I’ll Warn You Now: Don’t Read This Post or Tommy Lee Jones Will Kill You

Originally published on WestAndClear.com on May 29, 2008.
tommyleejones1Someone whispered this in a Panther’s Ear last week: “Three days since I saw the Tommy Lee Jones Friends of the Shale ads for the first time and not a single comment from W&C on this nauseating display? You guys are letting me down.”

Yeah, we kind of sucked a little last week. We really are sorry about that. We’re getting our act together this week. Really. Less sucking, more writing.

But before you read further, please consider your own safety. If you continue reading this post after the jump, Tommy Lee Jones will come to your house and kill you. And your family. And probably your dog. He’s angry. He’s serious. He has a gun.

So for the love of God, read no further.

You people just don’t listen. OK, keep reading. But you’ve been warned.

I guess if we’ve learned anything from Chesapeake Energy, it’s that you can create your own reality. If you repeat a message often enough and slap it on every billboard, city bus and newspaper within 100 miles of Fort Worth, the truth is pretty much whatever you say it is.

I’m actually a little more amused than sickened by the latest dose of alternative reality for Chesapeake Energy. Everywhere I go for the next few weeks, I expect to be greeted by Tommy Lee Jones’ glowering countenance exhorting me to “Get Behind the Barnett.”

This is supposed to make me change my mind about urban gas drilling? Really?! I don’t care how much you liked the guy in Lonesome Dove or Men in Black, what I’m really thinking is he looks like the crusty old fart who lived down the street when you were growing up. You know, the guy who said, “Get the hell off of my lawn when!” and sprayed you with the hose when you wanted to know if you could get your ball back.

I mean, I’m really trying to imagine the pitch meeting when all of the agency guys come in to Julie Wilson’s office and say, “We’ve focus-grouped this thing til we can’t sit down anymore, and the spokesperson everyone loves is a really, really old, angry-looking man.”

That’s the point in the meeting when Julie is supposed to say, “I’m paying you assholes $375 an hour for this shit! I can get better ideas at the World of Primates! Now, go get me Janine Turner! And I want to see cleavage. Lots of cleavage!”

Alas, no Janine Turner. Hell, not even Barry Corbin, the friendly old Texan. This is the best you could do, Julie?

Then there is the message: Get Behind the Barnett. Very subtle.

Here’s the subtext: Shut the F up.

Yep, this is merely a different spin on the same old argument: there are only two positions on the issue of urban gas drilling — you’re either for us or against us. Which is just another example of the death of nuance in post-911 America. You either support us or you support the terrorists. You are a patriot or a cheese-eating surrender monkey. You are either in favor of economic development or you are a granola-eating, tree-hugging hippie.

I’ve always had a problem subscribing to this Manichaean worldview. Maybe its because I spent more time in college using my copy of Augustine’s Confessions as a coaster for my can of Schaeffer Light than I did actually reading it. But I’ve always believed that the truth never exists at the poles, but rather somewhere in between.

I keep coming back to the line from W.B. Yeats that was cribbed by Joan Didion in her book Slouching Toward Bethlehem — the center cannot hold. When the center can’t hold, it’s a sign that things are falling apart.

But that’s where we are. You’re either Behind the Barnett or you are a “NIMBY” or a “hippie.”

Evidently in the past half century after Rachel Carson, Love Canal, rampant air pollution and that mythical global warming thing, the very idea that industrial processes might have some negative ramifications on human health is somehow controversial and subversive.

The idea that maybe we should want to know what kind of chemicals are being put into the ground underneath our feet, this is somehow obstructionist?

Tommy Lee tells me that when I know the truth, I’ll get behind the Barnett. Honestly, I’d like nothing better than to get behind the Barnett, as in find out what’s really going on. However, getting behind the tapestry of lies that our friends at Chesapeake, XTO, Devon have woven is next to impossible. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help that our Mayor has his own set of knitting needles.

Nope, there’s no transparency, and that’s mostly by design. Getting behind the Barnett makes good business sense to the gas drillers because asking questions means delays and regulations and ultimately, less money for them.

But if gas drillers and the Mayor want to give us some truth, let’s set the bar really, really low and ask a few basic questions.

  • Show us the money: How much money does Mayor Mike make off of companies actively working the Barnett Shale? Mike, if this really isn’t a problem, release the details for public consumption. Tell us to the penny how much money you made from any company actively doing business in the Fort Worth city limits. This is a completely germane question. Mike, let the people decide if it ain’t a problem.
  • Something in the water? When the city gas drilling task force met on April 14, industry representatives promised to provide a list of chemicals used in fracturing after several neighborhood representatives asked. Of course, that list of chemicals never materialized, and probably never will. If the chemicals used in the fracked process are so benign, I would ask that three random samples of fracking water be submitted to an independent panel of chemists for analysis. Not some group of industry yes-men, but some truly independent data that can be verified and audited.
  • Gimme a study break: Why is the City of Fort Worth unwilling to commit to an Environmental Impact Study? We are looking at thousands of gas wells in Tarrant County over the next few years. Shouldn’t the largest city in the county consider what this might do to the environment? Why didn’t we do this two or three years ago? Why not today?

    • I have as much hope in actually getting answers to these questions as I do that the City’s Gas Drilling Task Force will actually accomplish something. That is to say, not much.

    The fix was put in on the task force when Mayor Mike handpicked its members and weighted the panel heavily in favor of gas industry and local development representatives. Task Force members like District 3 rep Gary Hogan and District 9 rep Jim Bradbury, who are really trying to look out for neighborhood interests and the safety of the people of Fort Worth, have effectively been stymied.

    “I can’t believe that we’re this far down the road and we’re still on noise and can’t move forward,” said Bradbury when I spoke to him the other day. “The gas industry representatives have completely filibustered this process.”

    So where do we go from here?

    In spite of attempts to limit public input to this process, there will be a Public Hearing regarding the Task Force’s work on Monday, June 9 at 6:30 p.m. in the City Council Chambers. I would implore those of you who want a say on this process to get down there and express yourself. This hearing and another scheduled for August 11 may be the only Public Hearings where you can weigh in. Once the ordinance is approved, it will be too late to make changes.

    I’ll be there. And not even Tommy Lee Jones could stop me.