Not in YOUR backyard?

Unless you live in Fort Worth.

Read the letter from Jim Ashford to the Fort Worth City Council, Mayor and staff. YOU can't afford not to.

Fort Worth City Council

It is my opinion the proposed Salt Water Disposal Facility is a terrible idea. I fail to understand why this item is allowed to continue being drug through the permitting system primarily by one Council person. It was a bad idea when it was proposed, and the more that is known about the chemicals in produced water, the worse it gets.

The thought of 1200 barrels* of produced water being evaporated into the atmosphere every day for the residents of Fort worth to breath is a scary thought. The chemicals which will be heated and evaporated include some the deadliest elements in the produced water, that being the benzines, toluenes, lead, mercury, uranium, radium 226 and 228 along with other deadly chemicals. These chemicals can not be filtered out of the water completely or satisfactorily. A more complete list of some of the chemicals that are in produced water is attached.

I have also attached a paper describing what produced water is from the Department of U.S. Energy. You will note the difference from the description of produced water in the attached information than presented by Chesapeake Energy. It is not just saltwater. I have highlighted some of the important sections in yellow relating to Natural gas, specifically, pages 4, 6, 7, 8, 9,15, 16, 18, 67.

Council person Danny Scarth (District 4), who has promoted this item like it was his own and often refers to "WE" when talking about Chesapeake, has suggested it will reduce Nox in the air by reducing truck traffic used to dispose of the water. What he is neglecting to mention in promoting this project, is the gas compressors needed to evaporate the 50,400 barrels of water every day into nearby neighborhoods include four massive 1400 horsepower engines. These industrial motors and their emissions are regulated very little in any form. The large trucks which haul the water, on the other hand, have a great deal of regulation in their emissions control and the type and quality of fuel they must use.

This site in East Fort Worth has even been promoted as a recycling facility of produced water by the City and Chesapeake, even though there is no water being reused. It is not a recycling facility but it is a cheap method for Chesapeake alone, to dispose of toxic waste.

Why would the city promote a site such as this that recycles no water, when other local companies recycle up to 80-90 percent of the water at their sites. There are even other companies that report a near 100 percent recycle ability.

The City has already proposed allocating funds to study the air quality at this experimental project for hydrocarbons. There is no money, however, to study the air for the radium 226 or 228 or the natural occurring uranium, lead or mercury.

Why is anyone promoting this experimental project so adamantly when its impact on District 4 is not good for the people? Only Chesapeake benefits from this, not other companies or the citizens and the people who live nearby.

*(1 barrel = 42 gallons)

Jim Ashford

Read More

YOU are invited!

To meet the EPA folks on Thursday.

Excellent Letter to the Editor in Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Sound off to EPA

If our politicians had ever read the children's story about the king who turned everything to gold only to discover that clean water, fresh air and healthy children were inherently more precious:

Maybe Gov. Rick Perry would've fought for cleaner air for all Texans instead of fighting to exempt his corporate donors from costly pollution controls;

Maybe Rep. Joe Barton would've apologized to his constituents for his incestuous relationship with the oil industry instead of to BP, who's caused the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history;

Maybe Mayor Mike Moncrief and the Fort Worth City Council would've considered the health effects of urban gas drilling before approving thousands of gas leases.

Fort Worth residents should show up at the Hilton on Thursday to tell the EPA what Perry, Barton and Moncrief apparently won't: There isn't enough money in the world to justify destroying our oceans, fouling our air, contaminating our groundwater or making us all sick.

-- Sharon Austry, Fort Worth

Read More

In the news...

The Tarrant Regional Water District popped up in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram twice today.  We are betting we see it more in the near future.

The low-water dam is one of three in Trinity Park that feature chutes or channels. The dams are maintained by the Tarrant Regional Water District.

Water district officials are gathering facts surrounding Monday's drowning.

"As we do with all tragedies of this nature, we will gather facts and evaluate how the public accesses this low-water dam," spokesman Chad Lorance said.

The district maintains 16 low-water dams throughout the Fort Worth floodway, which covers the Trinity River from downtown to near Camp Carter on the West Fork, and to Southwest Boulevard on the Clear Fork. The three low-water dams in Trinity Park are the only ones to feature chutes.

The chutes are used by kayakers, but the district said they weren't built for recreation.

"The low-water dams are built to slow the flow of the river and to serve as a sediment retention area," Lorance said.

The water moving through the chutes appears to move more quickly than other areas of the river, but whether the chutes played a part in Monday's drowning is unknown.

"We are still gathering the facts of this tragedy," Lorance said. "We don't know what if any part the chutes may have played in this incident."

Adelaide Leavens, executive director of Streams and Valleys Inc., a nonprofit that helps fund recreational development along the Trinity, said the river varies from wading depth to as deep as 10 feet. Storm runoff can increase flows greatly.

Water district officials said that on Monday the flow was minimal through the section of the river in question.

And again when the Fort Worth Cats are mentioned, the Water District isn't far behind.

The move comes after the bank was paid from Bell's $17.5 million sale last month of 38 acres south of the stadium to the Tarrant Regional Water District. Amegy had posted the property for the March foreclosure auction in the wake of the default.

The water district said it will use some of the land for rights of way, canals, easements, parkland and levee work as part of the Trinity River Vision flood control and economic development project.

The water district also bought 4 acres from Michael Balloun of Arlington. Bell sold that tract to Balloun in March and used the proceeds to begin paying tens of thousands of dollars he owed to vendors and others.

Bell also has a 10-year lease with the water district on some land to be used for stadium parking.

"We have put things in place going forward that ensure LaGrave Field and the Cats will be a part of the development and part of Trinity Uptown for decades to come," Bell said.

Bell bought the greater LaGrave tract in 2007 from the city of Fort Worth. He once planned a multimillion-dollar residential and retail development, but the recession and other factors halted that development.

Read More

EPA PUBLIC MEETING JULY 8TH ON HYDRAULIC FRACTURING

YOUR HEALTH AND NATURAL GAS PRODUCTION

Friends,

YOU HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY in the DFW area to make your voice heard on a critically important issue on Thursday, JULY 8th.

Those of us in the Barnett Shale are accutely aware of the hazards posed by hydraulic fracturing, and many are already experiencing problems with their well water and water resources.

We must DEMAND accountability from the gas drilling industry, and this is YOUR opportunity to let the EPA know that you support their efforts to thoroughly study the effects on our water supplies. We must also DEMAND full disclosure of the chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing process, as well as supporting the use of RECYCLING  the water used in the fracing process. 

Please email us at NCTCA if you have any questions:  nctcalliance@yahoo.com or nctcalliance@aol.com and go
to our website www.nctca.net  for further information on our efforts in working towards positive solutions related to gas drilling, pipelines, and property rights.

Come exercise your right of freedom of speech on July 8th!  See you there!

Esther McElfish - NCTCA President
and our NCTCA Advisory Board

WHO: Citizens concerned with the safety of our drinking water and air quality.
WHAT: EPA Public Informaiton meeting on Hydraulic Fracturing.
WHEN: Thursday, July 8th, 6-10 pm CST
WHERE: Hilton Fort Worth, 815 Main Street, Fort Worth, Texas.

Fort Worth has an abundance of natural gas deep in the shale formation beneith our city that companies are eager to get thier hand on.  We need to tell the EPA at Thursday's meeting that they should regulate this process from beginning to end.

It's important for you to attend even if you choose not to personally address the EPA.  Just your presence will let the EPA know that you expect them to protect our families when the Texas Railroad Commission and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality....will not!

Read More

Good Question

Mr. Woodard has a question...read about it in the Fort Worth Business Press.

Blow out preventers


In 2007 when the estimated cost of Trinity Uptown had risen from $360 million to $435 million,
Steve Hollern, Clyde Picht, and the late Councilman Chuck Silcox mounted a valiant effort for a petition for a vote by the people to limit Fort Worth’s participation to $26.6 million, being 6.11 percent of the then $435 million estimated cost of the Boondoggle. Much like Arlington wisely did vis a vis Cowboy Stadium.

Because they wanted to keep taxpayer money flowing no matter what the final cost would be, this petition was vigorously and successfully opposed by the city’s leadership - Congresswoman Kay Granger, Mayor and City Council, Commissioners Court, Tarrant Regional Water Board and the real rulers of the city, the Chamber of Commerce.

Since then the estimated cost has spiraled to $909 million. No doubt the next estimate will be at least $1 billion. The question arises: Will Fort Worth’s participation still be 6.11 percent of $435 million ($26.6 million) or will it be 6.11 percent of $1 billion ($61.6 million)? Ask the mayor or your city council member.

Following in conservative Chuck Silcox’s steps, new District 3 City Councilman Zim Zimmerman says that the city does not deal in percentages – it deals with hard dollars and $26.6 is the limit –not one dollar more.

That sounds like the petition to me. With a Zim-minded Council, we wouldn’t need a petition. But that raises another very interesting question. If our participation is limited to $26.6 million, who or what makes up the gaping shortfall? Like the King of Siam said to Anna, “It’s a puzzlement.”

Taxpayers of Fort Worth! Today you grimace at a few cents tax raise that would balance the budget and keep the city swimming pools open in 100 degree weather. Wait until the bills start coming in for the boondoggle! Talk about an out-of-control oil well in the Gulf of Mexico! That Hollern-Picht-Silcox petition that was opposed by and defeated by the leadership was our blow out preventer. It failed.

Know what happens when blow out preventers fail?

– Don Woodard, Fort Worth

Read More

Letters

Letters to the Editor in Fort Worth Star-Telegram. People paying attention.

Inspecting inside the pipes

Several articles have been written recently regarding underground gas pipelines.

As a retired engineer who designed emergency shutdown systems and operators for gas pipelines, including the 56-inch pipeline from Siberia to Europe, I would like to let local residents know that gas companies do not inspect the interior of their pipes. However, the British Gas Corp. regularly inspects all the gas lines throughout the United Kingdom.

U.S. lines are pigged and scraped to remove condensation and rust on a regular schedule, but operators have no idea how thin the steel pipe has become due to corrosion.

The UK uses a "smart pig" that electronically measures the pipe wall thickness and the position along the pipeline where that thickness occurs.

Why is it that the U.S. gas companies don't swallow their pride and use a tool someone else developed?

Gas pressure can vary from 600 to 900 to 1,500 psi according to the line requirements, and pipes can be designed with automatic pressure control valves and operators to shut down the line when a leak is detected.

Laws should be in force for all gas pipelines within a mile of buildings, roads and railways.

-- Derek Sidwell, Keller



Unconscionable law

Unless oil companies have the technology to quickly address and control a worst-case scenario when drilling offshore (which clearly they do not), they should not be given permits to drill offshore -- period.

It is unconscionable that companies making billions of dollars should have limited liability if or when they destroy the environment and ruin so many lives.

Shame on everyone who has voted to give these monster corporations such limitless power and such limited accountability.

-- Wendy Stoecker, Arlington

Read More

He did it again...

The man has a point.  Read about OUR water on Durango's blog. 

Question for you, how much do those billboards cost and WHO's paying?

Read More