WILLFUL IGNORANCE PUTS FORT WORTH CITIZENS AT RISK

Opium Poppy

There is a political "process" going on in our city that is the most ominous in Fort Worth's history.  Councilman Sal Espino is being pushed by city staff and Hillwood Development (see Ross Perot, Jr.) into allowing toxic chemical injection wells within our city limits.

A great deal of misinformation and sometimes outright lies are being presented by City Staff and Hillwood, during what the city is advertising as "community meetings" to help you understand the issues of chemical injection wells in our city for the natural gas drilling industry.  Accompanying this effort by Sal Espino, city staff and Hillwood Development, Hillwood International Energy, Qucksilver and Range Resources....is a city initiated "Spin Machine" in full tilt.....intended to placate Hillwood Development and the spoiled little brats they call company management.  It can certainly be said that Hillwood and Ross Perot, Jr. are just attempting to push around the citizens of Fort Worth like they did the small community of Westlake a few years back.  And of course threatening Sal Espino and others with political backlash if they don't  play along with them is simply the way Hillwood operates.

I attended my first of the "public meetings" on January 26th and can tell you that the public has no opportunity to participate in the process at all.  IF you attend one, and you should certainly do that, you will note that the meeting is little more than a "sales effort" intended to convince the public that these toxic injection facilities will somehow benefit you and your children.....or at least benefit Hillwood Development/Hillwood International Energy in north Fort Worth and you by default because these two companies care SO much about you and your family.  Most importantly they want you to believe that it will benefit YOU in some way by injecting toxic chemicals into the ground and installing miles and miles of pipelines to carry these toxic chemicals and somehow save your neighborhood streets.  Fort Worthians have a saying for this that is time tested........Horse hockey!

As a participant at these "sales meetings" the citizens are not allowed to comment, but instead are encouraged to present "questions and concerns" to be answered at the end of the presentations.  The purpose of this process going forward in this way is to answer objections as they come up, and by the end of all the public meetings the "presentation" will be fine tuned to answer all the possible objections the public might come up with.....and they certainly don't want YOUR COMMENTS on video to muddy the waters.  The answers the city staff will ultimately present to the public and city council may or may not be true, but because the process is already so biased it simply cannot by definition benefit you or your community.

The first HUGE LIE (and certainly not the only one) that citizens must get past at these "meetings" is that the proposed "injection wells" are just there to dispose of "salt water."  After all, most people have taken a splash in the ocean and what could be wrong with that?  Well to start with it is a lie and a misstatement of what actually is injected into Mother Earth.  In comparison, it is paramount to saying that Opium (and their derivatives Morphine and Heroin) are just pretty flowers so why be concerned....after all we've all seen pretty flowers haven't we?

One of the primary reasons for (they say) allowing chemical injection wells within our city is that they will save our city streets from heavy truck traffic hauling produced water from the gas wells, claiming that 100 gas wells will produce 20,000 truck trips per year.  Sounds like a lot doesn't it?

First, when they haul this garbage out of our city they don't use city streets to do that...they use the interstate highways.  Second, by the time trucks are needed to haul produced water away there have already been 115,000 truck trips for the same 100 wells on our city streets to prepare the well site and complete the process through the first "fracking" of the public.  Where is the concern for our city streets during all that?  Why aren't gas producers held responsible for destroying our city streets during this process instead of ONLY being concerned about hauling water away from an already completed well site?

Thankfully we have two community members (League of Women Voters of Tarrant County and the Fort Worth League of Neighborhoods) on this "panel" addressing community concerns and they are doing a wonderful job of bringing out all of the false assumptions with these proposed wells.  LISTEN TO THEM...and then contact Sal Espino and the Mayor and tell them you are tired of being dumped on and lied to........

Otherwise....just accept their conclusion that you are in fact....stupid!