Does the Shadow know?
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of environmental demons lying in wait in the path of the Trinity Uptown boondoggle? When the Build–it-at-any-cost, Damn-the-taxpayers eminent domaining-economic developers start digging in the can of worms known to be contaminated by a century of heedless chemical and industrial disposal, will they come to rue the day? Only the Shadow knows!
Five years ago a far-seeing observer of the Fort Worth scene wrote me a letter discussing the environmental hazards of digging in the soil of the Trinity Uptown project. I quote: “It seems to me that if the Vision is going to be realized as anything like Bing Thom’s Venetian’s model suggests, the diversion channel and canals will be excavated through an ocean of buried pollutants releasing contaminants into the Trinity River causing environmental problems from here to the Gulf of Mexico.
“It would be interesting to know what chemicals were manufactured, used and their residue buried by American Cyanamide, McKinley Iron Works, Southwestern Brass, Texas Refinery, Texas Electric and many scrap metal concerns.” I remember that two or three years ago the city conducted water tests in the area and sounded the alarm at what was found.
The letter writer ended with this prediction: “The TRWD is going to get well into this project and two things are going to happen:
1. The pollution remediation bill is going to come home to roost and the costs will go through the roof.
2. Congress is going to withhold funds that Granger was counting on when her party was in the majority and her earmarks are going to end up on the sausage maker’s floor, and the City/County/Water District will propose higher taxes.”
I might add to the writer’s eerie predictions that Bing Thom with his designer bridges and the debacle of his costly unbuilt Tarrant County College Bridge over the River Trinity has long since fled the scene with his bag of taxpayer gold.
– Don Woodard, Fort Worth
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