Who Is Testing The Rockin' The Trinity River Water Where The Happy Hour Inner Tubers Float?

I was looking at the Party Pics section of DFW.com ink edition's photos of the latest Trinity River Vision Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Float and thought to myself that this sure looks fun, and surely must be the biggest number of bikinis on display in one concentrated location in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.

I also thought to myself that I wish I was able to believe that the Trinity River was not way too polluted to go floating in, so I could feel all right about joining in in the regularly scheduled Thursday floating fun.

Last year, on September 22, 2011, to be precise, WFAA Channel 8 had a story titled Questions about Trinity River water quality.

To find out if the Trinity River water quality was safe to float in, WFAA hired an independent water tester to test the water where the TRV happy hour inner tube floaters float and also the water in the Cowtown Wakepark pond where wakeboarders get wet.

Somehow the Wakepark pond tested safe. The Rockin' the River area did not test safe.

Part of the WFAA article...

One of two samples at the tubing area was enough to make you sick. The sample found 387 E. coli organisms per 100 milliliters of river water. That's well above what the Environmental Protection Agency recommends as acceptable for a single sample.

An environmental scientist at the University of North Texas, Dr. Joon-hak Lee, said more samples are needed at all sampling locations to protect the public.

In response to last year's WFAA Trinity River dirty water expose, the project manager for the Trinity River Vision Authority, Woody Frossard, said the Trinity River Water District was going to start testing the tubing and wakeboard pond areas regularly, starting last fall.

Has this been done? Has the TRWD been doing testing? If so, what are the results? Does the floating public not have the right to know the results of any testing a public agency does on the water in this controversial river?

Looking At A Cloudy Downtown Fort Worth With A River Running Through It With Too Much E. Coli According To WFAA

It looks like Summer may be going out with a bang in this parched part of the planet. I have seen a drop or two of falling water splatted to earth. I think I may have heard thunder rumbling far in the distance.

Summer must not have gotten the memo that Fall, also known as Autumn, starts tomorrow, and has accidentally jumped the gun by giving us weather from another season, today, on the last day of Summer.

The Weather Underground is currently saying it is only 74 degrees at the current moment, at about 3 in the afternoon, at my location in North Texas. The Weather Underground is also claiming that a light rain is falling.

Continuing with our constant weather theme, in the picture above you are looking at the stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Fort Worth, today, in the noon time frame. As you can see, there is some cloud action hovering over downtown Fort Worth.

Downtown Fort Worth seems to always have a cloud hanging over it, but the majority of the time it is a metaphoric cloud, not an actual cloud.

Like currently downtown Fort Worth is having to deal with the fact that entities in downtown Fort Worth have been encouraging people to participate in Happy Hours floating on inner tubes in the Trinity River. This happened every other Thursday during most of the summer months.

Entities in downtown Fort Worth indicated that the Trinity River was perfectly non-polluted and safe for human floating activity.

However, this morning I learned, via my primary new news source, that being the Lone Star-Telegraph, that WFAA, Channel 8, the ABC affiliate serving the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, in an on-air and on-line news piece titled "Questions about Trinity River water quality" that there are testing indications that indicate one might want to take a moment to consider the relative wisdom of having yourself a real fine time floating in the Trinity River.

Here's a blurb from the WFAA news....

WFAA hired Ana-Lab to test for E. coli, which indicates excrement from humans or warm-blooded animals in the water. It can indicate harmful bacteria. Two samples at the wakeboard park found virtually no E. coli. One of two samples at the tubing area, however, was enough to make you sick.

Well, that seals the deal for me.

Come next summer, unless the Trinity River is somehow magically cleaned up, perhaps with the help of J.D. Granger's Magic Trees, I will likely be doing no Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floating in downtown Fort Worth.