CARRIZO SPRINGS — In this South Texas stretch of mesquite trees and cactus, where the land is sometimes too dry to grow crops, the local aquifer is being strained in the search for oil. The reason is hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a drilling process that requires massive amounts of water.
“We just can’t sustain it,” Hugh Fitzsimons, a Dimmit County bison rancher who serves on the board of his local groundwater district, said last month as he drove his pickup down a dusty road.
From 2009 to 2012, water production from one well on his ranch fell by two-thirds, a problem Fitzsimons linked to nearby wells pumping water for fracking operations. A study commissioned by his groundwater district found that in a five-county area that includes Dimmit, fracking reduces the amount of water in the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer by the equivalent of one-third of the aquifer’s recharge. Recharge means the average amount of water an aquifer regains each year from precipitation and other factors.
The amount of water used in hydraulic fracturing — roughly 4 million to 6 million gallons per oil or gas well — has stirred concerns around Texas as the drought wears on and the drilling boom continues. Continue Reading →
Texans can add one more item to the list of reasons to love the state: It has the best market for electricity. Anywhere.. At least, according to Donna Nelson. She’s chairman of the Texas Public Utility Commission.
“It’s arguably the most successful in the world,” Nelson told attendees at the IHS energy conference in Houston.
Critics of the deregulated Texas power market would certainly challenge that assertion. And Nelson made the comment as part of a panel discussion that focused on a problem with the market: It might not make enough electricity to keep the lights and air conditioners running on the hottest days. Not enough new power plants have been built.
A new Texas bill could make sure towns are reporting low water supplies to authorities.
New legislation could plug the leaks in the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s (TCEQ) reporting requirements for municipalities running low on water. Right now, a water utility can be nearly tapped out, and it still isn’t required to report the problem.
Lyle Larson, R-San Antonio, has filed a bill, HB 252, that would require water utilities to report to the TCEQ if they have less than 180 days of water left. A six-month buffer would give the TCEQ time to help find alternative sources of water.
“Many [water utilities] have come in in an emergency situation where they were reporting they had less than 45 days, and at that point it is pretty hard to work with them to try to find a new source,” said Linda Brookins, Director of the Water Supply Division at the TCEQ, at a House Natural Resources Committee Meeting earlier this week.
And those who kindly opposed the legislation were native seed distributors themselves.
While the distributors were glad the state government is championing the native seeds cause, some weren’t sure these bills would be the right way to tackle a native seed supply-side gap.
Dean Williams, who proclaimed he was voted “most likely to sack seed” as a youth and is now president of 101-year-old Douglass King Seed Company, thought the grant program could have a detrimental effect on the native seed business.
Proponents say the bill would cut down on the red tape of reporting requirements for wastewater utilities.
A new bill could stop a lot of the crying over spilled sewage in Texas.
Lawmakers and critics voiced various concerns about a sewage spill bill at a House Natural Resources Committee meeting Tuesday at the Capitol. The bill, HB 824 authored by Bill Callegari, R-Houston, would put a floor on the size of spills that must be reported by utilities to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
“This is a common sense solution to an issue that I think causes a fair amount of paper work,” said Callegari. “I personally, and I think a lot of you here, have been concerned with some of the red tape, if you will, in this state.”
If the bill passes, most spills below 1,500 gallons would not need to be reported to authorities (by comparison, a standard milk hauling truck holds around 4,000 to 5,000 gallons).
Shark fins for sale in Texas (like the ones in the this photo from China) would be banned under proposed legislation.
We all know there are sharks in the Gulf of Mexico. But why would Texas lawmakers care? AÂ bill that went before the Senate Natural Resources Committee Tuesday says they should.
State Senator Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, whose district includes Galveston, filed Senate Bill 572, which would outlaw the buying and selling of shark fins. Shark fins are a sought-after ingredient for shark fin soup and foods considered a delicacy in some Asian dishes. They can sell for up to $700 dollars a pound.
“What they are doing is bringing in the largest sharks that they can and clipping their fins off,” Pickett told the committee. “And, well, that just ain’t fair.”
While the process known as “finning” is banned by federal law, the sale and trade of shark fins isn’t. Only five states have enacted bans like the one Texas is considering. So why do it here? Continue Reading →
You know what they say, “one man’s earthquake is another man’s ‘seismic activity.'”
At a StateImpact Texas panel on the legislative response to the Texas oil and gas boom, we asked some lawmakers if they are hearing concerns from constituents about the uptick in earthquakes in the state. Scientists have linked all that shaking to disposal wells used to store the byproducts from both traditional drilling and hydro-fracturing, or fracking.
“It really hasn’t been earthquakes, it’s been seismic activity,” he said.
King said he was skeptical of the link between the drilling and the shaking underground, but “the good news is nobody’s felt it, there hasn’t been any damage we have some time to kind of look at it.”
Texas is not known for robust state regulation of industry, but some lawmakers are filing bills to address the current oil and gas boom.
Update/Correction: 03/08/13
The original version of this story reported that Rep. Van Taylor’s HB 100 would reduce methane flaring by encouraging the capture of more methane gas. In a subsequent interview, Rep. Taylor clarified, saying it reduce Co2 emissions by making carbon gasses more valuable to drillers looking to extract more oil and gas from unitized fields.It would not reduce flaring.
In some northeastern states like New York and New Jersey, elected officials debate whether to ban the type of drilling called hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” You’d be hard pressed to find talk like that from Texas lawmakers.
At a recent panel discussion hosted by StateImpact Texas, four Texas legislators from diverse political and geographic backgrounds all sang the praises of the fracking boom.
“As I tour my district, and I drive through what were once small towns and counties, what I hear is, it’s exciting, there are a lot of opportunities,” said Carlos Uresti, a Democratic State Senator from San Antonio, in a typical nod to the economic promise of the oil and gas boom.
But just below the surface, as you drill down into the issues, there is a debate forming over the role Texas elected officials will play in regulating the impacts of drilling. Continue Reading →
A wastewater treatment plant is inundated by the Yazoo River floodwaters near Yazoo City, Mississippi in 2011. A new Texas bill could loosen the requirements for reporting sewage spills.
Update:On March 5, the sewage spill bill got a hearing at the Capitol. Read about that here.
Sewage spill reporting requirements could become less stringent if a bill filed by Rep. Bill Callegari, R-Houston, passes the legislature.
The spill bill, HB 824, would exempt wastewater treatment facilities from reporting most sewage spills less than 1,500 gallons. (By comparison, a typical milk tanker truck holds between 4,000-5,000 gallons.) The merits of the sewage spill bill and others will be heard at a House Natural Resources Committee meeting tomorrow at the Capitol.
Right now, any amount of sewage spilled by a wastewater treatment facility or water utility must be reported to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).
A fisherman cuts the fins off of a shark at the fish market in Abobodoume, a popular quarter of Abidjan, on April 12, 2008. A new bill being considered by the Texas legislature would make the market for shark fins illegal.
As StateImpact Texas reported recently, the bills would ban anyone from buying or selling shark fins in Texas: Continue Reading →
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