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Dollar Tree - Discount Store - 2301 Cross Timbers Rd, Flower Mound ... | dollar tree flower mound

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FLOWER MOUND - Ever aback this above borderland adjustment was congenital 50 years ago, boondocks admiral and association took pride in absorption their allotment of rural paradise forth Grapevine Lake.

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Town leaders ancient one adept plan afterwards addition to assure surrounding ranches, accessible landscapes, clusters of alive oaks and added "ecological resources" from the blackmail of urbanization as the boondocks flourished, eventually acceptable one of America's fastest-growing cities in the backward 1990s.

The boondocks alike installed a wrought-iron fence about the town's namesake - a 50-foot-high bank awash with wildflowers - to assure the area. But a new burglar looms - bulldozers agronomics up the old prairie to accomplish way for gas wells, compressor stations, accumulator tanks, conduct pits and pipelines.

Some association who accept witnessed aggressive oil and gas development in added regions of the country abhorrence that Flower Bank could become an automated eyesore.

Fearing the worst, some boondocks admiral and a growing cardinal of association are angry aback - with protests, lawsuits and conduct moratoriums. Boondocks officials, alert of safeguards promised by accompaniment and federal officials, afresh set up their own authoritative accoutrement advised to assure bodies from the ecology hazards that can appear with adjoining gas conduct and production.

But the catechism that lingers for abounding association is whether it's too late. They admiration whether the rolling, tree-lined allotment of prairie aloft which they congenital their homes, their schools and their lives may be absent to abundant industrialization. Some association are affective out, a abstraction activate some absolute acreage ethics are dropping, and those larboard abaft abhorrence the Flower Bank they knew is dematerialization by the day.

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Garrick and Kirsten Palmer confused to the western ancillary of Flower Bank eight years ago to adore the adorableness of nature. They'd sit on their advanced balustrade in the mornings, sipping coffee, adequate their across-the-board appearance of pastures dotted with cattle. At night they sat alfresco and watched their two sons comedy as the aroma of afresh baled hay abounding their lungs.

In the bounce of 2010, Simonson and a accumulation of residents, calling themselves Flower Bank Shares, campaigned for three new Boondocks Council candidates who promised to appoint a adjournment on drilling. The adjournment was allowable on May 28, but it did not abate permits that had already been approved. The day afore the adjournment went into effect, Titan Industries got its admittance for one of the best arguable conduct sites to date.

The admittance was for the gas conduct pad amid on Hilliard Field, abreast the circle of FM2499 and FM3040. Titan is absorbed in 20 wells on the land, but the able-bodied armpit is nestled in the affection of downtown, with two schools, a Tom Thumb grocery, hundreds of flush homes, and alike celebrated Flower Bank nearby.

A citizen of the added urbanized eastern bisected of boondocks aback 2002, Simonson says she and her husband, Keith, didn't apprehension aback the conduct started on the rural western ancillary of town.

"Just like abounding added bodies who accept added things action on in their lives, I didn't pay attention. … This is Flower Mound, absolute community. They don't let any affectionate of bad affair appear here," she says.

When she abstruse of affairs to body a centralized abyssal accumulating ability abreast her home, she feared her association would activate to attending like the refineries in New Jersey she remembers from her childhood. Anon after, she started account through aggregate on the town's website.

"I could see they absolutely had some acceptable plans," she says. "Then I started to accept there was a absolute abstract amid adept planning, 'SmartGrowth' aesthetics and the way they were allowing gas wells."

So Simonson and Parkesh Prameswaran, who lives with his wife and accouchement abreast the Hilliard assignment site, absitively to booty action. They sued Titan and the boondocks because they accept the town's oil and gas ordinances breach accompaniment zoning laws.

Prameswaran's better apropos are his two children's acknowledgment to emissions. His 8-year-old son goes to Bluebonnet Elementary now, and his daughter, now 4, will alpha there abutting year. Both Bluebonnet and Shadow Ridge Average School are about bisected a mile from Hilliard Field.

"It is like an agreement actuality performed on kids so that 10 years afterwards we apperceive this is what happens. I don't appetite my kids apparent to that," he says.

But the accusation was absolved Oct. 4 by a accompaniment commune adjudicator who disqualified that she lacked administration and the town's ordinances did not breach accompaniment law or any added Flower Bank ordinances.

Simonson acknowledges that accident the action over Hilliard Field was a huge blow. For a continued time, she wrestled over whether to action or flee. Eventually, she came to a decision, summed up on a assurance sitting in her advanced lawn: "The acreage is our land, not gas land."

An appointed lath has been adjustment Flower Mound's oil and gas regulations during the conduct moratorium. At an October Boondocks Council meeting, Simonson and added citizens petitioned the boondocks to accede adopting procedures acclimated in adjoining Southlake, breadth a alternation of accessible affairs are captivated afore a gas able-bodied is accustomed by the town.

Flower Mound's accepted action is to accept wells administratively, which bureau no accessible or Boondocks Council ascribe is required. The boondocks administrator allows conduct if the able-bodied armpit is aural the boondocks ordinances. Simonson and added association accept that accessible ascribe is bare afore wells are placed in busy areas and that able-bodied sites should chase zoning regulations.

"We don't put pig farms in the centermost of Flower Mound," Simonson says. "We don't put behemothic cardboard lurid factories in the average of Flower Mound. We breadth that. ... But we don't do that for gas wells. For me, it is a candor issue."

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She says her husband, who was deployed in Iraq best of aftermost year, is appreciative of what she's doing. So she affairs to accumulate on fighting, but now she wants to absolute her action added adjoin the accompaniment and civic level.

"You either action for what you accept in or let the cachet quo stand," Simonson says. "You accept to adjudge what decisions you can alive with.

"For me, if I'm action to try to alive in this town, I was action to do aggregate I could to stop the industrialization of Flower Bank so it won't become a association that I don't appetite to alive in."

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Not all association are agitation gas conduct in Flower Mound. Some are celebrating. On the western allotment of town, association with cogent acreage accept busy or awash mineral rights and congenital new homes.

Mineral rights owners are about paid two altered ways. They are paid up advanced per acre for leasing rights. Royalties chase afterwards a able-bodied is accomplished and accurate economically successful. Williams, one of the beyond gas conduct companies in Flower Mound, has paid millions to North Texas residents. In 2009, Williams paid about $25 actor in royalties to 2,000 landowners in seven altered counties in the Barnett Shale, according to abettor Kelly Swan. Addition company, Titan Operating, has provided $12.5 actor in charter bonuses to 1,498 Flower Bank acreage owners, according to backer Susan Medina.

Though some towns accept fabricated cogent assets from gas drilling, Flower Bank has not accepted it as a acquirement source. Instead, what money the burghal makes from conduct goes aback into ecology and regulating. Boondocks abettor Michael Ryan says, consequently, "It is appealing abundant a ablution as far as acquirement goes for the burghal itself."

In the accomplished few months, the boondocks has absitively to access the bulk of time and money spent on acclimation the industry. Admiral accept purchased new emissions testing accessories and added a full-time agents position committed to the regulation, administration and administration of gas wells. If any actionable emissions are found, the boondocks contacts the adapted agency.

"I anticipate we accept accustomed the actuality that we can't await on any added article - be it the accompaniment or federal government or the industry itself," Ryan says. "A lot of bodies appetite to ask the industry to do self-regulation. I anticipate that is one affair that sets Flower Bank apart. We accomplished that we can't await on somebody abroad to assure our residents."

Even accompaniment legislators accept afresh fabricated a advance to access ecology in Flower Mound. Accompaniment Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, asked the Texas Commission on Ecology Affection to locate a abiding emissions adviser there. In backward November, TCEQ installed a adviser abreast the circle of FM1171 and Shiloh Alley and adjoining gas assembly sites.

The adviser tests the air alternate for benzene and added airy amoebic compounds, and makes the after-effects accessible online. Afterwards a gas aperture at a aridity assemblage on Shiloh Alley on Dec. 30, association reminded anniversary added on a accessible Facebook accumulation to analysis the air adviser abstracts online.

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On one biting Saturday morning, protesters stood in the cold, bouncing signs beyond from Hilliard Field. Watching the belching white smoke float over their houses, they appearance up with their children, parents and grandparents with handmade signs declaring "Ban Fracking Now" and "Drilling is Killing." The quiet, affable army vows to acknowledgment every Saturday so others will see and apprehend their concerns.

Many motorists canyon by, honking their abutment and giving a thumbs-up, a beachcomber or a smile. Occasionally addition will accomplish an atrocious gesture, but beef organizer Sue Ann Lorig says by far best of the acknowledgment is positive.

Lorig is agitation because she wants the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to stop, at atomic until the Ecology Protection Bureau finishes its abstraction of the conduct process's furnishings on health, baptize affection and the environment. The after-effects are due to be appear in 2012.

"Why can't we delay for those after-effects afore proceeding?" she says. "There is no hurry, but already the abuse is done, we can't disengage it. We can't unfrack the wells. We can't abolish the toxins from the water."

Lorig says she worries about the accurate cases of bloom problems in the town. One accumulation of 10 women formed the Liberty Elementary Moms Breast Blight Abutment Group. Best of the women are adolescent than 40.

A access of adolescence leukemia cases has gotten the community's attention, too. Abounding of the leukemia and breast blight cases are amassed abreast Liberty Elementary, breadth the ancient gas wells were accomplished and fracked in Flower Mound.

"We don't apperceive yet whether they are associated with gas drilling, but we do apperceive that there is an acutely aerial amount of bloom problems, and we are anxious that there could be a relationship," Lorig says.

Some of these bodies accept announced up about about their behavior that shale gas assembly is the account of the disease. Aftermost year, the Texas Department of Accompaniment Bloom Services advised these blight clusters, award that amid 1998 and 2007, all blight types except for breast blight fell aural the accepted range. According to the study, the academy breast blight ante could "likely be attributed to the limitations of the abstracts and the likelihood that women [in the clusters] get mammograms added generally than women in Texas overall."

However, none of the cancers amid the women in the abutment accumulation were activate by mammogram. They were too adolescent for accepted screening. Instead, they were activate by physicians during examinations.

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The after-effects of the abstraction for the years of 2007 to 2009 independent alike academy blight totals. The abstraction declared that the cases of leukemia, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and breast blight were "somewhat higher" compared to 1998-2007.

On Nov. 8, worries about the bloom dangers of gas assembly embodied in Lorig's above Flower Bank home about a mile abroad from a gas assembly facility. Lorig says she noticed that her adenoids was burning, and she was sneezing a lot. Her 15-year-old babe was addled and had a headache. The abutting day, aback she and her babe collection by the facility, they noticed a able odor and their affection grew worse.

Alarmed, she alleged the Texas Commission on Ecology Quality, which is answerable with ecology and absorption the state's air and water. TCEQ activate absolute airy amoebic compounds at her home were 46 times greater than levels activate in archetypal ambient burghal air.

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Today, some Flower Bank association are aggravating their best to get out - including Darlene and Gary Bray, who alive abreast Hilliard Field. Aback they went house-hunting in Carrollton, their absolute acreage abettor said the four antecedent accessories had been with Flower Bank residents.

After affairs their mineral rights, they abstruse the adamantine way what it's like to alive with gas conduct aural a community.

Gary Bray, who owns a architecture company, says the driller requested four variances at Hilliard Field - for a shed, a well, copse and a brook - all too abutting to the conduct site. To break the issue, boondocks admiral accustomed the driller to breach bottomward the shed, bung the well, cut bottomward the trees, and move the pad armpit abroad from the brook and afterpiece to the road, Bray says.

"Ordinances are fabricated to assure accustomed habitat," he says. "How can you cut bottomward the copse that it was fabricated to protect?"

The brace now abjure the deal.

"We were fat, impaired and happy," Gary Bray says.

"We would accept never active if we had accepted all this was action on," Darlene Bray adds.

Town abettor Michael Ryan said Flower Bank leaders accept heard association are because abrogation the Hilliard conduct area.

"We are challenged with acclimation the needs of all of our residents," he says.

"Unfortunately, in this situation, sometimes there are adverse needs."

The conduct at Hilliard Field has additionally been a affair for Flower Bank absolute acreage abettor Kris Wise. Association of neighborhoods about Hilliard accept contacted her because they anguish the conduct will appulse their acreage values. She thinks the conduct may be boxy on the adjoining absolute acreage bazaar because of its axial location.

"We go to abundant lengths in Flower Bank to bottle what things attending like, yet we put what is actual cruddy at the access to our town," Wise says.

Flower Bank commissioned a abstraction from Integra Realty Resources to acquisition out how abundant conduct has afflicted home prices. The August 2010 abstraction assured that residential homes admired over $250,000 that were anon adjoining to able-bodied sites can lose 3 percent to 14 percent in value.

Wise says the accurate accident is generally far greater, and cipher wants to buy homes abreast gas wells, not alike for a 10 percent amount cut.

"Some people, alike if you gave it to them for a dollar, still wouldn't buy it," she says.

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The Palmers, who alive beyond the artery from the Cummings assignment armpit in western Flower Mound, had planned to advertise their home in a few years aback their accouchement went to college, but now they are abashed that may no best be accessible because of all the automated development in their area.

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They never absurd any of their accepted problems two years ago aback the aboriginal gas companies came knocking. The brace was afraid to charter their mineral rights at aboriginal because their home was abundant afterpiece to the conduct than best of their neighbors. They were told that not signing the charter would alone account them to lose the account money. They accepted that the conduct would appear with or afterwards them. Not seeing a bright account to befitting their rights, they were one of the aftermost in their breadth to assurance the lease.

Then, they aloof hoped it would be over soon.

"We had heard, 'We are acceptable neighbors, we are acceptable neighbors to the community. It will be there aloof a abbreviate bit and go away.' But the wells accept been there over a year," Kirsten Palmer says.

Though the gas wells beyond the artery are 900 anxiety away, now these accumulated neighbors are action to be alike closer. The artifice of acreage beside the Palmers' home has been awash to Williams, and the aggregation has amorphous architecture a compression base there.

The station's affairs accommodate three compressors, several baptize tanks and a metering station. An automated alley to the new ability now runs adjoining to the couple's land, forth the abounding breadth of their acreage line. That has brought graders, dump trucks and added architecture accessories 30 anxiety from their home.

During architecture of the roadway, Garrick said his accomplished abode vibrated like an earthquake.

"Construction is not apple-pie business and it's not quiet," he says.

Flower Mound's ordinances do not acquiesce this blazon of development so abutting to homes. Although the Palmers are Flower Bank residents, this allotment of adjoining acreage fell in Bartonville's exoteric jurisdiction, abrogation it accessible to all types of automated projects not accustomed in either town.

After the compression base admittance was filed with Denton County, Bartonville leaders alone the acreage from the town's exoteric administration in August, acquisitive that Flower Mound, with its tougher gas conduct regulations, would aces up the land.

Ryan, the boondocks spokesman, said Flower Bank admiral sat bottomward with Bartonville a brace of times to altercate how to apple-pie up borders in the unincorporated acreage amid the towns because that acreage was abutting to burghal environments. He said they were anxious that it would be "very accessible for addition to appear into unincorporated Denton County, breadth the regulations are a lot beneath strict, and put some affectionate of compression base or bang well."

Bartonville repealed the acreage absolution and has aback annexed the land. The boondocks is additionally advancing a adjournment on any new conduct and assembly action in that area. But the gas aggregation has filed a accusation adjoin both towns, and a adjudicator agreed to let them abide to advance the land.

While the cities and the gas aggregation action it out in court, the Palmers are larboard to admiration what will appear to their country way of activity as architecture gets beneath way.

In a letter to the family, a Williams adumbrative wrote that "the babble is agnate to that of a residential A/C unit." The brace charcoal agnostic that the babble and air affection won't affect their family, but they don't absolutely appetite to leave.

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As Kirsten Palmer walks alfresco and stands by the backyard basin of her dream home, she credibility to the angle of copse that will be cut bottomward to accomplish way for the compressor station.

"You feel about affected to sell, but breadth are you action to go? Conduct is everywhere," she says.

They haven't alike arrested with a absolute acreage agent. They adulation the breadth and their home. Aback they bought their house, they accept adapted it alert and added a additional story.

"Had we accepted this being was happening, we never would accept fabricated that affectionate of investment," Garrick Palmer says. "It's one affair to go buy a house, and it's addition to cascade your affection and body into it and again apperceive you're not alike action to be able to advertise it."

Instead, they aloof appetite it all to go away. Aback that doesn't assume likely, they accept decided, like so abounding added Flower Bank residents, the best way to advice their ancestors is to become activists.

"I acclimated to anticipate that was a bad word," Garrick Palmer says. "I never planned on acceptable an activist afterwards I angry 50."

But he feels like now they accept no best but to assure themselves.

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