FW CanDo!

We all have a place that inspires us to take a stand against Big Gas & Oil.

That place can be as vast as the Upper Delaware River Basin that inspired Josh Fox or a humble home in the suburbs. For me that place was and is, Tandy Hills Natural Area, in Fort Worth, Texas.

I'm requesting your help to keep Tandy Hills "like it was."

The main thing you need to know about Tandy Hills is that it's one of the last of the breed. The few remnants of native Texas prairie are akin to Unicorns: Beautiful, exceedingly rare and hunted to near extinction.

The 160 acres of Tandy Hills prairie were stalked by the gas industry just like the mythical Unicorn hunters of old. Keeping them at bay has been one of the few victories in the local gas war. But it takes constant surveillance, unwavering commitment and creative subversion to keep them out of Tandy Hills.

That's what Friends of Tandy Hills Natural Area (FOTHNA) does, but in a non-threatening, positive way. FOTHNA helps people fall in love with the place so they will fight to protect it. Most importantly, we help educate the future guardians of the place.

Prairie Fest and Kids on the Prairie may look like benign activities but they are actually part of a subversive campaign to save some of Fort Worth by raising public awareness via wildflowers, music, art and environmental education.

Here's how it works:

---> Prairie Fest (http://tandyhills.org/fest) began in my front yard in 2006 as a direct attempt to keep gas drilling out of the park. Since then, the solar-powered festival has become one of the largest green festivals in north Texas, winning the Best Outdoor Cultural Event in Fort Worth in 2010 while demonstrating environmental stewardship to thousands of Texans. It even received an honor from the City of Fort Worth. read more of this posting »

From the, "What-is-this-world-coming-to" Department...

The Fort Worth City Council will soon decide if allowing earthquakes inside the city limits is OK.

I've lost track of the number of earthquakes that have occurred in the Barnett Shale since the beginning of the big bad boom, but it's a lot.

Similar quakes have ravaged Arkansas, Colorado and other states where fracking and toxic waste injection wells are commonplace. There are well over 100 injection wells in the Barnett, alone.

In nearly all of these places, earthquakes were unheard of until the drillers showed up. As FW League of Neighborhoods, President, Libby Willis, points out in her upcoming, Special to the Star-Telegram,

"When the injections stopped, the earthquakes stopped."

Armed with that vital information, the motley fools known as, The Fort Worth City Council, may soon allow injection wells inside the City limits. This fits their pattern of marching to the orders of the City's legal department who get their orders from Chesapeake, XTO and other drilling fanatics. Smell's funny, don't it.

But don't worry citizens. As the city attorney likes to say, "It will be done in an orderly fashion." Right, Sarah. Of course, you cooooould flood their email boxes with letters of protest, in an orderly fashion:

Mayor Betsy Price: betsy.price@fortworthgov.org
City Attorney: Sarah.Fullenwider@fortworthgov.org
Sal Espino: District2@fortworthgov.org
Zim Zimmerman: district3@fortworthgov.org
Danny Scarth: District4@fortworthgov.org
Frank Moss: District5@fortworthgov.org
Jungus Jordan: District6@fortworthgov.org
Dennis Shingleton: district7@fortworthgov.org
Kathleen Hicks: district8@fortworthgov.org
Joel Burns: District9@fortworthgov.org

Read Ms. Willis' essay in the new blog, Fort Worth Follies:

http://fortworthfollies.blogspot.com/2011/10/league-of-neighborhoods-aga... read more of this posting »

The French word for "shale" is "schist", thus the witty Gallic humor in the title of French reporter, Xavier Frison's report from a recent trip to Texas, USA. Xavier arrived from Paris to visit the land of American Maso-schists to try and understand why they endure the pain and suffering caused by shale drilling. His conclusion: They must get off on some deviant form of masochism. (Actually, I think we suffer from chronic apathy.) read more of this posting »

Here in the North Texas, Land of Pretend, it has not taken long for the new Mayor of Dirty Ol' Town to embrace the folly of her predecessor, Mike (What conflict of interest?) Moncrief.

After receiving a much anticipated and widely criticized Air Quality Report from Eastern Research Group (ERG) Mayor Betsy (Strings-Attached) Price cheerfully declared:

"First, I'm pleased because, there are no immediate risks to public health."
-Mayor Betsy "Strings-attached" Price

Boy howdy, that's a ringing endorsement for our All America City but not unexpected from Moncrief's heir-apparent and Chesapeake's newest puppet. But what about next week, your Ladyship?

Tell that to Barnett Shale kids whose asthma rate has sky-rocketed. read more of this posting »

I recently gave a talk to the, Tarrant County Democratic Woman's Club. My, Powerpoint presentation was a condensed timeline, with photos, of my personal experience living in Fort Worth, Texas, A.D. (After Drilling).

It was NOT a Gas Drilling 101 with all the facts, figures and graphs. Rather, it's my personal story and remembrances in this complex experiment from, 2004 - 2011: Why I became involved and what has happened along the way, so far. Not every detail is listed (or remembered) but most of the highlights are present.

Thanks to masterful technical assistance from, Jen Schultz, and the brain-jogging consultation of Debora Young, the Powerpoint is now a YouTube video titled:

Dirty Ol' Town
Fort Worth, Texas, A.D.
2004 - 2011

Check it out here: read more of this posting »

September 13 is National, Stop Fracking Now!, Call Day to President Obama.

Here a 3 Fast Frack Facts to remind you and him of how dangerous fracking is to the environment and helth:

Frack Fact #1:

80,000 pounds of chemicals are injected in the Earth's crust to frack every gas well.

Frack Fact #2:

Researchers suspect that 65 of the compounds used in fracking are hazardous to human and animal health.

Frack Fact #3:

Upwards of 70% of fracking fluid remains in the ground and is not biodegradable.

Call the White House at 202-456-1111 or 202-456-1414 between 9 am and 5 pm EDT on September 13th. If the phone lines get jammed, send an email through the White House Contact page:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

For more info see the United for Action website: read more of this posting »

Carter Burdette recently retired from the FW City Council, rather than run again for office. That's good because he is a Very Bad Man. I prepared the following letter back in April to expose his conflicts of interest and other shenanigans. When he retired I put the letter aside, cutting him some slack. BUT, his recent and outrageous Letter to the Editor of the Star-Telegram, blaming city residents fro streets not getting repaired, prompted me to dust off my old letter. He deserves it now more than ever. See expose' at Star-TELEGRAPH:

http://startelegraph.blogspot.com/2011/09/what-did-he-say.html

DY

April, 2011 read more of this posting »

Reporter, Josh Harkinson, visited Fort Worth last week and got the Dante's Inferno Grand Tour of Dirty Ol' Town. His report on the Mother Jones website throws water on gas drillers claim that their water use is insignificant.

http://motherjones.com/print/133407

> August 30, 2011.

> Fort Worth, Texas.

> Worst drought in Fort Worth history is underway.

> Stage 1 water use restrictions went into effect yesterday.

> I took a little hike along the Trinity River today.

> Hundreds of gas wells and related infrastructure dot the entire length of river as it winds through town.

> Drilling companies are among the the largest contributors to Texas politicians.

> Fracking and drilling are exempt from water restrictions.

> Each frack job uses around 5 million gallons of fresh water.

> Prior to 2005 there were ZERO gas wells in Fort Worth.

> As of August, 2011, there are around 2,000 gas wells in the City of Fort Worth.

> Each gas well is re-fracked over and over again for many years. read more of this posting »

The drilling industry absorbed a double whammy yesterday with these two brief but damaging reports from CBS-11 DFW. On the other hand, Citizen's of the Shales are taking the same double whammy but in a different way.

Water issues:

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2011/08/24/pipes-pulling-water-from-trinity-rive...

"When gas drillers use water, it's permanently removed from the water (hydrologic) cycle.. There's a finite amount of water on planet Earth. Whenever you use it to frack, it has to be buried in the ground a million years."

-DY

What the report did not say is how that "buried", toxic water will come back to haunt us via leaks in the disposal wells casing. Ironically, earthquakes will speed up the process.

Earthquake issues: read more of this posting »