Lon is right on

Read the Letter about Railroad Commission Chairman Victor Carrillo in the Fort Worth Business Press.

Airing concerns

I am extremely disappointed that Chairman [Victor] Carrillo, in his January 18 op-ed response to expressed concerns about toxic pollutants resulting from natural gas drilling in North Texas, has chosen to attack the messenger and misrepresent the facts rather than take action to protect public health.

Mayor Tillman can only be accused of doing what the rest of us, including local elected officials and relevant agency heads, should have done a long time ago – demand answers to hard questions about the hidden costs of the Barnett Shale boom.

Chairman Carrillo also severely misrepresents the findings to date of Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s air monitoring efforts.

More results will be released later this month, but to say that TCEQ “found ‘No Cause for Concern’ related to Barnett Shale exploration and production” is false and misleading (in its Jan.12 press release, TCEQ makes no such claim), and only further justifies public suspicion regarding whose interests the Railroad Commission is really looking after.

– Lon Burnam