Gas Drilling Polluting The Metroplex

I have posted several times about how insane it is to drill for natural gas in metropolitan areas. I think it is not only ugly and damaging to the environment, but it poses a danger to the urban citizens. Of course, no one listened. There was too much money being offered by the gas companies and greed got the best of common sense.

Several metroplex cities have allowed the drilling within their city limits, including the city of Fort Worth. In fact, Fort Worth is allowing the drilling to even go on in its downtown area -- an insane idea for a city spending millions to revitalize the downtown.

I wasn't the only one talking about how bad an idea this was. SMU professor of engineering Al Armendariz put some figures together and tried to warn people that allowing urban gas drilling would pollute the metroplex as much as all the automobiles in the DFW area.

Vehicle traffic puts about 120 tons of pollution into the air of the DFW metroplex area each and every day. Armendariz estimated the gas drilling puts 112 tons of pollution into the metroplex air each day. Of course, the gas companies cried and whined about Armendariz's numbers, and said it couldn't be anywhere near that bad.

So the SMU professor recalculated, using data collected by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). The recalculation, using TCEQ figures, shows that Armendariz was right. The new figure showed the gas companies are dumping a minimum of 90 tons of pollution into the air each day.

Most gas drilling in the past has been in rural areas and therefore doesn't add to an already unsafe pollution problem. But it's different in the DFW area. This area is already in trouble with the EPA for its poor air quality, and is cracking down on motorists to try and improve the air quality.

There were two main causes of the air pollution in the past -- auto & trucks and big business polluters (like electric companies, cement kilns, etc.). The state and local governments have refused to make big business clean up its act, and have put the onus for the clean-up on motorists, making it much more expensive to own and drive a car. This, of course, punishes the poor much more than the rich (because mass transit is rudimentary at best in the area).

A reasonable person would expect the TCEQ to take some action to prevent the gas drillers from polluting the air and destroying what progress is being made with cleaning up autos. But they aren't. They claim they can't single out the urban drillers, since they don't require the rural drillers to clean up their act. I admit I don't understand that. It's a different and troubled environment, and needs different rules.

And citizens can't expect any help from the Railroad Commission, which is supposed to control the drillers. That commission doesn't even try to get these companies to follow the present rules in force. They're not about to force the drillers to use safer and greener procedures.

A bill was introduced in the past session of the legislature to force the drillers to use greener procedures and stop much of the urban pollution. But it never made it through the Republican-controlled legislature. There was just too much gas company money finding its way into campaign coffers.

Just another example of Republicans protecting corporations at the expense of the ordinary citizens. Just business as usual!