Two fires in West Texas this week have burned over 24,000 acres.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has approved funds to help battle two large wildfires in West Texas that have been burning for more than a week. The request for the funds came from the state. The approval means FEMA funds can pay 75 percent of eligible state and local costs for fighting the wildfires.
The Texas Forest Service says two fires at the Livermore Ranch Complex have burned over 24,000 acres. The complex is nearly two hundred miles southeast of El Paso.
The bigger of the two fires is near the Davis Mountain Resort, where about 150 residents live. That fire was said to be about 30 percent contained as of this morning.
Last week the Forest Service unveiled a new online tool that allows users to find the wildfire risk in their area. You can view it here.Â
KUT’s Laura Rice contributed reporting to this post.
This summer may not be nearly as hot as last year, but blackouts aren't completely off the table.
Today the group that monitors the Texas Electric Grid came out with a new assessment of the state’s power reserves heading into the summer. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) says Texas is still at risk of rolling blackouts. But the likelihood has diminished as conservation has ramped up and more energy companies have brought “mothballed” power plants back online.
Those plants are operating thanks in part to the low cost of natural gas, which makes it economically attractive to run less efficient natural gas power plants. All but one of the state’s mothballed plants that are being brought back online are natural gas-fired plants.
The Rock House fire of 2011 started at this site outside of Valentine, Texas in April of last year. Much of the same area that burned in that fire is burning again today.
Evening Update: In a late afternoon interview the Texas Forest Service put the amount of land burned by both fires in the Livermore Ranch Complex Fire at over 23,000 acres. Reinforcements have arrived and the smaller of the two fires is now 60 percent contained. The larger fire, which continues to threaten the Davis Mountains Resort, is said to be 25 percent contained.
Two massive wildfires scorched over 19,000 acres of land and continue to burn uncontained in far West Texas as of Tuesday morning, said the Texas Forest Service. The fires are burning in roughly the same parts of Jeff Davis County that were scorched close to a year ago by the “Rock House Fire,” a massive blaze that ushered in a year of devastating wildfires throughout the state.
The fires, now jointly called the Livermore Ranch Complex Fire, were sparked by lightning on April 24. They threaten about 150 permanent residents as well as empty vacation structures in the Davis Mountain Resorts. Continue Reading →
In a program called the “Founder Well Participation Program,” Aubrey McClendon was allowed to purchase an interest in each well the company owned, up to 2.5 percent. McClendon then went and borrowed against those future potential profits, which totaled more than a billion dollars of loans.
In a statement, Chesapeake says that McClendon and the company have agreed on a date for early termination of the investment program. That will happen “on June 30, 2014, 18 months before the end of its current term on December 31, 2015. Mr. McClendon will receive no compensation of any kind in connection with the early termination of the FWPP,” according to the company.
Bloomberg says that according to an emailed statement from Chesapeake, “McClendon will not be relinquishing any of the well stakes he already holds.” The company says that in McClendon’s place they’ll look for “an independent, Non-Executive Chairman in the near future.”
The Wall Street Journal’s energy reporter Russell Gold tweeted a reaction that is likely felt by many: “Feels like an era is ending.” The company’s stocks are up nearly ten percent on the news, however.
Houston Lawyer Anthony Buzbee: "The new way of going about it is massive, massively large cases like the one in Texas City "
The Houston law office of Anthony Buzbee is on the 73rd floor of the tallest building in Texas. There are only two more floors to the top. The furniture is modern, so is the artwork on the walls. It all reflects the success Buzbee has had suing some of the nation’s biggest companies. And now he says he has a new approach to make companies compensate people who’ve lived near chemical plants that have had pollution problems.
“It’s saying a lot that these people who’ve put up with so much have finally decided the state is failing us, the EPA is failing us, we’re going to try to do it ourselves through the court system,” Buzbee said in an interview with StateImpact Texas.
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