A Hazy Day Today In Dirty Ol' Town

I guess today is Texas Air Pollution Day on the Durango Texas Blog. Don Young started Texas Air Pollution Day with new info about bad pollutants in the Texas air. Don Young's nickname for Fort Worth is "Dirty Ol' Town."

Ironically, the day in "Dirty Ol' Town" started with nice clear blue sky. If I remember right. It was 67 at midnight. 55 when I went swimming at 7:30am. The water had warmed up so much I stayed in it for quite a long time and got back in again after a hot tub break warmed me up.

By the time I got to the Tandy Hills, about noon, the temperature had dropped, blustery gusts made walking interesting. And a smoggy haze had settled in. In the photo that is the smoggy view of Downtown Fort Worth's stunning skyline, looking west from one of the Tandy Hills.

It is now 4 hours later and the temperature has continued to drop. It is now 36.

Regarding all this air pollution and smog. Here goes my second "ironically" in this blogging. As in, ironically, I am reading Molly Ivin's Shrub. I'm at the chapter where she looks at George W.'s environmental record. Or lack of.

At the end of George's time as the Texas governor, as he was in the midst of campaigning to do to the rest of the nation what he'd spent 8 years doing to Texas, Texas was, according to the Tri-National North American Commission on Environmental Cooperation, set up by NAFTA, polluting more than any other American state or Canadian province. Texas had achieved the #1 position in both water and air pollution.

According to records kept by the Environmental Defense Fund, Texas is also Number One in overall toxic releases, recognized carcinogens in the air, suspected carcinogens in the air, developmental toxins in the air (affecting brain and nervous-system development in children) and cancer risk.

So, we've got that info earlier today, from Don Young, about kids being affected by toxic pollution and the amount of air pollution caused by the gas drillers. We add that to yesterday's info about what's in the fracking water that's being injected underground all over North Texas and mix in today's smoggy view of Downtown Fort Worth's skyline and I'm suddenly feeling like I moved to a Third World Country.

Which is, again, ironic, because when I first moved to Texas and would get asked why, I would say, "I wanted the experience of living in a Third World country without having to get a passport." At that point in time I thought I was just making a bad joke and in my mind the origin of that bad joke was the astonishing amount of litter I saw all over Texas. Little did I know, then, that the litter problem was the least troublesome Texas environmental issue.