Cedar Photo courtesy flickr.com/79666107@N00 bullseye image edited by KUT News.
The Ashe juniper goes by several names.
When people complain about cedar trees in Texas, they’re usually talking about allergies: the dreaded “cedar fever” that makes life a nightmare for millions of sufferers throughout large swaths of the state. But at the Texas Capital last week, lawmakers were talking about cedars for other, very elemental, reasons: water and fire.
Ashe Junipers, commonly called “cedar trees” in Texas, do a good job of drinking one and spreading the other according to testimony before the House Committee on Agriculture and Livestock.
A radioactive rod has gone missing somewhere in West Texas. Sounds like a job for Radioactive Man.
Somebody call Radioactive Man and Fallout Boy. A radioactive rod is missing in the West Texas desert.
Sometime last Monday, September 11, a three-man team of Halliburton oilfield workers lost a radioactive rod used in hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” The crew believes it was lost in an area of about 130 square miles, somewhere between a well site in Pecos and the crew’s destination south of Odessa. The tool was in the back of their truck, and at some point they noticed that the truck’s lock wasn’t in place (it was in the back of the truck) and the rod was missing. They went back to Pecos to see if it had been left at the drilling site, but it wasn’t there.
A judge hears argument in Beaumont, Texas over TransCanda's right to condemn land to build a pipeline.
When a North Texas Judge ruled in favor of TransCanda in its legal battle with landowner Julia Trigg Crawford last August, representatives for the Canadian pipeline company were, understandably, happy with the outcome.
“This ruling reaffirms that TransCanada has — and continues — to follow all state and federal laws and regulations as we move forward with the construction of the Gulf Coast Project,” TransCanada spokesman Grady Semmens told the New York Times.
Now the company is facing another legal challenge, from another Texas farmer, on similar grounds to the Crawford case.
Given all those similarities it makes sense to ask: what chance could the new challengers possibly have?
Lone Camp Volunteer Fire Department fire fighter Ted Hale fights a wildfire on September 1, 2011 in Graford, Texas.
Wildfire season across the American West is getting longer, and more destructive year by year, according to a new report from the research organization Climate Central.
Noting that the total area burned in the American West this year is 30 percent larger than average, the report blames recent ferociously destructive fire seasons on a variety of factors: fire suppression and forest growth have created more fuel for fires; and a gradual warming in global temperatures that’s creating longer and longer wildfire seasons.
“We can’t discount the importance of the broader climate context,” Dr. Heidi Cullen, Climate Central’s Chief Climatologists, said in a conference call presenting the report. Continue Reading →
“You know, the majority of water and wastewater plants throughout Texas and neighboring states have been funded or partially funded with federal financing that came through the EPA,” Armendariz said.
Greg Creacy is responsible for prescribed burning in Texas State Parks. He believes the benefits of the program are visible in the aftermath of the Bastrop County Complex Fire. In this photo, you can see forest hit by the Bastrop wildfire. On the left side, an area that had seen prescribed burns before the fire. On the right, an area that did not have prescribed burns before the fire.
Imagine that you’re in a house in the country. There’s a frantic knock at the door. You open it to find a group of men and women wearing fireproof gear, asking permission to fight a raging wildfire on your property.
“But there’s no fire here,” you respond in confusion.
“You don’t understand,” they say, “the fire won’t be here for another few years, but we need to fight it now!”
The scenario might sound fantastic, but it makes perfect sense to Larry Joe Doherty.
“That is precisely the whole point of prescribed burning,” he said recently over a lunch of red beans and rice at his Washington County ranch. “You wait around for an emergency and it’s too late!” Continue Reading →
While Central Texas saw good rains over the last week, it's not anywhere near enough to fill the Highland Lakes. In this photo, a man stands out of the wind during a downpour July 23, 2008 in downtown Brownsville, Texas.
If you spent your Sunday indoors scrapbooking or just catching up on Season 1 of Revenge, you may have found a moment to wonder: It’s been raining all day. Are the Highland Lakes full yet?
Lakes Travis and Buchanan, vital reservoirs for Central Texas, took quite a beating during last year’s record drought. Lake Travis dropped to 626 feet last summer, near historic lows. And despite some good rains this year that brought it up 35 more feet, the lakes are still less than half full.
Texans can now choose to get their power from only wind or natural gas.
Texans can now choose to get their power from 100 percent Texas-drilled natural gas.  Through a new option from Direct Energy, a retail electric provider, customers can pay a little more — about six dollars extra a month on the average homeowner’s bill* — to get their power just from Texas gas. In Texas, Direct Energy serves cities like Houston, Dallas, Midland, and Brazoria County. Their Texas branch started the “True Blue” plan for Texans only. The company says the idea for the energy plan came in the interest of attracting a certain demographic of consumers in the Lone Star State.
“The True Blue product was meant to tap into the tremendous amount of pride in Texas,” says Direct Energy general manager Rob Comstock. “We felt that this was a great way to offer a product to customers that want to support that part of the economy, the natural gas business, and have a tremendous amount of pride in the state and what we do here.”
But if being “true blue” isn’t your thing, the company has also announced another new plan called “New Leaf,” which takes a more renewable approach. Those opting into “New Leaf” will purchase their energy completely from wind.
The “New Leaf” option is just one of hundreds of other plans already available to Texans wishing to get their power from only renewable sources. Continue Reading →
Al Armendariz was the regional administrator for the EPA. He resigned after comments he made about enforcement came to light.
In April, a video surfaced of Dr. Al Aremendariz, the regional director for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), speaking to a group of locals in Dish, Texas about how to enforce pollution rules. “It was kinda like how the Romans used to conquer those villages in the Mediterranean,” Armendariz told the group. “They’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw, and they’d crucify them. And you know, that town was really easy to manage for the next few years.”
Shortly after the video came to light, Armendariz resigned. Now he works for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign in Texas, which aims to stop coal power plants and mining. Aremendariz recently sat down with StateImpact Texas to talk about his career with the EPA, and his new work with the Sierra Club.
Q: I want to talk about your tenure with the EPA. Looking back on it, what were some of the highs and the lows?
A: I’m very proud of the work that I did with my staff at Region 6. They’re hardworking, dedicated public servants. You know, the majority of water and wastewater plants throughout Texas and neighboring states have been funded or partially funded with federal financing that came through the EPA. So when people in Texas drink clean water or have sewer systems that don’t put sewage into their creeks and rivers, I’m very proud of the fact that the EPA helps to keep Texas clean.
Some of the highlights of my time there was the Clean Air Act work that we did in Texas.
UT Research Engineer Robert Pearsal looks into a vat of algae.
Two teams, racing against the clock. A long-standing rivalry that up til now has been played on the football field. And at the end, the prize: gooey, stinky algae.
While the University of Texas and Texas A&M University football teams no longer play each other after A&M left the Big 12 conference for the SEC (beginning their membership with a loss to Florida last Saturday), there is a new rivalry between the two campuses: who can make algae into a commercially-viable fuel fastest.
The specifics are well over our pay grade, involving words like microfluidic and B. Braunii. But suffice to say that the idea behind all this research is to create a fuel from algae that can be used in combustion engines.
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