Grand Prairie has no water while Fort Worth Pays more for less...

That may sound odd to those of you who aren't from around here, but us locals are unfortunately used to the Fort Worth Way. 

While Fort Worth and the Tarrant Regional Water District fiddle with the rates, again, we're told to water twice a week (by a guy they pay with those rate increases).  Good luck to you, Grand Prairie.  Maybe you guys can come take a bath in the Trinity River on Thursday nights when the Trinity River Vision Authority (under TRWD) holds their weekly Floating with Feces event.  It's probably not what you had in mind, but beggars can't be choosers. 

How old was the water main that broke in GP?  How old is the one to your hood?

WHO's next?

One step forward and two steps back

That's what the Fort Worth Star-Telegram has done.  Again.  Just when they start to give a glimpse of being a real newspaper, they let their Editorial Board shoot themselves in the foot...again.

Just yesterday the Fort Worth Weekly even gave them props for finally reporting on a story that the Weekly reported on seven years ago...

(News judgment reached an embarrassing low leading up to the May election for board members. The newspaper’s articles sounded as if they’d been written by the incumbents’ mothers.)

And then today, we're back to the same old drivel from the "news" paper. They want people to quit talking about the Tarrant Regional Water District deer lease, deer camp, whatever you want to call it.  However, no one has yet to answer the real question - IS IT LEGAL?  Well, is it?  Public lands for the private use of district employees.  Does it sound legal to you?  Is that why they want you to stop talking about it?

The district says they can't sell the land because it's in a floodplain on Lake Bridgeport.  Is this the same Lake Bridgeport that the "news" paper reported on yesterday as being so dry you can walk across it?  Partly due to the fact the TRWD is sending their lake water down to the other lakes?

But while the water district wants to blame Mother Nature for the lake’s dry condition, some area property owners say a longstanding agency policy favors downstream reservoirs such as Lake Worth and Eagle Mountain Lake.

From mid-April to June 20, the water district released a large amount of water from Lake Bridgeport — about 20,000 acre-feet — to maintain levels at downstream lakes as part of agreements with water customers such as the city of Fort Worth.

Will someone start a real "news" paper in Fort Worth already?  The Weekly can't do it all alone and frankly, we're tired of waiting.

When the river runs dry

You swipe water from someone else.  That's how the game is played here anyway.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has started writing articles about TRWD that have nothing to do with Trinity River Vision.  Finally.  Because the real question should be, WHAT does that have to do with water?  Or flood control for that matter?  The bonus question is - WHY are people floating in the sewer??

The comments on the articles are sometimes the most telling, here are a few -

One thing that everyone needs to realize - Bridgeport lake was built in the first place primarily for flood control to Tarrant county, and secondly as a water supply. If TRWD maintains the lower lakes to almost full level (by draining from Bridgeport) then Ft Worth and surrounding areas will be at a greater risk for flooding.    

Many short sighted people here.  This is a valuable resource that we should all be concerned about.  If this drought persists, we could all have trouble getting water.  This will impact all of the N. Texas region, impacting the overall economic health of this region.

It's not just the drought drying up our lakes. The City of Granbury is selling acres of water from Lake granbury to the oilfield industry.Residents have banded together to try and stop it. Lake homes with docks now sit on dry land and they are trying to raise petitions to stop it.

It was worse in 1980.  This "lake" was created to be drained.  Everyone who lives on it knows that.  It will rain again.  It always has.

What's really crazy is the water being let out of Benbrook so the drunks can float in their inner tubes downtown. Call it what you want; it's still a sewer.

How many weeks has this rag been running articles on this non-news event?
We're in a drought- no one can use water from Texoma- a certain amount of water from this lake has to be allowed downstream- water utility districts contracted for water from this lake and someone neglected to put a max drawdown in the contract.  Go after the lawyers who wrote the contract.

Climate change?  What climate change?  Whoever could have predicted that the Western United States, including all of West Texas, would have become consistently hotter and drier?  Just move along, nothing to see here. 

OK Sheeple, follow the star-telegram's directions here: It's all the fault of the TRWD board of directors. They should all be out doing rain dances across the dry lake bed.

Cry babies.  Sorry, live on a real lake that isn't manage by the TRWD if you want fair.

They are gagging YOUR kids...literally

Have you ever told a child not to tell something? WHY?  And how long did their silence last?

The gas industry has been known for paying people in return for their silence, though this takes the cake.

Speak up before they silence YOUR children next.

The Hallowiches, former anti-fracking activists, had been living on a 10-acre farm in Mount Pleasant when they brought a lawsuit against Range Resources, Williams Gas/Laurel Mountain Midstream and MarkWest Energy. They claimed that the adjacent Marcellus Shale operations damaged the health of their family, including their children, then 7 and 10, by causing burning eyes, sore throats, headaches and earaches. 

They also claimed operations contaminated their drinking water and rendered their property worthless. They had purchased it in 2005, unknowingly inheriting a lease with Range Resources. Soon after the Hallowiches built their house in 2007, gas wells, access roads, a gas-processing facility and compressor stations were constructed on bordering properties, bringing with them noise, lights and emissions, according to reports. 

The hearing transcript about the children’s gag order, ordered public by a judge along with the other court records last week, shows the Hallowiches agreed to the restrictive terms of the settlement—which also included the signing of a statement saying that the family’s health was not negatively affected by the drilling—in order to be able to move on from the situation.

“We have agreed to this because we needed to get the children out of there for their health and safety,” Stephanie said, according to the transcript. “My concern is they’re minors, I’m not quite sure I fully understand. I know we’re signing for silence forever, but how is this taking away our children’s rights being minors now?”

WHERE's Tommy Lee now??

Seems Arlington has jumped on the suing Chesapeake bandwagon. Others suing the company include the DFW Airport, the Fort Worth Bass family, unnamed landowners and folks out in Johnson County.

The list (and someone's nose) keeps growing.

Read about it in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Especially if you've been fracked...

WHO's next?

The city is suing Chesapeake Exploration, saying the company underpaid royalties on natural gas pumped from about 1,908 acres of public land.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in a civil District Court in Tarrant County, alleges that the Oklahoma City-based energy company has deducted post-production costs from the city’s royalty payments that are not only unauthorized under the lease agreements but also appear to be “excessive and unreasonable.”

Arlington said it has not been able to quantify its monetary damages for the contract breach because Chesapeake has withheld lease documents. But the city said in the suit that it expects to seek monetary relief in excess of $1 million.

Arlington said it has not been able to quantify its monetary damages for the contract breach because Chesapeake has withheld lease documents. But the city said in the suit that it expects to seek monetary relief in excess of $1 million.The suit also alleges that these deductions are not apparent from the information that Chesapeake has provided to the city, saying that those statements “misleadingly reflect” that no deductions are being taken. 

The city sent a letter to the company in April raising concerns about underpaid royalties and the improper deduction of costs. The company did not respond, according to the suit.

“Instead, Chesapeake continues to engage in a scheme of affiliated transactions aimed at hiding or embedding impermissible cost deductions and suppressing the royalties it pays to the city,” the suit says.
Arlington’s suit is similar to one filed against Chesapeake in federal court this year by Fort Worth investor Ed Bass and more than a dozen other landowners in far south Tarrant County. That lawsuit claims that Chesapeake has cheated them out of potentially millions of dollars in royalties for leases on 3,952 acres at the Tarrant-Johnson County line, south of Benbrook Lake.

Last year, Chesapeake Energy agreed to pay Dallas/Fort Worth Airport $5.3 million to settle a similar lawsuit after the airport alleged it had been shortchanged on royalty money from wells Chesapeake drilled on its property. The airport used its gas money to help pay for capital projects including the $1.9 billion terminal renovation.

Joining these large entities in suing Chesapeake are individual landowners. In 2012, Charles and Robert Warren, along with another couple in Johnson County, were seeking class action status in a lawsuit filed in federal court, a rarity in a Texas oil and gas royalty dispute. The case was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn in May and is currently on appeal.

The suit against Chesapeake isn’t Arlington’s only legal battle with the natural gas drilling industry. 

Last year, the Texas Oil & Gas Association and the Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Association sued Arlington over the creation of a gas well fee.

The fee was expected to generate about $800,000 a year so that Arlington, which has 300-plus gas wells, could hire six more firefighters and to train and equip 42 current firefighters for the creation of two gas well emergency response teams. 

Do they read??

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram finally did an article on the Tarrant Regional Water District deer lease. 

See: Tarrant water district's use of private camp on public land draws questions.

We're impressed they are finally reporting on the water board.  However,  the FWST states, "Few people knew about the camp before the election."  WHY is that?  The Fort Worth Weekly wrote about the deer lease in 2006.

John Basham and Adrian Murray questioned the deer lease in their 2010 campaign.  We're glad the FWST is getting up to speed.  Hopefully they catch up quick.

The Tarrant Regional Water District, the public agency that supplies most of the water in North Central Texas, owns and operates the land. For decades, its employees have been allowed to use the camp, which includes deer stands and a shooting range, for free.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, which manages millions of acres of public land, has an ethics policy that prohibits employees from accepting free hunts, a spokesman said.

“The Parks and Wildlife doesn’t have any private hunting resorts for its employees,” spokesman Mike Cox said. “We’re prohibited by our ethics policy from accepting any free hunts from anybody.

If it’s funded by taxpayer funds, we’re providing them a $15,000 to $20,000 retreat,” he said.

Kelleher, the challenger who received more votes than anyone on the ballot, said she will continue to press for the board to be more transparent about its money and its property.

Giving the public a closeup view of the hunting camp, she said, is a start.

“I just want it to be acknowledged that a deer hunting camp does exist,” said Kelleher, who proposed that the land use be reviewed periodically.

For example, Kelleher said she was glad to know that visitors are required to sign in and out of the cabin on a log book, which was placed on the dining table during the Star-Telegram’s visit last week.

On that day, however, the book contained only blank sheets.

Read more here:

The Texas Parks The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, which manages millions of acres of public land, has an ethics policy that prohibits employees from accepting free hunts, a spokesman said.“The Parks and Wildlife doesn’t have any private hunting resorts for its employees,” spokesman Mike Cox said. “We’re prohibited by our ethics policy from accepting any free hunts from anybody. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, which manages millions of acres of public land, has an ethics policy that prohibits employees from accepting free hunts, a spokesman said.“The Parks and Wildlife doesn’t have any private hunting resorts for its employees,” spokesman Mike Cox said. “We’re prohibited by our ethics policy from accepting any free hunts from anybody.

Goodbye to a River, and a REAL Texan

RIP, John Graves.  John Graves was best known for writing Goodbye to a River, trying to save the river he so dearly loved.
 
Does anyone else find it odd that some who are writing with such admiration for Mr.Graves and his love for the river are the same who write about and promote destroying ours?

Only in Fort Worth could they say, poor John, then promote this.