Thursday, June 10, 2010

An Unnatural Appearance In The Tandy Hills Natural Area

Today at the Tandy Hills Natural Area I parked at the top of Mount Tandy by the Fort Worth Space Needle. As I walked down the mountain I took the first trail junction to the south.

As I neared the bottom of the mountain I saw something alien ahead, like a monolith sticking out of the ground. It seemed disturbingly out of place in a natural area, like the big rectangular monolith that got the monkeys all excited and curious at the start of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I did not get all excited like the 2001 monkeys, but I was curious. What was this addition to the Tandy Hills Natural Area?

The Tandy Hills Monolith turned out to be a caution sign post left behind by the Fort Worth Water Department, who I was to later learn have finished doing whatever it was they were doing on the Tandy Hills.

By the time I was done walking the hills I saw a total of 5 of these new additions. There likely were others.

The caution sign post's purpose, I guess, is to point out that a sewer pipeline is underground. And to provide information, like a number to call for line location and an emergency call number.

Now, I'm thinking to myself, this pipeline has run for how many decades through the Tandy Hills without such caution sign posts? And it needs such caution sign posts now? Why?

Who would be digging in the Tandy Hills Natural Area, for whom the caution sign posts might serve as a caution?

Does the city know of an upcoming operation by its partner in bad government, Chesapeake Energy?

How come a warning, such as these additions to the Tandy Hills, was not placed over that Hood County natural gas pipeline that exploded a couple days ago, the lack of which left a utility worker unaware he was poking a hole in the ground above a gas pipeline?

Is the Tandy Hills sewer pipeline more dangerous than a natural gas pipeline? And hence all the caution sign posts?

How much did these caution sign posts cost? It seems to me to be a bit of a frivolous waste for the City of Fort Worth to spend money on such a thing at the same time there is not enough money to keep city libraries open.

It is all very perplexing.

1 comment:

twister said...

That's probably how you lost your sun glasses. You getting excited and throwing things around.