Dilbert is a Dip Wad....So is Danny

Perhaps we can convince Betsy Price to take a big ol swig of this "salt water."  After all.....Danny Scarth says it's no worse than getting some sea water in your mouth and swallowing!

BETSY - GIRLFRIEND....WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?

Here is just one of the videos wherein Betsy Price stated that the city needed to work with citizens and neighborhoods to make sure that gas drilling in our city was done right and safely.  On Tuesday the entire City Council abdicated their responsibility to the citizens of this city by not allowing citizens to have "REAL" input into changing the gas drilling ordinance, or correcting mistakes of the past......preferring instead to support this industrial...dangerous activity in neighborhoods and close to schools, day care centers and generally anywhere people live work, and play.

As a matter of pure fact, every single returning council member (and Betsy) promised in May (before the election of course) that they would support a more comprehensive gas drilling ordinance, and allow citizens to take a leadership role in writing an ordinance that more completely protects citizens, our water and our air.  Allowing for greater set-backs and more responsible drilling rules.  Well....obviously that did not happen yesterday 10/25/2011, so perhaps you should read the article just below this one and ask yourself the same question.  "Do you really want to leave something this important up to a City Council that has so completely demonstrated that they care not what you think or what is important to you and your family's health and safety?"  OH...and I hope that you now understand that a council member (to include the mayor) "saying" a thing and actually "doing" something about it is a vast sea of toxic chemicals, polluted water and dirty air!

Why would you even start to believe anything this council has to say about drilling any longer when this latest ordeal was so obviously a scam from the very beginning.  Betsy Price promised the citizens that we would take a serious look at the ordinance and that the neighborhoods would be involved in that process.  So...what happened Betsy?

City Staff (in concert with Betsy, Zim Zimmerman and Danny Scarth) was allowed to present a rewrite of the Gas Drilling Ordinance without any input from neighborhoods or citizens that are currently being negatively impacted by this heavy industrial activity....with almost no limits on what they can do or where.  AND what did the city staff do?  They presented an unsolicited ordinance rewrite that THEY KNEW would not be acceptable to the gas drilling industry nor to the people of this city.  The ONLY city council member to rightfully suggest that the ordinance rewrite be postponed and to involve more citizens was Kathleen Hicks!  Good Lord God people...when will you wake up and catch the dummy?

ANY TAKERS NOW FOR A PETITION DRIVE?

WHY LEAVE IT UP TO THE CITY COUNCIL TO DO THE RIGHT THING?

Even if you did not know before now that our (Fort Worth or any Home Rule municipality) city charter and any amendments to it are governed by state law and not by our city ordinances and/or city procedures.  Below is a true and accurate reprint from the Texas Local Government Code, Chapter 9 "Home Rule Municipality."

Of particular note here is that a petition to amend our city charter only requires five percent (5%) of the registered voters in the city (less the hold list) in order to require that the city put an issue on the ballot for the citizens to vote on.  SO...my question is this.  Why are you waiting for the city council to do the right thing and put the issue of the number of single member council districts on the ballot for May of 2012?

While a petition may only contain one issue for amendment, just about anything may be put on the ballot for inclusion in our city charter....such as "retroactive term limits for city council members, mandatory set-backs for oil and gas production and no chemical disposal wells in the city limits.

The citizens of Fort Worth don't typically sit on their duffs and wait for others to do the right thing, so, the only question remaining now would be....."Where is the courage that the citizens of this city are so famous for?" 

§ 9.004. CHARTER AMENDMENTS.

(a) The governing body of a municipality on its own motion may submit a proposed charter amendment to the municipality's qualified voters for their approval at an election. The governing body shall submit a proposed charter amendment to the voters for their approval at an election if the submission is supported by a petition signed by a number of qualified voters of the municipality equal to at least five percent of the number of qualified voters of the municipality or 20,000,whichever number is the smaller.

(b) The ordinance ordering the election shall provide for the election to be held on the first authorized uniform election

date prescribed by the Election Code or on the earlier of the date of the next municipal general election or presidential generalelection. The election date must allow sufficient time to complywith other requirements of law and must occur on or after the 30th day after the date the ordinance is adopted.

CONTINUE TO RISE UP IN PROTEST UNTIL LAMBS BECOME LIONS!

IT IS THE AMERICAN WAY!

Fort Worth Proposes Lifting Ban On Gas Drilling Disposal Wells

Shelley Kofler, KERA News (2011-10-18

DALLAS, TX (KERA) - Fort Worth is considering a change in its gas drilling ordinance that would allow wastewater disposal wells within the City limits. KERA's Shelley Kofler says the issue is expected to draw heated debate during a public hearing tonight.

Millions of gallons for water are used for the hydraulic fracturing of a gas well, and the gas production that follows. Much of that water becomes contaminated with drilling chemicals and salt and is typically disposed of in deep underground wells.

Some five years ago Fort Worth banned drilling companies from locating the wastewater disposal wells within City limits. But the City is now proposing that moratorium be lifted.

City spokesman Jason Lamers says the wells would solve problems that come from transporting the toxic water.

Lamers: Truck traffic has been a continual issue from the very beginning with gas drilling. That truck traffic has a lot to do with shipping salt water outside of the City limits.

Lamers says the City would limit the wastewater wells to industrial areas, but a number of community groups say that's not enough to make the wells safe.

Gary Hogan of the North Central Texas Communities Alliance worries about ground water pollution and the safety of pipelines that would carry the wastewater to the wells.

Hogan: You know we have water main breaks all over Texas because our ground shifts so much. If we ever had one of these production water pipelines break like we have a water line break this toxic brew could go anywhere and it would literally sterilize the earth.

Hogan's group and the Fort Worth League of Neighborhoods want the City to keep the moratorium on wastewater disposal wells in place while it looks at technology that could clean up and reuse the water.

The public has a chance to be heard on changes to the drilling ordinance at a City council meeting beginning at 7:00 pm Tuesday tonight. The Fort Worth Council is scheduled to adopt the changes next week.

League of Neighborhoods Against Chemical Injection Wells

By Libby Willis

Special to the Star-Telegram

 
After a 10-year moratorium, the Fort Worth City Council appears poised to approve locating underground wastewater disposal wells inside the city in areas zoned I, J and K.
 
They could be 1,000 feet from a protected use [note: could] -- such as your home -- but would require council approval if they were closer than 1,000 feet. Also called "saltwater" wells, these are dump sites for the cocktail of water, sand and fluid used in natural gas hydraulic fracturing operations. There is evidence that some of the "frack" fluids in this wastewater are toxic.
 
The question is "What has changed that would prompt the city to consider allowing the placement of such wells?" Ironically, there appear to be more concerns now about the wastewater produced in the fracking process and the disposal wells than there were even five years ago.
 
In early August, the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission banned fracking disposal wells in central Arkansas, near the communities of Greenbrier and Guy and for a 1,150-square-mile radius because of earthquakes. A state geologist reported evidence that certain earthquakes occurred when massive amounts of waste were put in disposal wells in the affected area.
 
Last year, a study of seismic activity near Dallas/Fort Worth Airport by Southern Methodist University and University of Texas at Austin researchers showed that wastewater disposal wells were a "plausible cause" for the series of small earthquakes that occurred in the area between October 2008 and May 2009. A state tectonic map showed a northeast-trending fault intersects the Dallas-Tarrant county line approximately at the place where the DFW quakes occurred. A wastewater disposal well was placed on or near that fault.
 
When the injections stopped, the quakes stopped.
 
Earthquakes caused by wells sited over or close to fault lines, potential for leaks and spills of the chemically laced frack water, potential for contamination of well water or ground water, resident radiation in the frack water, corrosion of the pipelines that could be carrying the water from the well site to a disposal well -- the list goes on and on for why it's hard to love the idea of wastewater disposal wells inside any metropolitan area.
 
Are either disposal wells or the trucking of contaminated water out of the city the only two options available? Not according to cutting-edge industry that is promoting mobile evaporative units to treat the frack water in Pennsylvania. The units are able to return some of that water to be recycled.
 
We are living in a historic drought when some cities in our area have begun to ban fracking during the summer months as well as banning the use of city water for fracking. Water conservation is an ongoing concern. Can we afford to put millions of gallons of contaminated water underground and just leave it there, lost forever?

 

The Fort Worth League of Neighborhoods has commented on all the proposed revisions to the city's Gas Drilling Ordinance (http://www.fwlna.org/).

 

We recommend that the city continue its moratorium on wastewater disposal wells and encourage the use of new technology to deal with the issue. We would like for Fort Worth to be able to say that it supports the production of "cleaner-burning" natural gas in a manner consistent with our obligation to be effective stewards of local natural resources and to have firm oversight of those business activities which may adversely affect the health, safety and economic welfare of our citizens.

 
Libby Willis is president of the Fort Worth League of Neighborhoods.

HOW TO SCAM THE PUBLIC INTO ACCEPTING A TOXIC WASTE DUMP

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!

FORT WORTH ROAD FOLLIES

"The bottom line is not how we got here, it's how we go forward," Price said. "If nothing else, it's a start in the right direction. We have a much stronger will on the council to make this happen."

SORRY MAYOR, but that is exactly the "bottom line!"  As the old saying goes (to paraphrase), those who will not learn from the past are doomed to relive it.  That is apparently ALL we do in Fort Worth.  We constantly rehash old problems because we have a city council (mostly staff) that cannot seem to get their heads on straight.  All too often their "start in the right direction" is just that....a start with no ending in sight.

The city council of the past has said how important public transportation is to the economic growth of our city, and now don't seem to understand that our city streets and major arterial streets ARE "public transportation" first and foremost.  Year after year (actually election after election) the people of Fort Worth proclaim that our streets are the most important issue in their lives...and yet we still have a city council that has not only ignored the problem, they blatantly allowed money that YOU authorized to sit there unused.   Is it any wonder that people think our city staff and many on the council are like silly geese that seem to wake up to a new world everyday?

A very quick look at what Danny (I'll fix your roads) Scarth promised the people of Fort Worth in 2006....repeat 2006! Which is so obviously more than 2 elections! (http://www.youtube.com/user/dannyscarth?blend=7&ob=5).  Although Danny isn't by himself in these promises, he is most accountable because of this very public video....that everyone should be required to memorize.

I would only ask that people who read this remember that while this money "sat in the bank" unused, the city council voted to increase our WATER BILLS for storm water improvements and at least 3 increases in our garbage collection costs.  We no longer have a water bill, it is now a separate tax bill!