State District Judge Bob McGrath threw out a lawsuit today that was trying to stop drilling at the so-called Trinity Trees site, just off the Trinity River in Fort Worth.
McGrath agreed with the city of Fort Worth's argument that plaintiff Melissa Kohout had no standing to sue. Click here to read S-T writer Mike Lee's story.
-- Mike Lee
(View of the rig from the Trinity Trail, next to barrier designed to muffle sound and mask visibility.)
Chesapeake Energy's rig has gone up at the Trinity Trees site in Fort Worth. Here's S-T staffer Rodger Mallison's photo.
UPDATE: Click here to read S-T writer Mike Lee's story.
-- Scott Nishimura
You can see a sound barrier rising above the row of trees and hedges that Chesapeake Energy planted in the fall. No sign of a drilling rig yet.
The trees may be gone from a controversial gas drilling site near the Trinity River, but the woman who is trying to stop natural gas drilling on the site is still fighting.
"The whole angle of our lawsuit really was, we didn’t want it near a park," said Jason Smith, who represents Melissa Kohout. "We thought it posed a danger to the safety of park users. I'm sad that the trees are gone; I'm more worried about kids riding bikes than I am about trees getting cut down."
Kohout's suit says the trail system should be considered a park, and claims the city violated its own ordinance by giving Chesapeake Energy a high-impact permit for the site. That type of permit can't be issued without waivers from surrounding property owners or approval from the City Council.
City officials say the trails are actually owned by the Tarrant Regional Water District, which signed a waiver allowing drilling near the trail. But Chesapeake applied for a less-restrictive type of permit, and never posted notice about a high-impact permit.
Smith said that move denied Kohout and others a chance to protest the permit. Lawyers for the city have said that there was plenty of public notice -- the controversy over the drilling site was featured in the Star-Telegram and other news outlets, and hundreds of people attended protests or addressed the City Council about the site.
Smith said the Kohout and other protesters didn't get a chance to discuss the problem with the water board.
"If we had know it was a high-impact well, we could have gone 
to the water board and said 'Don’t sign the waiver,' " he said.
The drill site is in a grove of old-growth trees just west of University Drive. The land has always been privately owned, and is zoned for industrial uses, but it is popular with bicyclists, joggers and walkers who frequent the trail system.
Chesapeake's announcement that it planned to drill for gas on the site touched off protests that drew hundreds of people. The company shrank the size of the drilling pad, but clear-cut about 1.5 acres at the end of December.
Smith said Kohout wants a court to rescind Chesapeake Energy's drilling permit for the site.
Click here to read all of our Trinity Trees posts.
Click here to visit trinitytrees.org's site.
-- Mike Lee
(Photos: Trinity Trees picnic last year; Kohout and Barbie)
Chesapeake Energy has cleared the trees from a wooded 1.4-acre site next to the Trinity River in Fort Worth, as part of plans for its controversial gas drilling project on the site, the S-T's Scott Streater reports. Click here for the full report.
Trinity Trees hawks are just becoming aware of the clearing this week. But Chesapeake's Julie Wilson says the company finished its work Dec. 12, and not in the dead of night. "We did it in broad daylight," she said.
(Click here to read our previous posts on the Trinity Trees.)
-- Scott Nishimura
(Photos from left: Chesapeake's drill site, whose ground-level view is obscured from the Trinity Trail by new plants in front of it; view from Trinity Trail)
The city has responded to Melissa Kohout's lawsuit over the Trinity Trees gas drilling site. Click here for the full report.
-- Mike
(Photo: Planting trees at Trinity Trees site, October)
The annual Fort Worth Weekly Turkey Awards are out, and the Barnett Shale was the big thread that ran through several of the awards.
First, the basis for the awards, according to FWWeekly: "How to recognize Turkeys when they are picking your pocket, stealing your future, and generally leaving their droppings all over the civic landscape."
Some of this year's award winners:
David Williams (we guess this is the former sheriff) Memorial Big Bird: Urban gas drilling. The FWWeekly takes us through a fictional dialogue between homeowners Ethyl and Tex, in which they announce their signing bonus paid for a radio and porch swing, and their monthly royalty checks "ought to buy a new spittoon and...armadillo-shaped wind chime." Then, to their surprise, a "40-foot tall mutant mosquito carrying a giant straw descends from the sky and heads directly for Tex and Ethyl. Behind it are more swarms just like it." Tex: "My gawd! This ain't want we bargained for!" Ethyl: "Call the Texas Railroad Commission! The environmental commission! The Fort Worth City Council!" Laugh track, laugh track, laugh track.
Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief, for his handling of a citizens committee formed to make recommendations to the city on what to do with the big money it's making off the Barnett Shale.
Fort Worth City Councilman Danny Scarth, for serving on the committee that wrote the city's gas drilling ordinance and also accepting campaign contributions from gas interests in his first campaign. FWWeekly also took issue with Scarth's late payment of property taxes.
Star-Telegram and gas drilling. "The city's daily newspaper has celebrated gas drilling from the outset of the Barnett Shale phenomenon," FWWeekly says, citing "nauseating" and "gushing" editorials, and Bud Kennedy's column on the Trinity Trees dispute. The FWWeekly also suggests the S-T's news coverage might be colored by "how much Barnett Shale money is making its way to the Star-T's bank account, either through advertisements or from drilling royalties from its properties." FWWeekly says the S-T has acted as an "uncritical apologist" for the gas industry. "Recently, however," FWWeekly says, "the newspaper has begun offering a little more balance in its coverage and on its blog site devoted to the Barnett. So, in the spirit of the day, we give thanks for small wonders."
Leonard Briscoe Sr. and "Questionable Deals" through his Glencrest Resources.
Mayor Moncrief II. The mayor has substantial energy investments, and his most recently reported earnings included income from Chesapeake Energy. He says he doesn't view his investments as a conflict of interest. The FWWeekly says it is a conflict.
-- Scott
(Photo: S-T of a turkey)
It's a little unusual to see people wearing suits walking down Fort Worth's Trinity Trail. So when three men in suits emerged from a Cadillac Escalade and were spotted on the trail this morning, they drew notice.
Turns out it was Mayor Mike Moncrief, who was headed back to City Hall from an event and wanted to step out and take a look at the Trinity Trees site. Jason Lamers, the mayor's public information officer and another of the men in suits, said the mayor had heard that Chesapeake Energy was planting more trees around its drill site and "he wanted to see for himself what had been done."
The mayor also had a chance encounter with Melissa Kohout, the 
Doberman owner who's filed suit against the city over the Trinity Trees and was walking her water bottle-chomper Barbie on the river this morning. "See you've got your water carrier there," the mayor is reported to have said.
-- Scott
(Photos: Mayor Moncrief, left; Melissa Kohout and Barbie, right)
A Fort Worth woman filed a lawsuit Wednesday, asking a court to block a natural gas drilling permit at the "Trinity Trees" site along the river trail system near University Drive.
Melissa Kohout walks her dog along the Trinity River trail almost daily. She and her lawyer have already sent two letters asking the city not to allow natural gas drilling along the river because of the danger to trail users. City lawyers have already said the permit is legal.
Chesapeake Energy owns an 8-acre grove of trees next to the trail and has announced plans to clearcut 1.4 acres to make way for six to eight gas wells. There have been several public protests and Chesapeake has already agreed to shrink the size of the drilling pad and move some of the drilling equipment onto the nearby Union Pacific rail yard.
-- Mike
(Photo: Kohout and Barbie)
A crew started planting trees and shrubs around the pad site that Chesapeake Energy owns next to the Trinity River. We've got pictures and story coming in the paper and on Star-Telegram.com
Update: Click here for the full story.
- Mike
