Foggy Fort Worth Hiking On The Tandy Hills & Unanswered TCEQ Questions

Another balmy day, with temperatures in the 50s, had me hiking the Tandy Hills at noon, for the 9th day in a row.

Today looked like hiking might not be doable, due to the extreme thick fog that has settled over the Fort Worth zone of North Texas, so thick it was like being in a cloud, with a mist getting the windshield wet,

But not to the point that windshield wipers were required. And once I hit the ground on the Tandy Hills I had no wetness issues. Except for overheating related wetness.

Speaking of wetness. I stayed in the pool this morning for the longest duration of the new year. I long ago figured out that an average temperature in the 50s made the pool easily
doable. But that vexing sub-freezing business we had going on since the day before Christmas cooled the water down to near freezing, so it has not warmed up to a satisfying 50 something temperature quite yet.

Can you spot the skyline of beautiful downtown Fort Worth through the fog? The picture was taken from the top of Mount Tandy.

Big Ed went hiking with me today on the Tandy Hills. Afterwards we headed to Town Talk. Stopped at a light on Beach Street, heading north, Big Ed pointed out a Barnett Shale gas drilling site and the plumes of something rising up from it.

Big Ed pondered the possibility that the gas drillers might be using a heavy fog day, like today, to do something nefarious that puts off plumes of fumes, that they would not dare try on a clear day.

Big Ed is a big proponent of crackpot paranoia type conspiracy theories. Then again, it was odd seeing that big plume of something spewing skyward from the drilling site. Have never seen that happening on a clear day.

But, one has to tell oneself that that Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) maintains an eagle-eyed watch on the gas drillers, highly respected, reputable agency that it is.

By the way, I've yet to get an answer from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to the questions I submitted via their website.

In the meantime, I got most of the answers via other means.

But one HUGE question remains. As in, how is the water being taken from the Trinity River being metered?

Information I found on the TCEQ indicates that water taken via the means it's being taken from the Trinity River by gas drillers, must be metered.

I'm thinking that it is the inability to answer my meter question that has kept TCEQ mute.