So Far North Texas Has No Modern Day Ghost Towns Like Centralia Pennsylvania

In North Texas we have the Barnett Shale.

In Pennsylvania they have the Marcellus Shale.

Many of the same Shale drillers who poke holes in North Texas are also doing so in Pennsylvania, like Chesapeake Energy.

Some people are of the opinion that Texas is an Environmental Wasteland, that reputation earned by things like the world's biggest experiment in urban gas drilling, that being the thousand of Barnett Shale Natural Gas Wells that have been poked in Fort Worth and Tarrant County.

While some may think Texas is a bit irresponsible, methinks Pennsylvania outdoes Texas in the Environmental Wasteland area.

Pennsylvania actually has a town named Frackville. No, it was not named to honor all the fracking taking place in the Marcellus Shale.

Frackville sprang up at the time of the start of the Civil War, 1861, and was incorporated in 1876, the year of America's 1st Centennial, well over 100 years before Aubrey McClendon's greedy beady eyes started looking for places to do damage to the planet.

A very short distance from Frackville, walking distance if your idea of walking distance is around 8 miles, is the former town of Centralia.

Centralia is a rarity in America. A modern day Ghost Town.

Centralia was doing just fine as a mining town, with, at times in its history, up to a couple thousand residents.

The Sprawling Centralia Mine Fire

And then, in 1962, a fire began. No one knows what started the fire. There are several theories. The fire continues to burn to this day, 50 years later.

The fire that turned Centralia into a Ghost Town is burning in a coal vein under that town.

People continued to live in Centralia, though the earth under them was burning.

Eventually the fire got too big and too hot, to the point that Centrailia was no longer fit for human habitation.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in 1992, began condemning Centralia property by eminent domain. Some fought having their property taken.

The most recent count has 10 or 11 people still living in Centralia.

I had not heard of this particular ecological disaster til a couple days ago.

Read the Wikipedia article about Centralia, Pennsylvania to get a much better idea than I can convey of how bad it can get if underground ignitables get inflamed.

Up Early In Texas Thinking About Marcellus Shale Gas Drillers Disposing Of Fracking Fluids In Pennsylvania Rivers

It is the early morning of the 4th day of 2011 in North Texas. It is currently 10 degrees above freezing.

It was some fluke of the ISO setting on my camera that rendered the dark pre-dawn sky an un-sky-like shade of blue.

That shade of blue is sort of the unnatural shade of blue that Chesapeake Energy Hydraulic Fracturing Water Ponds are colored.

Speaking of which, the Chesapeake pond at the northeast corner of Cooks Lane and Brentwood Stair has been drawn low of late. I thought that water was the final resting place of fracking fluid that has already done its fracking, not fracking fluid waiting to do its fracking.

As long as we are on this fracking subject, I read a disturbing article in this morning's Seattle Post-Intelligencer about disturbing fracking fluid practices of the Marcellus Shale gas drillers in Pennsylvania.

Apparently the Pennsylvania gas drillers have been disposing of their fracking fluids via the simple disposal method of dumping the liquid in Pennsylvania rivers.

I have read nary a word of this in the newspapers local to me in Texas. Do the local newspapers not want to give the local frackers any ideas?

And how do we know the local frackers are not surreptitiously disposing of their contaminated water in Texas rivers like the Trinity?

If the gas drillers are getting away with polluting Pennsylvania rivers, with those rivers in what I would think must be a more environmentally enlightened part of America than Texas, well, one can't help but wonder what those gas drillers might be getting away with in Texas, what with the Texas regulating agencies all co-opted by gas industry infiltration.

And with the state of Texas at odds with the federal agencies, like the EPA, who's job it is to see that bad stuff is not done to the air and water of America.

Is any testing done of the Trinity River to see if any nasty fracking fluids are floating towards the Gulf of Mexico? If not, why not?

It is so bizarre to me that over the past 30 years, or so, billions of federal dollars have been spent cleaning up Superfund sites. Those being dangerously polluted parts of America. And then to allow some industry to inject dangerous chemicals into underground storage, underground, where aquifers live, well, it just seems sort of obvious that at least one of those areas of injection, will become a Superfund site of the future that likely will dwarf the Superfund sites of the past.

Fracking and the gas drillers and the nasty stuff they spew into the air I breathe has been on my mind the past couple days due to myself having what seems like an allergic reaction to something. I am not an allergic type person.

But. For instance.

Last night I had a bizarre bout of sneezing, followed by watery, itchy eyes. I was unable to read. This morning all is fine. I live very close to a Chesapeake Energy Barnett Shale gas pad. As in it is less than 1000 feet distant.

Today I am going to get myself some over the counter anti-histamines. I hope drugging myself helps.

Aubrey McClendon Assaulted In Boston With A Solidarity Shout Out To Y'All in Texas

The Carter Avenue Rescue Operation today got a Solidarity "Y'all" shout out from Boston.

You know Boston, that Yankee town that had the first famous Tea Party.

Yankees are good at doing the protesting thing.

Yesterday, activists representing Marcellus Shale residents, got in Chesapeake Energy's CEO, Aubrey McClendon's, two faces, when he attempted to give a lecture titled, "Natural Gas: Fueling America's Clean Energy Future" at Harvard University.

Activists shouted from the audience, asking McClendon questions he did not want to answer.

McClendon gave up on his lecture 40 minutes early. He was clearly shaken by the angry, informed reaction.

One protester shoved a jar of dirty water at McClendon, saying it represented fracking water and asked McClendon if he was willing to drink it.

As McClendon fled the building he was serenaded with eco-protest songs.

One observer's personal account...

"McClendon was very rude. He mocked the people who were worried about health defects and got defensive and completely lost his composure when we were quick to respond to his sarcasm with solid responses. He is not a nice man, not at all. When we told him we were delivering messages from directly impacted communities, we were told to "keep our comments to just questions", so we asked him if he would be willing to listen to the voices of the people who are feeling the effects of his business, he said "I will only answer questions" so pretty much "No". People definitely got our message. We are considering this action a "win". Solidarity to yall from Boston."

I think I can speak for CARO when I say if Aubrey McClendon shows up at the Save Carter Avenue Rally, Thursday, March 4, on the Tarrant County Courthouse steps and wants to speak to the Rally to inform the people of Fort Worth that he has ordered Chesapeake Energy to drop its eminent domain assault on Steve Doeung and abandoned the plans to put a non-odorized natural gas pipeline under Carter Avenue, that the people at the Rally will greet him with huge round of Southern Hospitality.

And no one will try to get him to drink some Chesapeake Dirty Water.

What Is In The Barnett Shale Fracking Water?

Interesting natural gas drilling information about the chemicals used in the fracking process is coming out of Pennsylvania.

The upper Delaware region has a natural gas drilling operation underway, drilling into what is called the Marcellus Shale. Here in Fort Worth we call ours the Barnett Shale.

I don't know if Chesapeake Energy is drilling in the upper Delaware region, along with their patented over the top propaganda operation.

While the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection acknowledges that gas drillers may keep their fracking formulas secret, the individual ingredients are public record in Pennsylvania .

So, the Pennsylvania agency supplied a New York newspaper, The River Reporter, with a list of the chemicals used in the fracking process.

The River Reporter asked researchers at The Endocrine Disruption Exchange to analyze the chemicals for their effects on humans and animals.

The results are startling. There are 54 different chemicals used in the fracking process. The researchers broke it all down into charts and graphs representing the degree of health effects.

You can view that information here.

Marcellus Shale drillers claim the fracking process is safe in the Marcellus Shale because the fracking takes place below the water table.

Others say the lined wells have failed in the past, contaminating drinking water.

Here in the Barnett Shale zone, just recently, there were reports of a nursery in Parker County seeing its plants die due to their water being contaminated by a nearby drilling operation. Before that there were reports of a farm family, somewhere west of Fort Worth, the exact location of which I can't remember, having their water supply turn undrinkable, soon after a Barnett Shale natural gas drilling operation's fracking process took place.

I fear there is an environmental disaster of historical proportions in the future for those living above the Barnett and Marcellus and other Shales being drilled and fracked with dangerous chemicals.