Too much rain this week made it likely the Tandy Hills are not dried out enough for my usual mud-free Saturday hiking. I decide to go see mud at another Fort Worth park, that being Gateway Park and the Trinity Trails.I was not disappointed, mud-wise. That location I've mentioned a couple times now, due east of the Beach Street bridge across the Trinity, where a gas driller runs a pipeline across park property to a diesel pump that sucks water out of the Trinity River.
The pump was not running today. But the gas boys had been at the pump. That was obvious due to the fact that the damage done to the levee and the park grass was much worse than it was when I was at the same location on Thursday to take a picture of the Trinity roaring over the dam/bridge.
Another view of the muddy ruts left on top of the Trinity levee. On the south side of the river, immediately east of the dam/bridge, the latest bout of high, raging river water has eroded off the dirt/grass top part of the levee, exposing a large area of the huge boulders that, apparently, were used to build the giant dam-like levees. I've asked before and have not heard an answer, how is it that the gas drillers get away with this bad behavior? Are they in cahoots with the local power structure? Or something like that?
Now, this was an odd scene, the Trinity River had lowered a bit since I saw it on Thursday, but it was still roaring over the dam/bridge. Why did someone, nowhere to be seen, wheel a kayak down to where the launching dock usually floats, but is currently in malfunction mode due to the flood? Where was the kayaker? A little gust of wind could easily blow the kayak into the water and over the dam. Was the kayaker actually considering launching from this location, so close to going over the dam? I saw no vehicle up by the building that stores kayaks, where the kayakers park.If you look on the other side of the river, in the kayak picture, you can see the eroded area I referenced above.
2 comments:
That's horrible! I bet if the owner of the company responsible for allowing this had someone do this to his green lawn, he'd have them arrested, thrown in jail and pay a huge fine.
Too bad FW doesn't use their army of official (and citizen para-official)enforcers of people's lives like the Code Enforcement "officers" who cruise around looking behind people's porches and even privacy fences AND IN THOSE BIG GARBAGE CANS and write warnings and issue tickets about anything they consider "a nuisance" (pretty broad definition and power) to the public health and environment to enforce their codes in these locations. CT&CT would have a fit with that long old sentence!(wink-- wink!)
But these pictures probably show nothing that would attract their attention and/or duty to enforce city health and safety codes since there's no sign of any "nuisance", esp. major ones like leaving an all wood dining chair on the porch or putting the wrong things in the garbage cans. MAY THE code enFORCEment BE WITH YOU.
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