5th January, 2011 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
The Statesman had this article today, which says that the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission, made of members from Texas and Vermont, has voted to allow importation of radioactive waste from 36 other states into Texas, to be buried in Andrews County in West Texas. The article states:
The low-level dump can be used to bury radioactively contaminated trash such as rags, syringes and protective clothing from nuclear plants or hospitals. The vast majority of it, if sealed in a drum, would be safe enough to sit atop the site and will lose its radioactivity within a century, according to state environmental officials.
Environmental groups had argued that the waste could imperil water quality in the nearby aquifers….
The final vote on importation was 5-2, with two of the Texas commissioners, Bob Gregory , who runs a landfill southeast of Austin, and Bob Wilson, an Austin attorney, opposed.
But the disposal of the waste became a story as much about money and connections as about radioactive syringes and beakers.
Waste Control is a subsidiary of Valhi , whose board chairman is Harold Simmons , a Dallas investor who has given at least $1.12 million to Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s campaigns since 2001, making him the second-highest individual donor during that period . He gave Perry’s campaign $500,000 in 2010. That year the company spent as much as $430,000 on lobbyists, according to a review of campaign records.
All the commissioners were appointed by Perry.
Read the whole Statesman article for more info. Additionally, here is an older post about the proposal.
14th December, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
ABJ has an article today that says that Austin Solar LLC will break ground tomorrow for its $200 million solar farm, which will be the largest solar farm i n texas when built. The project is expected to create 350 jobs over the next 2 to 3 years. Check out the whole article for more details.
9th December, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
The Statesman had a short article today that says that:
The U.S. Drought Monitor on Thursday indicated 85 percent of Texas is between abnormally dry and in extreme drought, compared to about 29 percent a year ago.
Tropical Storm Hermine drenched Central Texas in September. Since then large swaths of Texas have received less than 10 percent of normal rainfall levels.
I am not surprised – it really hasn’t rained much at all in the last 2 months.
6th December, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
The Statesman has this article today, which discusses a possible link between the Fayette Power Plant (a plant the provides power to the City of Austin) and lower pecan tree productiveness. Here’s an excerpt:
[Farmers] working in concert with Sierra Club, blame sulfur dioxide emissions from the nearby Fayette Power Project for the downturn in their crops. They demand that the Lower Colorado River Authority and Austin Energy, which co-own the plant, help them.
Officials with Austin Energy and the LCRA dismiss the pecan growers and environmentalists’ claims, and pecan experts are divided about whether such a thing is even possible. Two of the state’s agricultural extension agents have said they have never heard of a connection between pecan production and plant emissions.
Sulfur dioxide harming the plants in Fayette County is “a long shot,” said Larry Stein, a Texas A&M horticulturist based in Uvalde who specializes in pecans. What became Hayek Farm was started around 1900 by the grandfather of Hayek’s wife. By the time Hayek and his wife took over operations in the early 1970s, it had reached 200 acres with nearly 3,000 trees. He grew a half-dozen or more species, with names such as Desirables and Success. Harvests in the 1970s heyday were a quarter-million pounds a year.
8th November, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
The Statesman has a good article today about the upcoming review in December by the legislature of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Here’s a little excerpt:
In the seven years since the state auditor issued a report highly critical of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, little has changed.
The agency’s coziness with industry and its reliance on weak penalties continue unabated, abetted by state lawmakers. And its laissez-faire regulatory style has led to an unprecedented threat by the Environmental Protection Agency to take over the state’s permitting of industries that pollute the air…
Though Texas leads the nation by some pollution counts, the environmental commission’s official mission (“protect our state’s human and natural resources consistent with sustainable economic development”) makes for a difficult balancing act.
The agency will come under review in December by the Legislature’s Sunset Advisory Commission, which regularly evaluates state agencies to determine whether they should continue to exist.
No one expects the commission to be eliminated — with 3,000 employees and a $466 million budget, it is the second-largest environmental department in the world, after the EPA. But the sunset process may spotlight some of the practices that have come under fire from critics.
Check out the whole article at the link above!
28th October, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
The Statesman has this story today, which states that:
High-speed rail in Texas, long left for dead, is likely to regain a pulse today when U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announces a $5.6 million grant to plan a passenger rail line from Oklahoma City to the Rio Grande.
The money is part of $2.4 billion in federal grants to be unveiled today for high-speed rail projects, a spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration said.
The $5.6 million grant, announced Wednesday by the office of U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, would pay for what is expected to be a 42-month study that would identify a preferred route on existing or new tracks, estimate capital and annual operating costs, project ridership and evaluate environmental effects of passenger rail.
Building high-speed rail from the Texas-Mexico border to Oklahoma, however, would cost billions of dollars. Policymakers have not identified a source for the money.
The grant is only half of what the Texas Department of Transportation requested for what it estimated would be a $14 million study. TxDOT will contribute $2.8 million from money the agency had approved for the Lone Star Rail District, the agency that hopes someday to build commuter rail between Georgetown and San Antonio.
21st September, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
I wrote earlier that the EPA and TCEQ were close to reaching an agreement on Texas’ Air Pollution Permit Program. Now the Statesman has an update:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has formally announced a program designed to help Texas petrochemical companies fix air permits recently declared illegal under the Clean Air Act. The EPA launched the voluntary audit program on Monday.
In June, the EPA officially disapproved Texas’ so-called flexible permit program, leaving more than 120 plants, including some of the nation’s largest refineries, with unacceptable permits.
For 90 days, the companies will be able to work directly with the EPA to begin the lengthy process of fixing their problematic paperwork, including making any necessary modifications to meet the requirements. Companies that enroll within 45 days will enjoy reduced penalties on violations that are uncovered.
17th September, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
ABJ has a short article today about Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s third attempt to block EPA smog limits, saying that the EPA rules will harm the state’s economy.
Abbott filed four more motions in the U.S. Court of Appeals to stop the guidelines on cars and other emitters, set by the Environmental Protection Agency. He charged the agency based the rules on flawed climate data and the result violates the Clean Air Act, according to a press release Thursday.
The rules’ “scheduled implementation is unlawful and will cause the State of Texas immediate and irreparable harm, without countervailing benefit to third parties or to the public interest,” one of the suits said.
The filing is the latest of charges he and other government officials have supported against federal environmental interventions since February.
Read more: Texas AG files to block EPA limits – Austin Business Journal
27th August, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
A new report found high levels of toxic contaminants in coal ash, which is a waste product of coal-fired power plants. Many states, including Texas, do not regulate coal ash dump sites, and Texas is the 2nd largest prodicer of coal ash. The Texas Tribune reports that:
The report looked at information from groundwater samples around the Fayette power plant in central Texas, where the Lower Colorado River Authority makes power from Wyoming coal, and found high levels of selenium, arsenic and other metals and chemicals that exceed federal standards, and state standards. The power plant is located on Lake Fayette, between Austin and Houston. Two landowners near that plant have been told by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality that their wells may contain an excess of molybdenum, another heavy metal, the report said.
The Statesman has a story about the report today as well.
25th August, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
KUT has this story from a few days ago about efforts to protect bats in Texas from White-Nose Syndrome, which is a fungus that can cause hibernating bats to wake up while it’s still winter (rather than waiting till spring), at which point there’s no food so they get hungry and die. Since first being discovered in 2006 in New York, its spread all over the Northeast, and has been as close as Oklahoma. Scientists don’t know for sure that humans can carry the fungus, but they do know if can be carried on people’s camping/hiking equipment, so to play it safe while bats start hibernating, Texas Parks and Wildlife has closed access to caves in Texas state parks where bats are known to hibernate. If it spreads, it may even end up affecting Austin’s Mexican-free tailed bats:
Bats infected with White-Nose Syndrome develop a white powered looking fuzz around their muzzle. Cave myotis , the little brown bats, have suffered the most. They can be found throughout Texas. But bats, even of different species, often roost close together. That’s what concerns Nina Fascione. She’s executive director at Bat Conservation International in Austin. Fascione says since the Mexican free-tailed bats ,like the ones under the Congress Bridge, are not hibernating bats they might be spared.
“That said the cave myotis, which has been discovered to have the white nose fungus, commonly shares caves with the Mexican-free tailed bats,” said Fascione. “So again in the next year we might learn more about how it’s spreading, whether it will spread to the migratory bats like the Mexican-free tailed and it really would be a sad thing for Austin.”
20th August, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
The Texas Tribune had this article about a BP unit at a Texas refinery that malfunctioned last spring, which has led to two lawsuits: an enforcement suit brought by the Texas Attorney General seeking up to $1 million in Texas Clear Air Act fines and a $10 billion federal class action suit on behalf of the more than 2,000 workers exposed to carcinogens released during the malfunction. Here is an excerpt:
Each [lawsuit] charges that BP — to avoid bad publicity and lost profits from a shutdown — kept operations going at its largest refinery, exposing its workers and the entire Texas City community to more than 500,000 pounds of dangerous chemicals over a 40-day period….
At its unit in Texas City, BP continued operations between April 6 and May 16, even after the hydrogen compressor — which reduces emissions by trapping noxious chemicals for reuse in other parts of the refinery — had malfunctioned. Instead, the company opted to send the chemicals to the emergency flare device, which, much like pilot lights on a stove, ignites when it comes into contact with gases. In theory, the flare burns most of them up before they are released into the air. But even in the best of all possible worlds, 2 percent of the gases escape….
Long before Deepwater Horizon, the Texas City refinery was the ne’er-do-well of BP’s holdings. The 2005 explosion killed 15 workers and injured another 170. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration imposed a $21 million fine, the highest ever assessed at the time, for safety violations leading up to the accident. BP also pleaded guilty to one violation of the Clean Air Act as a result of the explosion and agreed to an additional $50 million fine. Then, at the end of last year, OSHA fined the company another $87 million — again breaking a record — for failing to implement safety recommendations developed in the aftermath of the 2005 disaster. BP has since agreed to pay about $50 million of that fine but is contesting the remaining amount in court.
18th August, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
According to the Austin Business Journal, Austin was ranked number 1 in the Business Facilities magazine in availability of renewable energy and ranked number 2 in the greenest metros category. Go Austin!
12th August, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
The Statesman has this article today, which states:
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking to end a moratorium on deep-water oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.The drilling ban, announced July 12 amid fears of additional catastrophic blowouts after the Deepwater Horizon disaster pumped millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf, was enacted without consulting Texas — or properly weighing the economic impact — as required by federal law, Abbott told a U.S. District Court in Houston.
“Affected states are guaranteed the right to participate in offshore drilling-related policy decisions, but the Obama administration did not bother to communicate, coordinate or cooperate with Texas,” Abbott said Wednesday. “Worse, the secretary of the interior failed to consider the economic consequences of his decision.”
26th July, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
KUT had this article about a small group of protesters who last Friday had a press conference about UT’s decision to start selling UT-branded water. The article states:
The plastic water bottles, which were unveiled last week, are projected to bring in a million dollars each year, with 40 percent of the revenue going toward student scholarships.
Protesters told reporters that instead of selling plastic water bottles, the university should sell aluminum bottles and give 40 percent of that revenue to student scholarships.
“We don’t want to add thousands of pounds of plastic into our waste stream,” Stacy Guidry, Texas Campaign for the Environment Program Assistant, said. “We can do a lot better than that.”
In response, the company formed to sell the plastic bottle, H2Orange, issued an open letter. According to Austin Business Journal:
The document said the water bottles are made from 100 recyclable PET (polyethylene terephthalate) material. H2Orange is buying carbon credits to offset the impact of manufacturing the bottled.
Also in the letter, the company said in its second year it plans to sell refillable, stainless steal bottles. The company is looking into creating a collapsible, BPA-free, dish washer-safe versions, as well as a biodegradable plastic bottle.
16th July, 2010 - Posted by carsi - 1 Comment
According to this Austin Business Journal article, the Lower Colorado River Authority is being sued by three environmental groups. They are accusing the LCRA of violating the Clean Air Act at its coal-fired power plant near La Grange. Additionally, the groups allege LCRA owes the state about $500,000 in pollution fees for under-reporting its emissions. Check out the article for more details.
9th July, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
The Texas Tribune had this story about last night’s EPA open house meeting in Forth Worth regarding natural gas drilling:
The meeting, which drew more than 600 people, was intended to gather public input ahead of an EPA study (requested by Congress) on how groundwater is affected by hydraulic fracturing, a process that involves shooting a mix of chemicals and water deep underground to break up rock and extract gas (which is plentiful in the Fort Worth area). Gas companies say the process occurs far below the water table and is safe, but a recent film called Gasland showed scenes from around the country of people being able to light their tap water on fire. One family from Bowie has done this too, and there are also reports that a Crowley woman (who has gas wells near her house) found that her hair turned orange after she washed it.
The EPA will also host meetings in Colorado, Pennsylvania and New York, and expects to have initial study results on the effects of natural gas drilling on groundwater by the end of 2012.
28th June, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
photo from National Park Service
KUT has this short story today about sea turtle hatchlings that released into the Gulf of Mexico at this time of year. The releases take place each weekend and are open to the public.
Chris Pincetich, a marine biologist with the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, said the hatchlings face greater odds this year due to the oil leak off the coast of Louisiana. He said that thousands of sea turtles could be affected by the oil leak by summer’s end and fears the fate of the turtles extend to the newly released hatchlings.
“The normal odds for a sea turtle hatchling to make it out to the ocean, grow up, survive are already daunting odds,” says Pincetich. “You throw in an environment soaked in oil, the odds of them surviving to breed again are very very low.”
23rd June, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
KUT had this short story about oiled birds rescued from the Gulf that are being released at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, which researchers hope is far enough away from the oil slick that the birds will not return.
Image courtesy Deepwater Horizon Response http://www.flickr.com/photos/deepwaterhorizonresponse/
16th June, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
The Statesman has an article today about the ongoing battle between TCEQ and the EPA – the article states that the EPA has directed 2 additional plants in Texas to seek their air permits directly from the EPA, rather than from the state. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
Putting further pressure on state environmental regulators and industries, the regional administrator of the federal Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday that he was demanding that two more Texas plants seek air permits directly from the EPA.
Al Armendariz said he is directing Chevron Phillips and Garland Power & Light to get the permits for their facilities in Harris County and Collin County, respectively, because the Texas permits give too much leeway on pollution. Earlier this month, Armendariz ordered a refinery in Corpus Christi to get a permit from the feds, saying the state-issued permit was inadequate.
“We have the capability and the staff and, honestly, the responsibility under the Clean Air Act to issue permits if we feel a state permitting authority is not issuing good permits,” Armendariz said. “Do we want to? The answer is no. This is not something we do because we have an agenda.”
Check out the article for the whole story.
7th June, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
In oil spill news, the Statesman had this short article which says that accroding to the Texas General Land Office, no oiled birds have been found in Texas yet. The spill’s westernmost limit is roughly 100 miles east of the Texas-Louisiana border.
Also, KUT has this short story about the reaction of Austinites to a full page ad by BP that appeared in Sunday’s Statesman. The ad is apologetic about the Gulf Oil Spill. A similar ad made for TV can be seen here.
