Nelson calls for Flower Mound air monitor

State Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, wrote a letter to the head of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality Tuesday urging him to place an air monitor in her home town.

“Flower Mound, located in the heart of the Barnett Shale, would be an ideal site for such a station,” Nelson wrote in a letter to TCEQ Executive Director Mark Vickery. “Residents have taken a strong interest in the impact natural gas drilling is having on our economy, our environment and, most importantly, our health.”

Vickery has said the agency will install three new full-time air monitors in the Barnett Shale region by the end of the summer. The only such monitors are in northwest Fort Worth and near Eagle Mountain Lake.

Flower Mound’s Town Council recently approved moratoriums on any new gas drilling activity for the summer while it reviews its drilling ordinance.

On Monday, state Rep. Marc Veasey and state Sen. Wendy Davis, both Fort Worth Democrats, wrote Vickery requesting he install an air monitor in Southeast Fort Worth.

You can read Nelson's full letter here.

-Aman Batheja

Comments

[Tim Ruggiero]

While air monitors are a good thing, they are useless with a corrupt agency doing to monitoring. I can attest to the fact that these monitors, like one of the three that is actually in DISH, TX, does not test for methane. Industry intentionally vents and leaks millions of cubic feet of methane into our air every year, and without abatement.

The TCEQ recently chnaged it's 'measuring stick' from ESL's to AMCV's-which is nothing more than a half-assed attempt to raise the 'acceptable' levels of benzene and other gases into the air. For example, under the old 'ESL' standard, the long term benzene level was 1.4 ppb. Under the new AMCV, it is now 11,000 ppb.

The reason for this is because the suits at the TCEQ- Vickery, Sadlier, Etheridge, et.al., now know that there's quite a few operators on the Shale that routinely exceed the level of 1.4, and in order to help disquise the real information and withoud information from the public, decided to change the measurement tool instead of the levels themeselves. The TCEQ quickly realized they couldn't just keep raising the levels wihout heavy criticism, so they think they now fooling the people with AMCV.