A Fosdic Lake Gas Drilling Rig, Sinkhole Filling Operation & White Tree Buds

A Barnett Shale Natural Gas Drilling Rig hovered above Fosdic Lake in Oakland Lake Park today.

The hovering gas rig was the first interesting thing I saw when I drove in to East Fort Worth's best park today.

Or second or third best park in East Fort Worth. I forgot about Gateway Park. And the Tandy Hills Natural Area.

But both the Tandy Hills and Gateway Park are further west.

I have just decided that Oakland Boulevard is the arbitrary dividing line that is where East Fort Worth begins, which does make Oakland Lake Park the best park in East Fort Worth.

A week or so ago I found a sinkhole on the west side of Fosdic Lake. Within a couple days the growing Fosdic Sinkhole was surrounded by crime scene type tape to prevent anyone from sinking into the Fosdic Sinkhole.

Today I was surprised to see a crew filling the Fosdic Sinkhole.

What fortuitous timing, on my part, to happen to be in Oakland Lake Park right when this operation was underway.

Now, I am no Sinkhole Engineer, but, as a rank amateur, as far as the Science of Sinkholes goes, I think one should find out what is causing a sinkhole, rather than simply filling the hole with dirt. That just seems sort of common sensical.

It will be interesting to see if the Fosdic Sinkhole now reappears. I will try and closely monitor the sinking situation.

Today while I was walking around Fosdic Lake I noticed several trees have had white buds spring out on them.

The picture I took of the buds does not do justice to how cool and sort of otherworldly the white buds looked.

Even though we chilled to around 20 last night here in North Texas, apparently some trees are somehow getting the message that spring will soon be here and it is time to start sending out some new growth.

I hope further freezing does not nip this budding trend in the bud.

Another Texas Sinkhole, This Time In Weatherford

Early this morning a sinkhole popped open in Weatherford. Weatherford is about 25 miles west of Fort Worth.

Several things are memorable, to me, about Weatherford.

First off, on my first visit to Texas I got the worst case of food poisoning I'd ever suffered, courtesy of a tainted burger from a cafe on the Parker County Courthouse square.

Weatherford is memorable as the burial site of Oliver Loving, drug back to Weatherford for burial by his best friend, Charles Goodnight, in an incident made famous, in fictional form, in Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove.

And Weatherford is memorable to me due to being the location of the Parker County Peach Festival, one of the best I've been to, with this year's festival fast approaching on Saturday, July 10.

This morning Weatherford woke up to a problem that needs a fix before the Peach Festival opens. A big sinkhole opened up by the intersection of Highway 180 and Sante Fe Drive, right on the path of people making their way to the Parker County Peach Festival.

Several roads have been closed.

The sinkhole is currently 10 feet deep and 30 feet across.

I am very wary of bringing up the subject of another Texas sinkhole. The last time this subject came up it was in regards to the Wink Sinkhole. That turned into a raging debate between Gar the Texan and the Queen of Wink as to the source of the Wink Sinkhole water.

I do not know if the Weatherford Sinkhole is going to be equally controversial. If it grows as big as the Wink Sinkholes, Weatherford will be facing one seriously HUGE problem.

Is The Trinity Hole A Trinity River Levee Sinkhole In The Making?

I know I've mentioned it before, but to refresh your memory, 2 Saturday's ago I had a weird run-in with an Express Energy truck at the site of a water pumping operation in Fort Worth, on the Trinity Trails that run into Gateway Park.

After I had the run-in, I blogged about it, with pictures of the Express Energy truck barreling towards me on the paved pedestrian, no vehicles allowed, trail.

Soon after I blogged about the ugly incident, orange traffic cones were placed on the trail, with a sign saying "Utility Work Ahead." The traffic cones blocked the Express Energy trucks from driving on the Trinity Trail.

This morning I got a comment from "Anonymous" to the blogging about the Saturday Express Energy truck incident.

Anonymous said...

"DO ANY OF YOU HAVE A REAL JOB? walking around a park? huh? if your worried about the pavement being muddy? start by picking up the trash and dead bodies that are at the end of the hill... wheres the pics of that?"

Dead bodies? At the end of the hill? The hill reference sort of indicates this is an Express Energy person, aka shill. It's been pretty clear someone at Express Energy has been reading what I was saying about them every since I started saying stuff about them.

The best example of that came when I blogged about there being no permits posted. I then got a comment telling me there were permits posted, among other things. I quickly checked the site, to find no permits. And had my first encounter with Express Energy trucks.

After reading today's rather illiterate comment (I Ieft it as written, except for removing profanity) I decided I'd not been to the Express Energy 6 pump Trinity River water sucking site in awhile. So, today that is where I took one of those walks, which Anonymous finds perplexing that someone would do such a thing. In a park.

Well, there has been no attempt to fix the muddied, rutted, Trinity River levee. Maybe the water suckers are coming back, so what would be the point of fixing anything?

As you can in the picture, the levee got rutted up some more due to the Express Energy trucks being blocked by those orange traffic cones.

But, it was not the mud and ruts that surprised me today. Those I expected to see.

It is what the geologist, who walked with me today, found that was a bit unsettling, and, well, strange.

If you look at the picture at the top you will see a large hole. This large hole is about 100 feet west of the pedestrian bridge that takes you to Gateway Park. The large hole is on the north side of the paved trail, slightly south of the new "road" muddied in by Express Energy.

The Trinity Hole was weird to look into. My first reaction was how do I know that I'm not standing on a very thin layer of earth, with the Trinity Hole just being a little eye into the cavern?

My geologist co-walker said it looked like the beginning of a sinkhole. That it appeared that water had found its way into the levee and had eroded the hole.

The Trinity Hole is near where there was a leak in the pipeline, during the Express Energy water pumping. I took a picture of that leak on the Saturday I had the face-off with the Express Energy truck.

Looking in to the Trinity Hole it was too dark to see anything. So, I aimed my camera down the hole and took a flash picture. It looks like there's a bottom to the hole. Or maybe that is mud. It's such a perfect circle it looks as if something mechanical bored the hole. But why would anyone be boring holes, like this, into a river levee?

Very perplexing.