Response to a response to a cover story I had last week....

Well, I had the cover story in the Fort Worth Weekly last week and posted it here. It dealt, largely, with a Fort Worth park and homes right next to a huge gas compressor station. I visited there on a recent Saturday morning and in short order my throat itched, my eyes were watering and after two hours my breath was short. Someone, possibly from the gas industry, said he copied my movements and while he detected a foul smell, did not suffer from what I suffered. He said I was either a liar or a wuss. Anyone who knows my journalism knows I am not a liar, which leaves me being a wuss. Damnit! I don't generally respond but needed to this afternoon. Without going into this persons several letters on the subject, I still think you will get the gist of what he said and how I--as a journalist, with no rats in the race--feel. Here's what I wrote:
Well, I had the cover story in the Fort Worth Weekly last week

http://www.fwweekly.com/2014/10/01/bad-air-day/

and posted it on facebook. It dealt, largely, with a Fort Worth park and homes right next to a huge gas compressor station. I visited there on a recent Saturday morning and in short order my throat itched, my eyes were watering and after two hours my breath was short. Someone, possibly from the gas industry, said he copied my movements and while he detected a foul smell, did not suffer from what I suffered. He said I was either a liar or a wuss. Anyone who knows my journalism knows I am not a liar, which leaves me being a wuss. Damnit! I don't generally respond but needed to this afternoon. Without going into this persons several letters on the subject, I still think you will get the gist of what he said and how I--as a journalist, with no rats in the race--feel. Here's what I wrote:

X: I think you miss the point. There are less than a dozen families living in nice little houses that abut the park. One woman can no longer work because of constant rashes and nausea that started after the compressor stations came in. One woman has leukemia, which occurred after the compressor stations came in. One woman has a child who is losing his hair, a condition that began after the compressor stations came in. All of these conditions occur with exposure to the chemicals found in the “air grabs” taken at the site in the latest air quality study. That’s three out of 10-11. Is that acceptable to you, or anyone? Is is acceptable when you can fix it so that there is no gas escaping at nearly no cost? Is it acceptable if you were a shareholder or a lease owner to know that 25 percent of the gas coming from the wells is escaping into the air, poisoning people and costing you 25 percent of your royalty? I don’t know. I don’t think, like either you or the person who posted prior to you, that anyone at the FW Weekly is against energy. I think that everyone who knows the score is against bad business practices that hurt people/sometimes kill people. Of course the gas industry resists change that would fix the problems: Most of us resist change because we’re comfortable with the way we do things and change suggests that we’ll have to, well, change….and that is not attractive. It’s downright scary. But it is very doable. It doesn’t cost a lot of money, just a small infusion that quickly pays for itself and subsequently makes a profit for everyone and prevents more leukemia/hair falling out/rash problems and so forth. And yes, I drive a car: A Ranger, actually, and I heat my house with electricity which is possibly powered by coal or gas or oil. The problem isn’t always the product, the problem is sometimes the hands in which the product lies. If the gas companies wanted to be good neighbors, gas drilling would quickly disappear from our pages–which are actually read by tens of thousand of people and make changes in places like New York, which banned drilling because of our stories, among others. But if energy companies insist on doing the shoddiest work, cutting corners, ignoring and then denying illnesses they cause, well, as good citizens, we’ll probably keep calling them out on it.

And yes, I’m a 63-year-old cigarette smoker. I still walk several miles a day, take four groups a year out into the deep Amazon jungle and can certainly out push-up most men my age. And no, I’m not a liar regarding what happened that day in Delga Park. Which leaves me, I guess, just a wuss. Darn it!

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