Fort Worth Star-Telegram Reporting Perplexing Parking Lot Paving & Barnett Shale Driller Water Destruction

Has there been some sort of change take place within the inner workings of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram?

Have the powers that be, who run that paper, decided that it was time to start acting like a real newspaper, instead of a propaganda shill for the Good Ol' Boy & Girl Network which tries to run Fort Worth, with, it seems, diminishing success?

Of late the Star-Telegram has had articles critical of the Fort Worth City Council's kowtowing to RadioShack.

There has been some honest coverage of the problems being created, air pollution-wise, by the drilling in the Barnett Shale. And the corruption of the state agencies who's supposed job it is to over see drilling practices in Texas.

And now today, there are 2 articles on two subjects I would not have expected to see in the Star-Telegram a year or two ago.

One article is about the absurdity of spending thousands of dollars to pave the parking lot of one of the Fort Worth city pools that are now closed due to budget woes.

In the limited range that my eyes see, I've made note of similar things that seem odd. Like the sprucing up of my neighborhood library parking lot. At the same time library hours are cut.

And just last week a big Fort Worth city road work crew resurfaced the road I take to get to the Tandy Hills and Oakland Lake Park, re-surfacing and re-striping Bridge Street from Oakland Avenue to the east. Like I said, I drive this road often. I'd not made note of it being in need of help. Why re-surface Bridge Street? Why now?

And then the big surprise in the Star-Telegram today. An article about well water gone bad soon after a Barnett Shale drilling operation pokes a hole in the nearby ground.

This type water contamination has been being reported for a long time now, in other venues. And now the Star-Telegram seems to be getting the fact that this is a really bad thing.

That photo at the top is from the Star-Telegram article, showing the orange stain left behind by the formerly clear water. Linda Scoma, who lives near Crowley, in rural Johnson County, had made note of the fact that her well water had taken on an odd odor. She worried something had gone wrong. And then Linda washed her hair to find it turned orange. From that point on there was no denying she had a serious problem

Gas Drilling Propagandists continue to deny their hole poking is polluting underground water. No matter how many times it has happened and how many times the well water has been tested to find that it contains the same chemicals that the gas drillers are squirting into the obviously leaky drill well pipe casings. That are then making their way into people's water supplies.

And rendering the water unsafe to use.

It's all appalling and perplexing and it pleases me the Star-Telegram is finally getting around to reporting on this nasty stuff that is happening to people here in North Texas.