Terrence Henry reports on energy and the environment for StateImpact Texas. His radio, print and television work has appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, NPR, The Texas Tribune, The History Channel and other outlets.
He has previously worked at The Washington Post and The Atlantic. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations from Brigham Young University.
Ron Curry has been appointed as the new regional administrator of the EPA.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has appointed Ron Curry, a former New Mexico Environment Department official, as the new regional administrator of Region Six of the EPA. That area covers Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and New Mexico.
In an email to StateImpact Texas, a spokesperson for Region Six of the EPA says that “will provide valuable insight into the public health and environmental challenges facing Region Six, and will be able to offer a state’s perspective within the Agency.”
Curry served as Cabinet Secretary of the New Mexico Environment Department from January 2003 thru December 2010.
Texas Governor Rick Perry speaks to an estimated 30,000 attendees at the non-denominational prayer and fasting event, "The Response," on August 6, 2011 in Houston, Texas.
Texas has come a long way in recovering from the devastating single-year drought of 2011. The latest US Drought Monitor Map out this week shows that more than 11 percent of the state is completely drought-free. And less than 5 percent of the state is in the worst stage of drought. By comparison, a year ago, more than 88 percent of the state was in that “exceptional” drought stage.
Since then, things have drastically improved. And during a conference call this week with the prayer campaign 40 Days to Save America, former pastor and Christian fundamentalist Rick Scarborough credited Texas Governor’s Rick Perry’s call to prayer a year ago for ending the drought. Last August, Perry led a prayer and Bible reading at ‘The Response,’ a prayer meeting of some 30,000 to 40,000 people at the massive Reliant Stadium in Houston. And apparently it worked?
“The press was willing to mock the prayer and fasting,” Scarborough says in the call featuring Perry, which you can listen to here, “but failed to document that — what everyone had thought would take years — to replenish our lakes and streams — almost happened in three months.” Scarborough says farmers have had a record year of hay harvest (actually, they haven’t) and that it all goes back “to the courageous call of a governor of a state to the people to pray and fast.”
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 squaremiles, 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.
“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.
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.
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.
So what’s the danger of being exposed to these chemicals? There are plenty. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says that just five minutes of exposure can lead to “adverse respiratory effects,” especially for asthmatics. “Studies also show a connection between short-term exposure and increased visits to emergency departments and hospital admissions for respiratory illnesses, particularly in at-risk populations including children, the elderly, and asthmatics,” the agency says.
Milton Rister is the new executive director of the Railroad Omission of Texas.
An aide to Texas Governor Rick Perry has been selected by the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC), which oversees oil and gas drilling and pipelines in the state, as the agency’s new executive director.
Milton Rister will take the spot that was abruptly vacated earlier this year when the previous executive director and longtime RRC employee John Tintera resigned. (Tintera quickly took a job at the lobbying group Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, where he works as a Regulation Advisor.)
Rister’s background is primarily political. He worked as a Director for Administration for Perry since 2010, and before that was Executive Director of the Texas Legislative Council, a nonpartisan state agency that provides research to the legislature. He’s also worked for Lt. Governor David Dewhurst and the Republican Party of Texas.
But his background is not without some controversy.
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