The Fort Worth City Council is on the cusp of allowing toxic chemical injection wells to be drilled all over our city, under the misguided idea that it will somehow save our streets from truck traffic. (the very same streets that they cannot seem to get repaired anyway), (See Star Telegram article http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/10/03/3416870/fort-worth-remains-way-behind.html#my-headlines-default). Hopefully the public will see through the scam and realize that they still have to use our streets to get to the disposal wells no matter where they are located, saving nothing and moving further toward making Fort Worth an industrialized city.
How did we get to this point? Well, right after Danny Scarth was elected the first time around, and with gas driller's money, Four 7’s/Chesapeake wanted to drill a toxic chemical injection well (more commonly and incorrectly called a salt water injection well) in east Fort Worth at the intersection of East First Street and Randol Mill Road. They applied for a permit to drill such a well with the Texas Railroad Commission (TxRRC) in Austin, which instigated a series of actions from the Commission, not the least of which was a notice to the City of Fort Worth that the city had the right and opportunity to object to, and protest, the drilling of the toxic waste disposal well before it was drilled.
As you can most probably guess, the city’s legal office notified all of the “appropriate” people, to include Danny Scarth, of this “opportunity” to keep the disposal well out of our city. (Wait for it.....you knew the answer already didn’t you?) Instead of doing the right thing to keep this toxic waste dump out of our city, people in control chose to ignore the right to protest the disposal well and Chesapeake was allowed to drill very quietly and covertly. What was told to the gullible public was that Chesapeake/Four 7’s was able to get the well drilled just shortly before we instituted a moratorium on disposal wells in the city, and we were therefore unable to stop the well from being drilled. The story from Danny Scarth to the Greater Meadowbrook News, was that the disposal well was permitted before he was elected as District 4 council (sic) representative. Both stories were, of course….less than the truth!
In any case, even after the disposal well was drilled and completed, Chesapeake still had a serious problem to deal with. Even though our city had not protested the well, and they were allowed to drill, our current gas drilling ordinance in effect at the time clearly stated that a producer, nor anyone, could dispose of any material in an injection well, except what was produced from gas wells on the SAME lease as the disposal well. The serious problem for Chesapeake? There were no gas wells on the same lease as their one (1) disposal well. The city’s environmental office, run by Bryan Boerner at the time (who is now a Chesapeake employee), specifically told Chesapeake in writing they could not use the well to dispose of flow back water and chemicals from other wells in east Fort Worth without being in violation of our Gas Drilling Ordinance.
In typical Fort Worth fashion (known today as “the Fort Worth Way,” Danny Scarth and then Mayor Moncrief began a campaign with city staff support, to remove that little handicap from our gas drilling ordinance when it was re-written this last time. The day after the new gas drilling ordinance was adopted by the City Council, Chesapeake began trucking in toxic waste to the one disposal well in Fort Worth.
This has also gotten us to the point of complete approval of disposal wells all over our city, which has been the ultimate goal of Chesapeake and those in city government who support gas drilling at the cost of anyone or anything in our city. If the citizens of Fort Worth allow this, say goodbye to our great city and to Cowtown as we know it. NO JOKE!
When I questioned Danny about this a fiew years ago Danny replyed to me "that he liked air conditioning"
ReplyDeletehe also went on to say that "he was told that this was "salt water" by experts.
Unfortunately, among other things Danny is also a liar. He knows very well that the flow back water has a very bad chemical coctail mixture in addition to a saline level that will kill animals who drink it.
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