Mose Buchele is the Austin-based broadcast reporter for StateImpact. He has been on staff at KUT 90.5 in Austin since 2009, covering local and state issues. Mose has also worked as a blogger on politics and an education reporter at his hometown paper in Western Massachusetts. He holds masters degrees in Latin American Studies and Journalism from UT Austin.
Fire boat response crews battle the blazing remnants of the offshore oil rig Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico on April 21, 2010 near New Orleans, Louisiana.
Texas has announced five projects it hopes to fund with money from a settlement from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. Three of them would aid in building artificial reefs along the Texas Gulf Coast — something that could prove a boon to the fishing industry and tourism.
While Texas was not hit as hard by the oil spill as neighboring Louisiana, its commercial fisheries have suffered in recent years. The spill impacted fishing and tourism in the Gulf. Then in 2011, the state delayed opening its oyster fisheries because of red tide associated with that year’s massive drought. Increased rainfall later put oysters back on the menu, but the precarious future of Texas oysters prompted Parks and Wildlife to boost construction of artificial reefs that can encourage oyster growth.
The three reef projects announced this week include:
Texas Parks and Wildlife biologists and PhD students from Texas State University release Houston Toad tadpoles in Bastrop State Park. These pollywogs were not bred in captivity but were fostered in captivity from wild eggs. The burned remains of the lost pines are visible in the background.
If I had a list of terms I never expected to hear, “back up toads” would be on it.
But on Tuesday in Bastrop State Park, those three words were strung together without a hint of the absurd. Cassidy Johnson was doing the talking, and in the context of our interview, “back up toads” made a lot of sense.
Johnson is a Research Associate for the Houston Zoo‘s Houston Toad Program. The Zoo serves as what Johnson calls an “ark” for the endangered amphibians. It keeps a genetically diverse population of Houston Toads in captivity so it can maintain the species, even if every last wild toad is wiped out. Continue Reading →
Lawmakers discuss a point of order aimed at killing HB 11
It was possibly the most high profile piece of legislation at the capital this session. It had the backing of the governor, the state’s business community, and many environmental groups. But last night House Bill 11, the plan to pull $2 billion from the state’s rainy day fund to put to Texas water projects, could not muster the votes to gain approval in the Texas House of Representatives.
Backers of the bill felt pressure from all sides ahead of the vote. Tea Party budget cutters called it an example of irresponsible spending and pointed out that the bill would likely break state imposed spending limits. House Democrats made their support contingent on tapping the rainy day fund for education as well.
To navigate the impasse, bill supporters plotted a risky course.
Photo Courtesy of Harvard Environmental Law and Policy Program.
Kate Konschnik is Policy Director for the Environmental Law and Policy Program at Harvard University and lead author of the study.
FracFocus, the online registry used by Texas and other states to disclose information about hydraulic fracturing, “creates obstacles to [regulatory] compliance” and seems “structurally skewed to delete” records, according to a report from Harvard Law School’s Environmental Law Program.
The website is an integral part of the way drillers disclose what chemicals they are putting in the ground as part of the the drilling process called hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” It’s been touted by Texas politicians and state regulators as a way for landowners and concerned citizens to determine how fracking is impacting the environment.
In Texas, drillers have been required to use FracFocus to disclose fracking ingredients since February 2012. But the report says FracFocus is not only unequipped to serve as a database for information, it finds that the site creates obstacles to regulatory compliance.
That might be because states are relying on the website to fill a role it was never intended to fill, says Kate Konschnik, head of Harvard’s Environmental Law and Policy Program and lead author of the study.
As the drilling boom grows in parts of Texas, so has the demand for power, leading to an energy crunch. In this photo, Michael Stephens repairs a power line in South Memphis.
Texas is often called the energy capital of America, so it might come as a surprise that the oil and gas boom has substantially driven electric prices up in some parts of the state. And in those same areas, prices are expected to spike again this summer.
To understand why, it’s best to start with the small city of Seymour, which is somewhere between Wichita Falls and Abilene. Fewer than 3,000 people call it home.
“We are a small West Texas Community that, like all West Texas communities, is struggling with every cent is important to us,” says John Studer, Seymour’s city manager.
The town of Seymour runs its own electric utility. It buys on the wholesale market and sells power to its citizens. Voters have control of their utility, and profits go to the city. Studer says it’s worked pretty well. Until last year when the electric bills started going up.
“Every one that came in, it just kept progressively getting higher and then when you get one up for ten percent of your bill for congestion charges,” Studer explains. “It kind of takes your breath away.” Continue Reading →
Right now, there’s a lot excitement over different shale formations across Texas and across the country. But along with excitement, there sometimes comes hype.
First there was the Barnett near Fort Worth and Pennsylvania’s Marcellus. In South Texas you’ve got the Eagle Ford. North Dakota taps the Bakken. It seems like everywhere you look, drillers are finding shale formations that might be the “next big thing” for the American energy industry. (Shale formations are layers of rock that companies can sometimes drill for oil and gas using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.) Recently the “next big thing” being touted is the Cline Shale in the Permian Basin of West Texas.
The Cline Shale lies more than 9,000 feet underground and many in the energy business expect it to bring the next oil and gas boom to West Texas.
The new black gold? Brian Schoonover works for Water Rescue Services, a group that treats brackish and "produced" water so it can be used in hydraulic fracturing. Here he holds a mason jar of produced water, ready for treatment.
This article is part of an occasional series on water and hydraulic fracturing by the Texas Tribune and StateImpact Texas.
On a recent morning, Tommy Taylor, a manager with the drilling company Fasken Oil & Ranch, stood in the West Texas desert beside two huge pools of water. One contained freshwater, and the other contained brackish water from the Santa Rosa aquifer 1,700 feet beneath Taylor’s feet.
Fasken has been mixing the two sources as part of a pilot program to use brackish water in hydraulic fracturing, so that the water-intensive drilling process doesn’t deplete local freshwater wells.
“We would like to get to where we’re using 100 percent” brackish water, Taylor said.
In regions of Texas like the Permian Basin, where the water needs of fracking have run up against a historic drought, drillers are increasingly turning to brackish groundwater previously thought too expensive to use. Fracking a well requires roughly 4 to 6 million gallons of water, which gets mixed with chemicals and sand to break up the rock and retrieve the oil or gas. In the Midland-Odessa region, where reservoirs sit 95 percent empty and cities and towns have been under severe water rationing for years, drillers are scrambling to find new sources of water.
Vice Admiral Lee Gunn (Ret.) is speaking in Texas on the threat to national security posed by climate change.
By now you’ve probably heard about the potential for global climate change to impact the environment, the economy, even the range of vampire bats. But what about national security?
That’s exactly what retired Navy Vice Admiral Lee Gunn has been talking about in Texas this week.
Gunn served in the U.S. Navy for thirty-five years. He joined the Center for Naval Analysis (now known simply as CNA) after his retirement in 2001. He’s in Texas on behalf of CNA’s Military Advisory Board, a group whose report “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change” brought attention to the security aspect of climate change in 2007.
During his visit, Vice Admiral Gunn is talking with policymakers and leaders in the energy industry about investment in renewable technologies and security issues. He also stopped by KUT’s Newsroom to talk with StateImpact Texas’ Mose Buchele.
StateImpact Texas: How do you think national security will be threatened by climate change?
Seated at center, State Sen. Troy Fraser (R-Horshoe Bay) hears testimony on his bill to end contested hearings at the TCEQ.
Update, April 16, 2013: The Senate Natural Resources Committee voted 6-3 in favor of the bill, SB 957, today. Senators Nichols, Seliger, Eltife, Hegar, Estes and Fraser voted in favor of the bill, while Senators Duncan, Ellis and Uresti voted against it. Two Senators were absent. The bill now heads for to the Senate floor.
Original story, March 20, 2013:
It’s a familiar story. A landfill, a power plant, or maybe a factory wants to open in Texas. Members of the surrounding community protest, fearing the environmental impacts. Their challenge goes before an administrative law judge, who passes his or her decision back to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).
Now, a bill at the state capitol would dramatically change that process.
Under Senate Bill 957, authored by State Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horshoe Bay, contested hearings for permits issued by the the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality would end. The hearings, although only applied in about one percent of permit applications, according to both supporters and detractors of the bill, have been a standard way for people to fight permits issued at the TCEQ.
The Texas Attorney General says the TCEQ, the state's environmental regulator, was not responsible for killing 23 rare whooping cranes.
UPDATE: Late Friday afternoon State Attorney General Abbot’s request to stay the ruling on TCEQ water management was denied, according to The Aransas Project, the plaintiffs in the case.
However, the language of Judge Jack’s original order (the one the state was trying to stay) was amended to allow the TCEQ to approve water permits from the Guadalupe and San Antonio River basins which are “necessary to protect the public’s health and safety.”
You can find the document denying the stay and amending the original order here.
Earlier this week, a federal judge found the state’s environmental agency guilty of violating the Endangered Species Act. The ruling, which could have implications for the water management across the state, said the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ)Â was responsible for the deaths of 23 rare Whooping Cranes. It prohibited the TCEQ from issuing new water use permits for the Guadalupe and San Antonio River unless the Agency could prove that the cranes would not be impacted.
Today, the Texas Attorney General said the state would appeal that ruling, and sought an emergency stay from the federal district court while the state plans that appeal.
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