Today's article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about the benzene air levels should be a wake up call to all. Didn't they just tell us it was safe?
High levels of cancer-causing benzene were found in the air at 1 in every 5 sites that Texas environmental officials tested in the Barnett Shale gas field, state regulators revealed Wednesday.
The state agency knew that some of the wells were producing emissions as far back as 2007, when a contractor flew over the area with an infrared camera to look for problems. But the agency didn’t start conducting on-the-ground tests until August.
The state agency has been under pressure about the environmental effects of the Barnett Shale since October. The small town of Dish and Fort Worth business owner Deborah Rogers paid for their own tests.
"We appropriately caveated all the data" presented to the city, Sadlier said.
Also, he said, the agency doesn’t control who gets to drill where or when.
"That’s really a question for the city of Fort Worth," he said. "TCEQ is absolutely the tail of the dog."
What an apt analogy--that of a dog. The dogs in question, esp. the big dog FW, are flea-ridden and now diseased by dirty gassers. TCEQ should be careful with their metaphors b/c you know what is usually next to a dog's tail, esp. diseased ones. What a dog of a state agency TCEQ is. No wait, they're claiming that they're not even the dog--just the tail end of dirty gas drillers and crooked politicians.
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