Two of our top stories this year looked at a new water fund for Texas.
As we ring in a new year, we’re taking a look back at some of the top stories for StateImpact Texas in 2013. From cattle rustlers to electric cars, these were the five most popular stories of the year:
Cattle Theft on The Rise in Texas, Despite Tougher Penalties: “Ranchers saw a sharp jump in cattle rustling last year in Texas and Oklahoma. Over 10,000 cows and horses were reported missing or stolen. That’s an almost 40 percent increase from the year before. It’s a trend that’s surprised some in law enforcement.”
If Proposition 6 Passes, What Comes Next for Water in Texas? Voters approved the first major spending on water project in decades this year: “If there’s one thing that is certain, it’s that Prop 6 would likely spur a burst of interest in the state water planning process, a bottom-up system in which regional groups put together proposals for their areas and then send those up to the state level for inclusion in the State Water Plan.”
After West Fertilizer Explosion, Concerns Over Safety, Regulation and Zoning: In the days after a deadly explosion that killed fifteen and destroyed dozens of homes, questions arose over what could have been done to prevent it: “Even at this early stage of the investigation, there are signs that not all was right with the plant, like the fact that it had as much as 270 tons of ammonium nitrate (which can be explosive) at the site, but no sprinklers or fire barriers. It’s also brought up questions about regulation in Texas, and whether homes and schools should be so close to industry.”
The promise of harnessing the power of the sun and turning it into renewable energy has attracted countless businesses, governments and environmental groups. But it might be a church here in Austin that ends up bringing one of the next breakthroughs in solar technology.
To understand the scope of this project, it helps to know that Saint David’s is no little roadside chapel. The Episcopal Church in downtown Austin fills up a whole city block. It provides your typical church services and then some.
“We have a coffee shop, we have a restaurant, we have a pre-school for children,” says Terry Nathan, the parish administrator. “The better part of our basement is dedicated to a homeless center.” The Church keeps a staff of caterers for its side business hosting events, and has a bookstore and parking garage, which they make available for commercial use. All that takes a lot of electricity.
So about ten years ago, church members got the idea to put solar panels on the parking garage. But they didn’t take the plunge until last year. That’s when low interest rates, improved technology, and government rebates all came together. Continue Reading →
A hydraulic fracking operation in the Barnett Shale.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was legally justified in issuing — and later withdrawing — an emergency order against a Fort Worth-based driller following a 2010 complaint of groundwater contamination in North Texas, the agency’s internal watchdog said in a report released Tuesday. But questions linger the about the source of the contamination, it added.
The findings come 18 months after six U.S. senators, including John Cornyn, called for an inquiry into the agency’s handling of a case that rose to prominence in the national discussion of the impacts of natural gas drilling.
In the report, the Office of Inspector General said officials at EPA Region 6 “conformed to agency guidelines, regulation and policy” when they charged Range Resources with contaminating two Parker County wells with benzene, methane and other substances.
“Test results on November 16, 2010, showed the presence of chemical contamination in both wells. The contamination levels indicated a risk to a drinking water source — the aquifer and the wells drawing from it,” the report said. “The methane in the wells presented an explosion hazard, and benzene presented health hazards.”
Range says that the gas was present in the water before it arrived, and that drilling was not to blame. Continue Reading →
Nadia Siddiqui is a policy analyst at the Texas Health Institute
Texas needs to do more as a state to prepare its most vulnerable communities for the impact of climate change according to health researchers.
“We may face the ‘perfect storm’ in the State of Texas where the most vulnerable, low income communities, high-diversity communities are very disproportionately impacted and affected,” said Nadia Siddiqui. Continue Reading →
A map of recent earthquakes (in red) and oil and gas wastewater disposal wells outside of Fort Worth. Active disposal wells are in green; inactive wells are in yellow. Map by Michael Marks/Terrence Henry
Two more earthquakes struck near the town of Azle outside of Fort Worth over the weekend, both measuring 3.3 on the Richter scale. One struck late Sunday morning, the other Monday morning. The area, in Parker and Tarrant counties, has seen a swarm of over twenty quakes since the beginning of November, troubling residents and causing minor damage to some homes.
The Dallas-Fort Worth area is not known as a seismically active area. Before 2007, there were no recorded earthquakes in the area. Since that time, there have been hundreds.
The quakes are thought to be linked to the disposal of wastewater, a byproduct of oil and gas drilling. Peer-reviewed scientific studies of other swarms of quakes to the south in Johnson County and around the Dallas-Fort Worth airport have pointed the finger directly at disposal wells, where that wastewater is sent deep underground. Quakes in other states like Oklahoma, Ohio and Arkansas also have been scientifically linked to oil and gas wastewater disposal wells. The science behind the phenomenon has been known since the 1960s.
Now, the manmade quakes finally appear to have gotten the attention of Texas’ oil and gas regulator, the Railroad Commission of Texas.
This map shows the historic probability of a "White Christmas" across the U.S.
The winter weather came a little too early for Texas this year.
Just a few weeks ago, an ice storm knocked out power for over 800,000 people in North Texas. But the forecasts are saying pretty much all of Texas has a practically zero chance for a “White Christmas” this year.
Forecasting from historical records, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration puts the chance of a White Christmas for almost all of Texas at between zero and 10 percent. (In small parts of the Panhandle, your odds are only slightly better: between an 11 and 25 percent chance of a White Christmas.) NOAA defines a White Christmas as “at least 1 inch of snow on the ground” on December 25.
But there’s still time to book a plane ticket if you must have snow this year. According to NOAA, these are the places to go: Continue Reading →
The above video was shot inside the Waller Creek tunnel, 70 feet underneath downtown Austin, at the end of August 2013. The tunnel is expected to be finished by the end of 2014.Â
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Waterloo Park, just east of the State Capitol, is a perfect example. There used to be houses there. But then in the 1970s, recalls former city council staffer and Waller Creek Conservancy executive director Stephanie Lee McDonald, “there was a lot of urban renewal efforts and the neighborhood was razed and the park was created.”
According to newspaper articles at the time, there were big redevelopment plans for the area, which sits along Waller Creek. There were even hopes that the space could become Austin’s very own version of the famed San Antonio River Walk. Of course, things didn’t really work out that way.
“Nobody comes to Waterloo Park,” McDonald laments.
Now a new development project is afoot – which could finally make those river walk dreams come true. Continue Reading →
Dr. Tad Patzek is the Chair of UT's Department of Petroleum & Geosystems Engineering .
America’s oil and gas boom was brought on by hydraulic fracturing, commonly called “fracking” and horizontal drilling. These methods of drilling, developed in Texas, unleashed historic amounts of fossil fuels in previously inaccessible shale formations across the country.
But recent research from the University of Texas suggests that many wells using these techniques will see a sharp drop in production after some years of use.
Tad Patzek is chair of the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at UT Austin. He was part of the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, and he sat down with StateImpact Texas to talk about it.
STATEIMPACT:Â Â The formula that you have indicates that there will be a steep decline in some of these wells, and obviously that has potentially major implications for the economy. What do you mean when you say you’re predicting some declines?
PATZEK: Well, it’s not me that’s predicting the declines, the declines are real. So these wells can produce at low rates for probably 25, 30 years. But in order for us to get the very high rates we need to run our economy, we need to drill more and more of them. So the question is, can we drill enough of these initially high-producing wells to offset the declines of the older wells?
ExxonMobil's refinery in Baytown is one of the nation's biggest
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has begun the process to begin issuing air pollution permits for industrial plants that emit greenhouse gases linked to climate change. The permits will be based on new rules put in effect in 2011 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in response to research on global warming.
It’s probably not a result Texas Governor Rick Perry had in mind back in 2010 when he and the Texas attorney general held a news conference. They said the new rules would be so costly to industry that they would be disastrous for the Texas economy.
“My office has worked closely with Attorney General Abbott to consider all options to challenge this seriously flawed EPA finding…to head off an economic calamity…We are challenging the EPA’s findings for CO2 and other greenhouse gases,” Perry said in February 2010. Continue Reading →
Two trees couldn't withstand the storm in this backyard near Lower Greenville in Dallas. They tore apart a fence and damaged a roof and tore down a power line.
Against the backdrop of a debate over whether Texas has enough power generation (i.e. power plants) to meet growing demand, two instances of large-scale outages in the past few weeks show a more common vulnerability: power lost to fallen or damaged power lines during storms. Could anything have been done to prevent the outages? The short answer is yes. But chances are you won’t like the full explanation.
An ice storm in Dallas a little over a week ago left over two hundred thousand people without power for days, in sub-freezing temperatures. “We do have a power system that’s primarily based in Texas on overhead distribution lines. And those distribution lines are very vulnerable to weather related events,” says B. Don Russell, Electrical and Engineering professor at Texas A&M University.
Russell says that overall, the U.S. – and in particular Texas – has a very reliable power system. Even during ice storms, power plants can typically stay up and running. (With a few exceptions, like the statewide blackouts of 2011.) But the lines that take the power to people can run into issues. And their number one obstacle?
“The big issue is trees,” says Russell. That’s right. Our leafy friends that give us shade and filter the air? They don’t get along very well with power lines. Continue Reading →
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