Everybody In Fort Worth Loves That New Rig Smell

Yesterday I was shocked, shocked I tell you, when Someone Else opined, via a blog comment, that he or she felt I was perennially negative about the city that calls itself Fort Worth, even though there is no fort in Fort Worth, which is just one more example of how the town tends to misrepresent itself.

Gone looking for Sundance Square lately in downtown Fort Worth?

The fact of the matter, regarding Fort Worth, is that there are some things that go on in this town that, when one describes them accurately, it really can not be done in a positive way, if you want to be truthful.

Take the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle, for example. A billion dollar public works project that the public has not voted on. A public works project of very dubious value, destroying river levees that have functioned well for over a half a century, replacing the levees with an un-needed flood diversion channel and adding a little lake to the north side of downtown Fort Worth, where currently the Clear and West forks of the Trinity River merge.

And to give Fort Worth Congresswoman, Kay Granger's son, J.D., a job running the project, with that job currently being America's worst example of nepotism.

And then we have Fort Worth being the world's big city test tube experiment for allowing thousands of holes to be poked in its ground to fracture shale to produce natural gas, and then move that un-odorized natural gas, under the city, in hundreds of miles of pipeline.

Last night I got an email from Don Young which I imagine Someone Else would characterize as being negative about Fort Worth, when in reality the message is actually a plea for civic sanity from a lifelong Fort Worth citizen who is appalled at what he sees happening to the town he lives  in.

Below is what Don Young had to say, along with 3 links to what some other people had to say about that which goes on in Fort Worth....

Only in Fort Worth would such an arrogant message via a giant billboard sprout in the heart of downtown.

The people that run Fort Worth (FW), Texas, the 16th most populous city in the USA, are hell bent on helping FW become the dumbest large city in the USA. Here's a short list of their accomplishments:

- FW was the first large city in the USA to allow natural gas (NG) drilling in all neighborhoods regardless of zoning class.

- FW has more UN-ODORIZED NG pipelines in neighborhoods than any large city in the USA.

- FW is the first large city in the USA to allow an UN-ODORIZED NG pipeline in the downtown corridor.

This new billboard in the downtown FW, just a few hundred feet from I-30, reinforces the fact that Fort Worth is out of touch with reality as Chesapeake completes installation of the downtown pipeline. 

The real dangers and risks to public health and the environment are well known as these recent reports confirm. Please educate yourself, raise hell and/or move out of the shale patch, if you can.

An Exploratory Study of Air Quality Near NG Operations

Filming Dirty Air

Flowback: How the Texas NG Boom Affects Health and Safety

DY

Notes From The Underground About Potentially Explosive Fort Worth Pipelines

A couple weeks ago I mentioned getting a letter from Chesapeake Energy in which I was informed that Chesapeake Energy would be installing a gas pipeline to carry gas from my newest neighborhood gas pad to wherever it is gas goes.

Chesapeake Energy neglected to mentioned that this would be non-odorized, as in totally natural natural gas, that would be passing through the pipeline by where I live.

The pipeline insertion operation has been underway for days now. The operation is a bit noisy and messy.

That is part of the pipeline operation you are looking at in the photo above. With pipeline waiting to go underground, laying on the west side of Bridgewood Drive in Far East Fort Worth.

This morning Don Young email blasted some Notes from the Underground which blasted the surprising number of surprising places, in Fort Worth, that pipeline is proposed to be stuck underground to carry non-odorized natural gas.

Fort Worth has more gas pads (by far) with more fracking (by far) inside its city limits than any other city in the world. We in Fort Worth are very proud of this, even though it does cause other towns, far and wide, to be Green with Envy. Fort Worth is very self-conscious about its tendency to cause other towns to be Green with Envy.

You can read Don Young's Notes from the Underground on FWCANDO. Below is the first paragraph of what the Underground wants you to know....

What do the following high-profile locations in Fort Worth, Texas have in common? - Forest Park (FW Zoo, miniature train, sports fields, Log Cabin Village) - Sycamore Park (Sports fields used by public and Texas Wesleyan University) - Gateway Park (FW Dog Park, sports fields, bike trail) - Trinity Park (Duck pond, picnic sites, playgrounds, concert site) - 7th Street corridor (Cultural District, museums, shops, cafes, high-rise apts.) These are just a few of the heavily-travelled places where large diameter, natural gas pipelines have been buried underground in recent months. These pipelines, servicing dozens of new gas wells in the area are filled with explosive, UN-odorized natural gas, straight from the padsites. This is what Barnett Shale frackers do while waiting for the inevitable rise in the price of natural gas. Build pipelines. Lots of them. In a densely populated city. Population: 758,738+. Right under your noses and right under your feet. It gets better... Jaw-dropping as it may seem, Chesapeake Energy is currently installing a NG pipeline along Lancaster Avenue, right downtown, that services a single Chesapeake gas well (Westgate padsite). Lancaster is one of the busiest thoroughfares in town. The U.S. Post Office, T&P railway station, Fort Worth Water Gardens, I-30 and numerous offices, apartments and hotels straddle the pipeline, just a few steps away.