU in Norman and six years as a reporter with StateImpact from 2011 to 2017. Most recently, he was news director for McAlester Radio before returning to public radio in 2020.

Logan Layden / StateImpact Oklahoma

Demonstrators outside the Norman City Hall before a city council committee met to discuss changes to oil and gas drilling rules.

About 60 demonstrators gathered in front of the Norman City Hall Wednesday evening before the city council’s oversight committee met to discuss changes to the Norman’s oil and gas drilling regulations.

The Central Oklahoma Clean Water Coalition hosted the rally. Organizer Casey Holcomb says the current ordinances were written before fracking became so widespread.

“Norman’s regulations are actually way far behind many other communities in the nation, and even some communities in Oklahoma,” Holcomb says. “Our regulations are not as strong as Oklahoma City’s and we need to go ahead and bring things up to speed, especially with the unconventional boom which has really changed the game.”

The oversight committee will make recommendations to the full Norman City Council, which is likely to start taking up the ordinance changes in February 2015.

Included in the updated rules so far is a ban on drilling in watershed areas that drain into Lake Thunderbird, Norman’s main water source; also, more stringent water quality testing for wells near drilling sites.

The new rules would require water wells within a quarter of a mile of drilling operations be tested prior to drilling and every other year thereafter for five years for substances like chloride, dissolved solids, and arsenic, unless the owner of the well specifically asks for his or her water not to be tested.

Some demonstrators said they felt excluded from the rule-making process, accusing the committee of working too closely with oil and gas companies since began its work in the spring.