Fort Worth Air Quality

Or lack thereof...

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has an article written by Jim Bradbury that YOU don't want to miss concerning the recent air quality study in Fort Worth.

The value of royalty income will prove fleeting if we discover all too late that the health of our young and old was diminished because we were unwilling to press this issue.

Credibility was key for this work. After the protocol was developed and Eastern Research Group selected to do the work, the city staff folded back into a behind-the-scenes process of developing the contract. The process was not open to the Air Quality Study Committee or the public.

Benzene, the contaminant that has drawn much of the current attention on air quality, was detected 94 percent of the time. It is the best marker of an emission problem.

Seven other volatile organic compounds were detected at rates higher than 90 percent. That these values were collected citywide underscores the gravity of the situation.

The report identified seven key pollutants for Fort Worth. Eastern Research's analysis appears to judge the presence of the pollutants only by whether they produce an "urgent health hazard." That leaves open a very important question about Fort Worth's overall near- and short-term air quality.

This may be too simplistic for air scientists, but if we find benzene 94 percent of the time, we have a problem.

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"Inaccurate and Misleading"

No we're not referring to our politicians or local "news". 

Seconds after the back to back real newspaper articles (New York Times) concerning natural gas drilling might just be the Ponzi scheme many have warned about for years, the drillers started their spin.  Yeah, no one saw that coming.

Gas drilling companies called the information (which came from industry insider emails) "inaccurate and misleading".  Isn't that what the Times articles said about their propaganda, just in a more professional way?

As usual, local "news" jumped on the spin wagon. 

Here's a copy of what a local concerned citizen sent to the local paper.  Since you won't see the letter in the paper, we'll share it here.  Think they'll get a response?

You might tell your friends in the business that people are wary of propaganda pieces like this one masquerading as news. If Aubrey wants to put forward something that people will not consider to be "inaccurate and misleading" hype from the business end of the industry, then they need to get their most credible geophysicist and petroleum engineer to write a piece explaining how refracking can be made to work sufficiently well to keep these wells productive for 30-50 years. Oh, and the article needs to be signed and stamped with a Professional Engineer's seal so that his career is on the line. Also please stop putting out the hype about there being no chance of raw gas invading the aquifers because the fracking is done 7000-8000 feet below the surface and an aquifer is typically only a few hundred feet deep.

That dog won't hunt any longer. Look at any flagstone patio or sidewalk. You've never seen one without cracks. That's what happens in the wellbore at the interfaces between the cement and the casing and between the cement and the rock wall. There's the conduit for transporting the raw gas up the wellbore to the aquifer.

I'd be ashamed to be writing propaganda for CHK. If you want to do that then go to work for them. Hey, they'd even pay you more than the S-T does.

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Up on the Hill

For days now Durango has been scoping out the pre-drilling activities taking place near what's known as Broadcast Hill on the Tandy Hills of Fort Worth.

Now the council has voted unanimously to give an existing Fort Worth business a tax abatement to move to another location in Fort Worth.  Read about it in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.  You have to read it to believe it.

So Channel 5 moves their station, Fort Worth keeps the land and mineral rights, and gives NBC 5 a tax abatement.  Yet we can't find the money to help companies who have spent decades creating business, jobs and revenue in Fort Worth?  Or to keep Arlington Heights from flooding?  Or to fix any roads?  Or to have adequate emergency services north of the loop?

Scarth and other council members pledged that the neighborhood will fully vet the land use.

Didn't they pledge Riverside Park wouldn't be flooded if the neighbors didn't want to as well?  What happened to that pledge?  Wasn't Scarth the councilman with some conflict of interest issues?  See why YOU should vote?

Something smells fishy.  It ain't just the Trinity River.

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