Thursday, January 17, 2013

I Want Some Chesapeake Energy Mailbox Money & Fracking Air Quality Testing Done To The Air That I Breathe

This morning I read a disturbing bit of info in Fort Worth Weekly's Static titled Migraines and Mailbox Money.

A Fort Worth mom, Mandy Mobley, was in real good shape, slender and healthy. And then she started not to feel so good.

Headaches, dizzy spells, fatigued.

Visits to doctors provided no answers.

Then, Mandy Mobeley attended a North Texas Communities Alliance meeting where a video was shown showing the chemical stew spewing from a Chesapeake Energy Barnett Shale gas fracking operation.

Just like me, Mandy Mobley has a Chesapeake Energy gas fracking operation nearby.

Unlike me, Mandy Mobley leased her mineral rights to Chesapeake Energy, for which she gets paltry royalty checks.

I have been having some of Mandy Mobley's symptoms for months now. In September and October I thought the woes were allergies. I had not been an allergy prone person prior to this.

Then in early December came down with what seemed like a cold, which I later decided might have been the flu. Coughing, restricted breathing, feeling queasy.

Now I realize my bout of misery which began in early December began soon after Chesapeake Energy amped up their fracking operation in my neighborhood, with fumes of some sort clearly spewing forth, visible to the naked eye, at times.

Below is my local purveyor of fracking fumes. You can't see the fumes in the photo. When you can see the fumes they are fuming from a couple vents on top of the red boxcar like device.


The first time I ever experienced bad air pollution, and smog, was as a kid, the first time my mom and dad took us to Disneyland. The air of Southern California was so incredibly bad back then. The worst of it was when we went to Universal Studios. At that location the air was so bad it made my eyes sting and leak. It was so bad I can remember it like it was yesterday, even though this was decades ago.

The past month, or so, whatever it is my eyes are being burned by, the sensation is very similar, though much less severe, than what I experienced long ago in Southern California.

I wish Texas had not seceded, again, from the Union, and that that powerful United States agency known as the Environmental Protection Agency, still operated here. Maybe Texas should start up its own version of the EPA.

It could be called the Texas Environmental Protection Agency.

TEPA.

Does that not have a nice ring to it?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The L.A. smog also burned my eyes in the mid 80's.

Some folks have more sensitivity to pollutants, chemicals, strong odors. Years ago, I looked into buying a RV. Visited a huge RV sale complex south of Fort Worth off I-35. The salesman and spouse were unaffected by the strong plastic out-gassing odors new units emit. My eyes burned & puffed. Tears streamed. Wheeziness. Dropped the RV idea right then and there.

Cedar pollen may be the culprit. You might consider getting tested for that common fall-winterish torturer. If negative, you might consider moving away from the red trailer.

Anonymous said...

Texans have a state agency that watches out for corporations as people- it is called the TCEQ- the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality- but Texas has not really adopted any agency for watching out for the health of actual people.