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FrOM The FrONT

but there were a number of complications the first time around that I do not anticipate with this.”

The Texas Railroad Commission oversees oil and gas exploration across the state.

Although the com-mission granted Watkins both permits, it still will be several months at the very least before the de-veloper can move forward with plans to start two new sites, according to David Hoover, League City’s di-rector of planning and de-velopment.

Watkins submitted the required paperwork to the city for one of the projects, near the Magnolia Creek development, and city ad-

ministrators are currently reviewing that, Hoover said, adding that the city has not yet received any-thing for the other site.

Nothing will likely come before the city council until January, because the appli-cation is more than 1,700 pages and must go through city administrators before going to a consultancy for additional review, Hoover said.

Assuming Watkins’ application meets the re-quirements, however, city leaders have few options to limit the project from moving forward, Mayor Pat Hallisey said.

“House Bill 40 took it out of our park, except for in matters of health, safety and welfare,” Hallisey said. “At that first drill site, he did everything the law re-quired him to do and more

just to drill.”The city has limited abil-

ity to regulate petroleum production operations be-cause of House Bill 40, of-ficials have said.

House Bill 40, which passed into law in 2015, gave exclusive jurisdiction to the state government over oil and gas explora-tion, and it prohibited local oil- and gas-related ordi-nances, initiatives and reg-ulations.

The law was prompted by an anti-fracking initia-tive passed in Denton in November 2014 and her-alded by the Texas Oil & Gas Association as “im-portant legislation to keep Texas communities safe and our economy strong.”

Whereas that legislation would seem to limit city of-ficials’ ability to reject Wat-kins’ application, there’s

some evidence that state attitudes are beginning to change.

The Arlington City Council in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, for in-stance, in June rejected TEP Barnett’s request for a permit to drill three con-troversial natural gas wells near a day care center, ac-cording to an article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

TEP Barnett is the Fort Worth branch of French oil company Total, accord-ing to the article.

The council rejected the request despite some con-cern that it could leave the city open to a lawsuit, ac-cording to the article.

It is not yet clear whether the French company plans to file a lawsuit over the permit rejection.

Watkins was the origi-nal developer of Magnolia

Creek subdivision and golf course. He also was the original developer of Har-borwalk at Hitchcock.

Watkins in 2010 filed for, then withdrew, an appli-cation to rezone 2.8 acres in the Magnolia Creek Planned Unit Develop-ment to allow for drilling. At the time, he told The Daily News he withdrew his application for a permit because of technical issues.

That was before the 2015 legislative session. Watkins reapplied in 2015.

The council in April 2016 and July 2017 approved variances to the city’s oil and gas drilling ordinanc-es, in large part because of House Bill 40, city officials said. The council also ap-proved amending fees in June 2018.

City Manager John Baumgartner issued the

drilling permit in August 2018, officials said.

Watkins’ gas well, for which the derrick rose in March near the Magnolia Creek subdivision, became a hot public issue in June when a flaring process sent a jet of flame into the sky over the neighborhood.

Watkins, however, told The Daily News on Wednesday that he’d since worked with residents and was hopeful that they might cooperate on these new projects.

“I can’t predict the fu-ture, but I’ve worked with a number of them and am trying to cooperate,” he said. “I think they under-stand that, but only time will tell.”

Matt deGrood: 409-683-5230; matt.degrood@galvnews.com

DRILLINGContinued » A1

Halloween was an $8.8 billion business in 2019, when more than 172 mil-lion Americans celebrat-ed the holiday, spending about $90 each on candy, costumes, food and spirits, according to the National Retail Federation.

With the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend-ing neighborhoods forgo traditional trick-or-treat-ing, locals are conjuring creative ways to celebrate safely.

In the Meadows neigh-borhood in League City, residents aren’t expecting many trick-or-treaters on Oct. 31, so they’ll instead be celebrating Halloween with a parade Oct. 24, resident Mandie McMillan said.

“It seems to have been received pretty well,” Mc-Millan said. “We’re expect-ing less kids out and about than normal, and less peo-ple giving out candy, and so we thought this would be a better opportunity for kids to fill up their pump-kins and their bags full of candy.”

The Meadows residents attending the parade are encouraged to dress up, have fun and enjoy watch-ing the decorated cars,

trailers and golf carts, Mc-Millan said. There will be prizes for the best-decorat-ed vehicles in the parade, and there will be designat-ed candy tossing zones, so people in the parade won’t be tossing candy while their vehicles are moving, McMillan said.

“It’s pretty much just or-ganized by the neighbors, and we’re hoping to get a good turnout,” McMillan said. “People have started decorating their houses for Halloween as soon as they possibly could.”

The Colony Park neigh-borhood in Galveston usu-ally welcomes more than 1,000 trick-or-treating children, and residents are discussing various mea-

sures to have a socially dis-tanced Halloween.

Some ideas Colony Park residents have thought of include giving out candy outside with 6-foot mark-

ers, rather than having children come up to the doors, creating one-way lines in front of homes, putting candy out on a ta-ble rather than in a bowl, putting up plastic barriers and wearing plastic face shields, and using a PVC pipe as a candy chute.

Christina Rodriguez in the Marlow Lake neigh-borhood in Texas City is helping organize a social-ly distanced Halloween block party featuring can-dy stations in driveways, a bounce house for smaller children, a haunted house for older children and vari-ous game stations.

Although it’ll be dif-ferent, COVID-19 hasn’t dampened Halloween spirits, as local Halloween stores are reporting busi-ness has increased com-pared to years past and that people have been shopping for Halloween items earlier than usual this year.

“It’s one of the safest hol-idays we can celebrate right

now,” Nichole Dove, man-ager of the Spirit Halloween store in Galveston, said. “A lot of the costumes come with masks, costumes are pretty much one-time use, and people are definitely in groups smaller than 10 to go trick-or-treating.”

Dove added that it ap-pears people are going the extra mile decorating their homes this year for Hal-loween based on sales.

“There’s a lot of people coming up with ways to distribute candy safely,” Dove said. “I know a lot of people really want to give the kids something to cel-ebrate this year; it’s been a rough year on the kids.”

James Lacombe: 409-683-5242, james.lacombe@galvnews.com or on Twitter @JamesAtGal-vNews

HALLOWEENContinued » A1

STUART VILLANUEVA/The Daily NewsSpooky masks line a wall as John Harrington browses for a costume at the Spirit Halloween store in Galveston on Wednesday.

“There’s a lot of people coming up with ways to distribute candy safely. I know a lot of people really want to give the kids something to celebrate this year; it’s been a rough year on the kids.”

Nichole Dove, manager of the Spirit Halloween store in Galveston

WeaTher | HURRICANE SEASON

Associated Press

» MORGAN CITY, La.

For the sixth time in the Atlantic hurricane sea-son, people in Louisiana are once more fleeing the state’s barrier islands and sailing boats to safe harbor while emergency officials ramp up command cen-ters and consider ordering evacuations.

The storm being watched Wednesday was Hurricane Delta, the 25th named storm of the Atlan-tic’s unprecedented hur-ricane season. Forecasts placed most of Louisiana within Delta’s path, with the latest National Hur-ricane Center estimating landfall in the state on Fri-day.

The center’s forecast-ers warned of winds that could gust well above 100 mph and up to 11 feet of ocean water potentially rushing onshore when the storm’s center hits land.

“This season has been relentless,” Louisiana Gov.

John Bel Edwards said, dusting off his now com-mon refrain of 2020 — “Prepare for the worst. Pray for the best.”

So far, Louisiana has seen both major strikes and near misses. The southwest area of the state around Lake Charles, which forecasts show is on Delta’s current trajectory, is still recovering from an

Aug. 27 landfall by Cate-gory 4 Hurricane Laura.

Nearly six weeks later, some 5,600 people remain in New Orleans hotels be-cause their homes are too damaged to occupy. Trees, roofs and other debris left in Laura’s wake still sit by roadsides in the Lake Charles area waiting for pickup even as forecasters warned that Delta could

be a larger than average storm.

New Orleans spent a few days last month bracing for Hurricane Sally before it skirted to the east, mak-ing landfall in Alabama on Sept. 16.

Delta is predicted to strengthen back into a Category 3 storm after hit-ting the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula on Wednesday, then weaken slightly as it approaches Louisiana. The National Hurricane Cen-ter forecast anticipated the storm will come ashore in a sparsely populated area between Cameron and Vermilion Bay.

Edwards said President Donald Trump has agreed to sign a federal emergen-cy declaration in advance for the state. The Dem-ocratic governor said he doesn’t expect widespread mandatory evacuations.

But Edwards said Wednesday that Delta is moving fast, so hurricane force winds could reach well inland, and expected heavy rains could cause

flooding.Plywood, batteries and

rope already were flying off the shelves at the Tiger Island hardware store in Morgan City, Louisiana, which would be close to the center of the storm’s path.

“The other ones didn’t bother me, but this one seems like we’re the target,” customer Terry Guarisco said as a store employee helped him load his truck with plywood needed to board up his home.

In Sulphur, across the Calcasieu River from Lake Charles, Ben Reynolds was deciding whether to leave or stay. He had to use a generator for power for a week after Hurricane Laura.

“It’s depressing,” Reyn-olds said. “It’s scary as hell.”

By sundown Wednes-day, Acy Cooper planned to have his three shrimp boats locked down and tucked into a Louisiana bayou for the third time this season.

“We’re not making any money,” Cooper said. “Ev-ery time one comes we end up losing a week or two.”

Lynn Nguyen, who works at the TLC Seafood Market in Abbeville, said each storm threat forces fisherman to spend days pulling hundreds of crab traps from the water or risk losing them.

“It’s been a rough year. The minute you get your traps out and get fishing, its time to pull them out again because something is brewing out there,” Nguyen said.

Elsewhere in Abbeville, Wednesday brought an-other round of boarding up and planning, said Ver-milion Chamber of Com-merce Executive Director Lynn Guillory.

“I think that the stress is not just the stress of the storm this year, it’s every-thing – one thing after another,” Guillory said. “Somebody just told me, ‘You know, we’ve really had enough.’”

Busy 2020 hurricane season has Louisiana bracing a 6th time

APThis Wednesday satellite image made available by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows Hurricane Delta in the Gulf of Mexico. Delta made landfall Wednesday just south of the Mexican resort of Cancun as an extremely dangerous Category 2 storm.