Reading FW Weekly and TxSharon this morning has me aggravated.
The FW Weekly aggravation comes from the Metropolis section, which further documented the bad behavior of the corrupt state of Texas agency that calls itself the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, an agency name which is pretty much Orwellian double-speak, due to the fact that the quality of the environment does not seem to be much of a concern to this commission.
The TCEQ seems more concerned with helping the Barnett Shale natural gas industry cover up their dirty deeds and doings.
In the FW Weekly article we learn about the different testing results, and different methodology used by the TCEQ and the little town of DISH. A little Texas town that has been ravaged, in many more ways than one, by the basically un-regulated natural gas company Blitzkrieg that has damaged lives and livelihoods in a once peaceful small Texas town.
The town of DISH has an actual, real, serve the people who elected him, type of mayor, unlike Fort Worth's corrupt Mayor Mike Moncrief, who was installed by the gas industry to help facilitate the gas driller's massive Blitzkrieg on Fort Worth. The natural gas industry pays Moncrief over $600,000 a year to be their in the henhouse fox.
DISH Mayor Calvin Tillman has been fighting back, trying to save his town and the people who live there. Eminent domain was abused in DISH when the gas drillers decided it would be a perfect location for gas compressors, which are jet engine noise level contraptions. To feed the compressors, pipelines had to be laid. So, land that people used for their livelihoods was, well, basically stolen, using the corrupt Texas legal system to do so.
I sure use the word "corrupt" a lot. I never think I'm exaggerating when I do so.
After awhile, people in DISH started not feeling as well as they did before the Natural Gas Blitzkrieg hit their town. DISH paid to have their air tested. The results showed bad, bad things were in the air they were breathing.
And now, gas industry legal lackeys have sent the town of DISH some sort of legalistic, threatening letter, the theme of which seems to be making all sorts of claims of things DISH has not done correctly.
Visit Texas Sharon to read what Mayor Tillman has to say about this latest bullying by the corrupt gas industry thugs and read the thug's intimidating letter.
We are down the Rabbit Hole here, where black is white, yes is no, wrong is right. But, it's not Alice in Wonderland, it's Malice in Blunderland.
I've been in Texas around 10 years now. In all my years of living on the West Coast I don't recollect anything ever happening that appalled me like the things I've seen happen here in Texas.
A corporation wants a new headquarters? Boot 100s of Fort Worth low income people out of their homes and build a new Radio Shack Headquarters, that Radio Shack could not afford.
A mall needs some new parking space? Abuse eminent domain to take Hurst citizen's homes for the benefit of a private business known as the Northeast Mall.
A football team wants a new stadium? Abuse eminent domain, in Arlington, to boot more than 1,000 people from their homes and apartments and businesses. And bulldoze the homes before the victims have had their day in court.
Some goofballs get the hare-brained idea that ruining the confluence of two forks of the Trinity River to make a little lake and an un-needed flood diversion channel? Abuse eminent domain, taking homes and businesses, for a "public" project that the public has never voted on, known as Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision or Trinity Uptown Project or Fort Worth's Latest Boondoggle.
A company called Chesapeake Energy, run by a man many believe to be a lying shyster, named Aubrey McClendon, wants to run a non-odorized natural gas pipeline under a street called Carter Street, in Fort Worth. The Carter Street homeowners object, but one by one, under the threat of the abuse of eminent domain, they all give in to the strong arm tactics, all but one man, Steve Doeung.
And what does the City of Fort Worth do? Does the city tell Chesapeake Energy they must find a different route, and pipe only odorized gas. No, the City of Fort Worth sends in a gang of Gestapo Stormtroopers, in the form of code inspectors and Fort Worth Police, to raid Steve Doeung's house.
Where is the outrage here in Blunderland? Okay, there is some outrage, I mean I'm outraged. Texas Sharon is outraged. Don Young is outraged. The Queen of Wink is Royally outraged. Steve Doeung is outraged. 100s, maybe 1000s are outraged.
Why is the Environmental Protection Agency not outraged by what is happening in DISH. And elsewhere in Texas?
Has the Environmental Protection Agency been co-opted somehow, like all the other government agencies in Texas that are supposed to look out for the welfare of the people, but instead look out for the welfare of those who exploit and abuse the people?
What became of Dr. Al Armendariz? Why does the EPA not order a moratorium on gas drilling activities until the issue of pollution, both of water and air, are properly vetted to everyone's satisfaction, not just the satisfaction of the drillers?
I tell you, all this Malice here in Blunderland is the most perplexing stuff I have ever witnessed. I never dreamed, when I moved to Texas, that I would somehow manage to one day find myself being terrorized by White Trucks.
P.S. The Star-Telegraph has blogged about the Star-Telegram's article today which reverses previous articles which followed the gas industry and their lackey, Mayor Mike Moncrief's party line, that being nothing harmful is entering the air from the thousands of gas wells.
You raise once again, excellent questions. Is there a rumbling in the distance? Could there be finally enough unified voices to be heard? Or is this all but a pipe dream...
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ReplyDeleteI heard rumbling yesterday, but it wasn't unified voices. I was thunder.
We need people from out of the B.S. zone to come in and help us because the people here are kinda like the proverbial frog sitting comfortably in the pot of water--that's slowly rising in temperature. Well, the temp. is at a point now where paralysis is setting in. R.I.P., FW, Tx.
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