More on Frac-A-Steria

To my Frac-a-sterical friends.  On the Safe Fracking Coalition FB page, they put up a Bloomberg article on study conducted by the City of Fort Worth, Tx.  Read their article and you will see that at 5 out of 388 wells there was concern about air quality.  But read this article and you get a different picture.  Note the bean serving protesters in the middle of the article.  Priceless.

By:  WFAA
Posted on July 14, 2011 at 10:03 PM
Updated Friday, Jul 15 at 9:07 AM

FORT WORTH - Fort Worth residents finally have some answers about possible pollution from drilling in the Barnett Shale. 
No other city has so many gas wells so close to so many people.

Fort Worth spent about $1 million in badly needed gas well revenue to measure emissions from all the drilling and processing. The long awaited study by the Eastern Research Group did not reveal any "significant health threats." It also concluded the city's 600-foot setback for wells is adequate.

Fort Worth's new mayor, Betsy Price, said the report's conclusions brought a sense of relief. 
"We've all been sitting on pins and needles waiting to see," she said. "I hope it makes people feel better." 

She called the report the most comprehensive study of its kind, and said it should relieve fears about pollution from gas drilling.

Maybe it will for some, but fear and suspicion remain. Outside Arlington City Hall Thursday night, a group worried about drilling industry pollution donned Gov. Rick Perry face masks and served up beans. They were illustrating their claim that the state is sacrificing their health to big business.

"Air quality now is worse than it was last summer," said Jim Schermbeck, of Downwinders at Risk. "We're not making any progress."
Schermbeck and others came to address members of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, begging them to put tighter restrictions on gas well emissions.
"If you can't figure this out, step aside and let the EPA protect us," one mother told the TCEQ.

They pointed out that the Fort Worth study on air quality did find that drilling activity pumps an additional 20,000 tons of emissions into the air each year. The study found that five sites exceeded regulatory thresholds, but that almost all the pollutants have low toxicity, with the exception of small amounts of benzene and other toxins.

"Is it perfect? Certainly not," Price said. "We haven't had a chance to go over it in depth yet, but at first blush, it looks good."
The Eastern Research Group will formally present its findings to the Air Quality Committee at 3 p.m. July 18 in the pre-council chambers at Fort Worth City Hall.