Monday, January 12, 2009

Chesapeake Energy Fracking Fort Worth In The Tandy Hills

An army of trucks and equipment moved on to the Tandy Hills in the past few days. I first saw the army on Friday, when I was leading my Mom & Dad to the Ol' South Pancake House.

This morning I learned, from Don Young, that the "fracking" process would begin today at the damaged area of the Tandy Hills.
So, armed with my video camera I set out to record the dirty deeders in action. In a blogging earlier today we saw pictures of a recent Fort Worth fracking, that caused a big cloud of who knows what chemical stew.

I did not know if I would see a similar cloud today at Tandy. I was not shocked when I did. A constant smokestack-like plume blows up and away. When I got downwind of it I didn't like it. It reminded me too much of the first time I was ever in Los Angeles, never having experiencing smog before, with my eyes burning.

The thing that surprised me the most was 3 big pipelines, running from the drilling site, on to the public property of the freeway, then through a culvert under Interstate 30. And then to the Trinity River to extract water.

The Trinity River is a bit low right now. How does Chesapeake Energy get the right to suck water out of the river, I can't help but wonder?

When I first headed west from Tandy Hills Park to the drilling zone, I saw a Fort Worth police car sitting at the end of isolated, dead end Ben Avenue. I suspected Chesapeake had enlisted the help of the police to keep anyone from getting close enough to see what they were up to.

By the time I got to Ben Avenue the cop was gone. I suspect he saw my cameras and hightailed it out of there before he was caught on tape being where he shouldn't be.

Below is video in which you can sort of see and hear what is going on at the Tandy Hills, this 12th day of the new year of 2009.

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