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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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The ’Hood and Goliath
The ’Hood and Goliath
To the editor: The article “Trail Dust” (Nov. 5, 2008) was delightfully insightful and informative. As a neighbor whose life has been greatly affected by the insanity and greed apparent here, I applaud your courage for publishing the truth about the Goliath that is destroying our neighborhood. I was disgusted to learn about the three acres that Ed Farmer Beggs has set his sights on. Disgusted that Beggs is willing to sacrifice 30 families’ health and well-being, to say nothing of our property values.
His comment, “If [they] had any mineral rights, they wouldn’t be bitching,” infuriated me! How dare he make such a horrible accusation! Here he is, a millionaire, and he demands that the truck traffic and noise and dust be placed as far away from his house as possible. If we had any access to the fortune, don’t you think we would be just as focused on our health and quality of life?
What can we do to help get this changed? I bet if there were enough negative publicity about this, he would do the right thing. And that doesn’t even begin to touch the noise from the pumping station on FM 3325 that has devastated the east end of our neighborhood. My elderly neighbors told me the noise wakes them up at night. They’ve had their house up for sale for over a year, and no one will touch it because of the noise. Surely something could be done to build a sound barrier around it.
I cannot tell you how much I appreciated your article.
Toni Wilson
Aledo
Stop Ranting, Wire
the Money
To the editor: I totally agree with Dan McGraw’s complaint against the post office (“Going Postal,” Nov. 5, 2008). I, too, have noticed that they are phasing out their 42-cent stamp machines.
However, I would like to make a suggestion: Next time you send money to your daughter, you could send it in the form of a money order bought at the post office and mailed there. That way there is automatic free insurance, and she can cash it at her local post office. I have been using this method of money exchange for years.
Stephanie Carter
Fort Worth
Trump Would’ve Fired Them
To the editor: The casual reader may wonder “Will it ever end?” The “screw the taxpayer” saga at the Tarrant Regional Water district (Static, Nov. 12, 2008) seems to be ongoing, and the answers by Jim Oliver, Jim Lane, and Vic Henderson are still as hollow as the old oak on the back 40. Oliver, the water district’s general manager, maintains that the district is in compliance with IRS rules. Big damn deal! What about their own rules and a little public accountability?
Lane vowed, in an interview with Fort Worth Business Press soon after his election, that the TRWD operations would be transparent to the public. At the water board meeting shown on Channel 4, Jim’s seat appeared to be empty. Hey, we’re represented by an empty chair! Water district board chairman Vic Henderson said the same to Becky Oliver in the Channel 4 exposé of Jim Oliver’s no-holds- barred approach to eating, drinking, and living it up at taxpayers’ expense and his public-be-damned management style. The city’s main rag (that’s the Star-Telegram, to recent immigrants) keeps endorsing the same old buddy-boys, and not too many people pay attention to water district elections, so we keep getting the same guys who would never have made the cut on Donald Trump’s TV show, The Apprentice. Following the TRWD stuff, Trump would have said, “You’re fired!”
Clyde Picht
Fort Worth
No Dive, No More
To the editor: Chow, Baby (“Love the One You’re With,” Nov. 5, 2008) has once again called Fred’s its favorite dive. I’m so tired of hearing Fred’s still called a dive, hole-in-the-wall, or greasy spoon. The Fred’s of those days, the place that once was a unique dive in the 7th Street warehouse area, is long gone.
There was a time you could go to Fred’s for breakfast and find an eclectic group of customers having breakfast, coffee, longnecks, or schooners of red beer. It’s no longer open for breakfast during the week. Instead, the new Fred’s has Sunday brunch. The burgers have reached absurd prices, from $8 to $13, higher than the Love Shack, Kincaid’s, or Tommy’s. A lunch special is $10. And lest we forget — last New Year’s Eve, it cost $195 for two to celebrate at Fred’s. At Fred’s! You could have gone to Duce for a three-course dinner for two for $120.
The old Fred’s played eclectic music from their CD collection in the afternoons. Now there are TVs playing music channels. Finally, let’s not forget the customers. Once the regulars were mostly blue-collar workers, old hippies, and some wise college students. The crowd now consists of upscale professionals, lots of college-age folks, and the trendy hot-spot-goers.
If Chow, Baby and others don’t mind paying the absurd prices for burgers, that’s their choice. But please just stop calling it something it’s not anymore. The new Fred’s will fit right in with all the future upscale clubs and restaurants and the high-dollar bowling house being built in the area. As for me and others, the old Fred’s will be a fond memory.
Roy Conner
Fort Worth
Not Salt, Just Poison
To the editor: To call the product that is taken from a gas well “salt water” (Turkey Awards, Nov. 19, 2008) is like calling urine “yellow water.” The proof is that with pee, we spend a lot of money to remove the impurities before it is discharged into rivers and lakes. If the gas well “salt water” was just that, then it could be put into concrete-lined ponds to allow the water to evaporate, leaving only salt. They do this all over the world with salt water, and they sell the salt to eat.
In fact this isn’t done with drilling wastewater because the so-called “salt water” is full of other chemicals that will kill a lot of things like trees, grass, dogs, monkeys, and yes, people. To me, this makes it toxic waste, and it should be treated as such. I would like to point out that this toxic waste is very corrosive and together with steel makes iron oxide — rust, that is. So the pipes that Fort Worth City Council member Danny Scarth wants to run under our yards, streets, schools, and parks to carry this toxic waste to the only “salt-water” injection well in Fort Worth will rust and in time will leak. It’s only a matter of time.
This will make East Fort Worth the proud owner of Fort Worth’s largest ticking time bomb. We can put a man on the moon, replace a heart in a human being, and remove salt and other substances from water and dispose of them in a better way than what Scarth wants to allow the gas companies to do. It would take more money to not just dump the toxic waste, but I would like to think that the health of the East Side is worth a little more than the easy way out.
Please stop calling this toxic waste “salt water.” It may just kill us all.
Peter C. Fletcher
Fort Worth
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