Benzene & Arsenic Added To Fort Worth's Trinity River Chemical Stew

As 2017 was drawing to a close we learned Why Fort Worth Has Developed An Identity Crisis.

The City of Fort Worth spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a study studying why corporations did not want to locate their corporate headquarters in Fort Worth, particularly downtown Fort Worth.

It seemed to many that the better question to ask is why is Fort Worth such a backwards backwater, and what can be done to change that fact?

In the weeks following the revelation that Fort Worth has an identity crisis there were a few followup blog posts in which a light was shined on some of the reasons for the Fort Worth backwards backwater malady, such as America's Biggest Boondoggle Roars Into 2018 With Fort Worth Cultural Significance

and

 Star-Telegram Embarrassing Fort Worth Dallas Rivalry Editorial.

Yesterday Elsie Hotpepper pointed to an article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Contaminated groundwater seeping into the Trinity River from this spot needs costly fix, which informs us of yet one more reason corporations are not attracted to locating their headquarters in Fort Worth.

The information in this article is a bit jaw dropping, revealing it has been long known that dangerous, cancer causing chemicals were leaking into the Trinity River. The leaking location is slightly downriver from the location were Fort Worth bizarrely encourages its desperate for water based entertainment citizens to float in the polluted Trinity River during summer season Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats, which is yet one more backwards backwater Fort Worth thing which would make a corporation leery about being linked to this town.

And bizarrely, at the end of this Star-Telegram article there is what appears to be some sort of advertisement for floating in the river the article is informing us is flowing with cancer causing toxins. That is a screen cap of this bizarre video advertisement. Look at that and then we will continue on with the rest of this story.

Some choice paragraphs from the contaminated groundwater article for the enlightenment of any corporation considering locating at this location...

It’s been nearly a year since environmental consultants provided the city with a report on the long-known issue of groundwater contamination seeping into the Trinity River at the south end of its Brennan Avenue Service Center, but fixing the issue is not likely to happen anytime soon.

Whenever it does, taxpayers can expect to foot an expensive bill to solve an environmental issue that no one can completely pinpoint the source of or when it started happening. The city’s land was and the surrounding properties have been used by oil refineries for more than a century.

This bill will be on top of the money the city has already spent to remove contaminated soil and leaking oil storage tanks on its property since the 1990s. Groundwater monitoring has been done since, but levels didn’t start exceeding acceptable regulated levels until a few years ago, triggering this latest review.

The cancer-causing contaminates apparently are not all coming from the city’s property, but are believed to also be seeping into the groundwater from adjacent and nearby properties that over years housed tank farms for oil refineries and other industries, some that date to the early 1900s.

Benzene and arsenic contamination from leaking tanks on the city-owned property was discovered several years ago. In 1991, soil and underground tanks were removed and the issue cleared from the city’s property. However, from August 2013 to December 2015, benzene, arsenic and other chemicals were detected in most of the 21 monitoring wells in the area.

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Now Fort Worth's happy river floaters will have to consider that, in addition to the e.coli and alligators, you might also be floating with benzene and arsenic.

Multiple entities commented on the contamination. Three of those comments...

Steve Crow
Wouldn't you think this would be the first thing you'd clean up before starting the Trinity River Project?

Michelle Love ·
Tarrant County College
Gee, the only info missing from this story is an assessment of the health hazards to the public who use the Trinity River.

Safety on North Sylvania Avenue
Despite knowing this, the Trinity is being stocked with fish for people to catch and events are held that encourage people to get in the river? Sure doesn’t sound safe.

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Yeah, wouldn't you think cleaning up a seriously polluted river would be what you would do before re-engineering the river with an ill-fated economic development scheme designed to line the pockets of those who own property whose value would be enhanced if the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision ever became something someone could see?

What has become known as America's Biggest Boondoggle began boondoggling along way back in 2002. In 2005 Kay Granger's unqualified son, J.D., was plucked from his job as an assistant attorney of some sort, to be the Executive Director of what was then called the Trinity River Vision Authority. At that point in time, 2005, Kay's boy was paid around $100,000.00 a year. We all recently learned J.D. has been getting large yearly raises for a job not well done, and now makes around $200,000.00 a year, for mis-directing a project in slow motion, year after year after year.

Is this Trinity River contamination zone in the area being messed up by the Boondoggle? Is it on the imaginary island? Or downstream from the chunk of land which the Boondoggle is trying to connect Fort Worth's mainland to with three simple little bridges built over dry land with a construction timeline longer than it took to build the Golden Gate Bridge and dig the Panama Canal, with both those engineering feats involving actual, real water?

Years ago I remember opining that if bulldozers ever began scraping the dirt on that imaginary island it would likely turn into an EPA Super Fund site after bad things, long buried, were uncovered...