Texas Commission on Environmental Quality

TCEQ Approves Nuclear Waste Site Expansion Despite Environmental Concerns

In a quiet, private vote yesterday, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality voted to approve a Dallas-based chemical waste management company's request to triple capacity at its West Texas disposal site. Waste Control Specialists had proposed that it site grow from 2.3 million cubic feet to 9 ... More >>

DFW Breathes Some of America's Worst Air, and Fracking May Be Partially to Blame

Of North Texas' 7 million residents, 1.5 million have asthma, lung disease, heart disease or diabetes. Simply by living here those residents suffer the risk of additional complications beyond those that would normally accompany their diagnoses. According to a report by the Texas Tribune, the Dallas ... More >>

School Buses Are Terrible for the Environment, and Texas Is Sort of Doing Something About It

We already knew that North Texas' air is terrible. The ground isn't much better. And according to the EPA, school buses may have a lot to do with that ground pollution. A school bus can emit nearly twice as much pollution per mile as a semi-truck, and it doesn't help that the kids who ride them, ... More >>

Texas Commission on Environmental Quality Still Doesn't Believe in Climate Change

Global climate change is real, it's caused by people, and it will have a significant, often unpredictable impact on the United States and the human beings who live here. Those are the takeaways from the third-ever National Climate Assessment, an 840-page, congressionally mandated tome released by t ... More >>

Dallas Jury Awards $3 Million to Wise County Family In "First Fracking Trial"

When the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality took air samples from near Bob and Lisa Parr's Wise County ranch in 2010 on several occasions in 2010, their conclusions varied little. The levels of possibly harmful volatile organic compounds, like benzene were too low to cause "adverse health eff ... More >>

Texas Freezes Agency's Funding Over Release of Data Linking Fracking to Ozone Pollution

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has consistently said that fracking has no significant impact on air quality, not in the Barnett Shale. Not in the Eagle Ford Shale. Not anywhere. It was news, then, when a TCEQ-funded study, performed by the Alamo Area Council of Governments, a San Ant ... More >>

Why Denton's Air Quality Is the Worst in Texas

Here's another reason why Texas should secede: we'll avoid getting in trouble for repeatedly violating the Clean Air Act. New data shows that North Texas is continuing its sixteen-year-streak of failing to be in compliance with the federal law. The Clean Air Act stipulates that ozone pollution does ... More >>

TCEQ Dismisses Dallas Docs' "Knee-Jerk" Call for Stricter Limits on Coal-Fired Power Plants

Two months back, the Dallas County Medical Society petitioned the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to crack down on emissions coming from Luminant's three coal-fired power plants in North and Northeast Texas, which are among the nation's dirtiest. They based their plea on a white paper com ... More >>

Lake Ralph Hall, Texas' First New Reservoir in Decades, Gets Final OK From State

U.S. Representative Ralph Hall isn't dead. The Rockwall Republican hasn't even left Congress, forging ahead in a Bob Barker-like battle against the ravages of the time. Despite all that, Hall is now the namesake of a reservoir. Lake Ralph Hall hasn't actually been built yet. The project, planned fo ... More >>

Frisco's Own Expert Critical of Exide's Plan to Clean Lead Smelter Site

The clean-up of toxic land around the former Exide lead smelter in Frisco hasn't even begun yet, and already it has drawn criticism from state regulators and now the city's own expert. In testimony submitted on behalf of Frisco in Exide's bankruptcy proceedings, William Wheatley, an engineer and for ... More >>

Dallas Doctors Ask Texas to Clean Up Luminant's Coal Plants, Citing Asthma, Heart Attacks, and "Premature Death"

Luminant, the Dallas-based energy generator, has long been a ripe target for environmentalists, who complain that its aging, coal-fueled power plants -- in particular North/Northeast Texas' Big Brown, Martin Lake, and Monticello -- are fouling the air with extraordinary amounts of toxic pollutants a ... More >>

TCEQ Staff Fears Frisco Parents May End Up Pulling Lead Chips "Out of Their Child's Mouth" At Grand Park

Grand Park, Frisco's planned $23-million, 275-acre paradise of the outer-ring 'burbs, will probably be contaminated with lead, and staffers at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality know it, according to documents and emails obtained by Frisco Unleaded. As we've reported before, the park's l ... More >>

Group Fears Frisco Will Build a Grand Park Poisoned With Exide Lead

The city of Frisco plans to build a 275-acre, $23 million "Grand Park." It will be a regional attraction, a center to the city, replete with a festival green, a park for the kiddos and a "grand promenade" reaching out into a man-made lake with fountains of cool water. The plan is to dam Stewart Cre ... More >>

Harold Simmons Calls His Shots in the Texas Legislature Once Again

Harold Simmons, the Dallas billionaire and owner of a West Texas radioactive-waste dump, won yet another tailor-made piece of legislation Tuesday. When all seemed lost, and his bill was hung up on a technicality -- a point of order pushed by Representative Lon Burnam, his lonely, perennial opponent ... More >>

American Lung Association: Dallas' Air Is Really Dirty, and It's Gotten a Bit Worse

First, the good news. According to a report just released by the American Lung Association, the air in Dallas-Fort Worth has gotten considerably cleaner in recent years. The average number of days with unhealthy levels of ozone has been cut in half over the past decade, and the concentration of harm ... More >>

Dallas' City Plan Commission Just Got a Very Special Workshop on How Safe Gas Drilling Is

When we last left the beleaguered members of the City Plan Commission, they were opting to once again delay a vote on energy company Trinity East's application to drill for natural gas in the floodplain along the Trinity River. This morning, the CPC was subjected to a four-hour workshop on gas drill ... More >>

Meet Dallas Billionaire Harold Simmons, Radioactive Waste Magnate and Mitt Romney's Second-Biggest Donor

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has raised nearly $300 million, and it's largely been with the help of a coterie of extremely wealthy, and extremely prolific donors. The top donor, of course, is Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. But the second bigge ... More >>

Meet the Dallasites Who Made Forbes' List of Wealthiest Americans

Every year, the wealth fetishists over at Forbes compile an exhaustive list of the 400 richest Americans. It's a rarefied club, whose admittance requires an aggregate worth in the billions. Not surprisingly, a number of Dallasites made the cut -- 16 in fact. They range from oldies-but-goodies like ... More >>

Try Not To Breathe Too Much Today, DFW

Take a look outside your window. You've probably gotten used to that omnipresent, smoky haze that hangs over the Metroplex like a pall of economic viability -- upwind power plants a'chugging; cars snaking down tangles of toll roads and highways; shale gas production amid the cities and 'burbs slowed ... More >>

Harold Simmons' Radioactive Waste Dump Gets the Go-Ahead from State Regulators

A radioactive waste disposal company owned by Harold Simmons' Dallas-based Contran Corp. has been given the green light by state regulators to dispose of low-grade radioactive waste at a West Texas site. Representative Lon Burnam, who says he possesses confidential documentation exposing an undercu ... More >>

Welcome to Colleyville, Home of the Most Scrutinized Fracking Site in North Texas

The thing about air pollution is it doesn't heed county lines or city limits signs. Neither did the shale gas boom, until it moved into the cities and suburbs, where gas producers found themselves navigating a loud, patchwork quilt of municipal regulations that varied from town to town. It happene ... More >>

Rep. Lon Burnam: Let's Tell Texas What Scientists Think About Radioactive Waste Site

In a letter Monday, state Representative Lon Burnam called upon Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to allow him to release to the public confidential documents he says indicate Texas Commission on Environmental Quality scientists fear a West Texas radioactive waste disposal facility may contaminate ... More >>

A Less-Than-Crushing Blow for the EPA

Last week, in response to a post Brantley Hargrove wrote about power giant Energy Future Holdings' slow death waltz with potential bankruptcy, a commenter gently smacked him for ignoring some Major News related to power plants, smokestacks, etc. "And in other [news] this kid refuses to cover. The ... More >>

Suit Alleges Texas Issued Luminant Unlimited License to Pollute Without Public Notice

Big Brown​This little nugget slipped past us last week -- somehow, it didn't make headlines north of Austin -- but it draws the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality into a legal tussle with the Sierra Club and the Environmental Integrity Project over pollution permits it issued to Dallas- ... More >>

Who'll Stop the Rain? Rick Perry's Pals, That's Who.

A plan for the Brazos River threatens to upend Texas water law.

Dallas-Fort Worth's Air Could Be Cleanest Ever By Next Summer. He Said Sarcastically.

It was early November when watchdog group Downwinders At Risk found out that Dallas-Fort Worth had set off air-quality monitors more times than Houston in 2011. Yep, America's petrochemical hub violated EPA standards less often than we did. Depressing, right? As you may recall, the Texas Commission ... More >>

Enviro Groups Prepare To Sue Luminant's Northeast Texas Power Plants Over Air Pollution

Big Brown​The Sierra Club gave Luminant Generation Company, downtown-based and one of Texas's biggest power suppliers, notice Thursday that it plans to sue them for thousands of alleged violations of the Clean Air Act at two of its coal-fired power plants in northeast Texas. According to envi ... More >>

Sucking Up Water and Sand in the Quest for Natural Gas

For folks in the sandy hills northwest of Dallas, it's a devil's bargain for gas, water and jobs.

Dallas's Gas Drilling Task Force Navigates, Sort Of, the Labyrinth of Fracking Regulations

Photo by Leslie MinoraTask force chair Lois Finkelman and members Terry Welch and Cherelle Blazer mull over fracking regulations at yesterday's meeting.​The city's gas drilling task force slurped down a hearty helping of alphabet soup last night, with visits from representatives of the EPA (En ... More >>

Fort Worth Air Quality Study Says: Go Ahead, Take a Deep Breath. For the Most Part.

​The much-anticipated Fort Worth Natural Gas Air Quality Study, a major million-dollar undertaking to determine the air quality effects of natural gas drilling, was released toward day's end yesterday and indicates there's no need to get your gas masks out just yet -- for the most part. The st ... More >>

At Arlington City Hall, Locals Hammer TCEQ Panel for Stricter Gas Drilling Regulations

Photos by Leslie MinoraA panel of TCEQ reps maintained their poker faces for about two hours as citizens took the mic, almost all demanding tighter fracking regulations.​Shortly after the release of that Fort Worth air study, three reps from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality took a ... More >>

Activists Hail Dallas County Commissioners Court For Demanding State, Feds Clear the Air

​Anti-gas drilling activist Raymond Crawford sends word this morning: Moments ago the Dallas County Commissioners Court voted to adopt a resolution demanding the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency do something about cleaning up Dallas's air. Long ... More >>

Fracking: What We Don't Know Could Kill a Goat. Or Give 'Em One Hell of a Nosebleed.

​Maybe the biggest problem with the fracking issue is that it involves the deadly, mind-numbing and sleep-inducing phrase "parts per billion." Otherwise I might have cracked the case long ago. Fracking is deep-well drilling for natural gas in which drillers inject water and chemicals into a l ... More >>

Toxic Avenger: In the War Between the Feds and Texas, EPA Chief Al Armendariz has Science on His Side. Is That Enough?

The City's Giving Away Shepherd Composting Bins. Say, Can I Borrow Your Christmas Tree?

​Over on the city's Official Website there's a list of the four Christmas tree recycling stations accepting your yule logs till January 14. Says nothing about Hanukkah bushes, though, which is a bit of a bummer, since City Hall just sent word it's added an incentive to this year's recycling effort ... More >>

Drip By Last Drop, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality Goes With the Flow

Ron Jackson/Texas FreewayThe Neches River Bridge​In April 2009, I wrote about the court battle between the city of Dallas and people in East Texas over a proposed dam and reservoir on the Neches River. The East Texas people won that one, successfully persuading a judge to kill the planned reservoi ... More >>

Why Dallas Can't Strengthen Anti-Idling Rules

​On March 23, 2007, the Dallas City Council signed off on the anti-idling ordinance, which went into effect October 1, 2007, and penalized vehicles weighing more than 14,000 pounds from idling for more than five minutes between April 1 and October 31 -- the so-called "ozone season." Drivers caught ... More >>

Clean-Air Fund to Stop Funding Natural Gas Projects Till Industry Cleans Up Its Act

Click to expand this map provided last week by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality​Way back in '97, and again last June, we told you the story of Sue Pope -- a Midlothian rancher who became legendary for taking on pollution-spewing TXI -- and the genesis of the fund named in her honor, w ... More >>

Strange and Passioniate Emissions From Yesterday's EPA Cement Kiln Hearing

Alexa SchirtzingerIf this picture were at all legible, you'd see Deirdre Tinker testifying while dressed as a cement kilnAmong the first 60 commenters at yesterday's public hearing on proposed Environmental Protection Agency regulations intended to reduce emissions from cement kilns, there was obvi ... More >>

Don't Want TXI to Burn Tires in Midlothian? Too Bad. TCEQ Doesn't Wanna Hear About It.

In April, public ire rose when Texas Industries scored a 10-year air permit renewal -- no public comment period required -- for its notoriously toxic Midlothian cement operation. The renewal came with one condition: TXI's cement kilns, the only ones in North Texas authorized to burn hazardous waste, ... More >>

Dust in the Wind? Maybe.

On Wednesday, the Dallas City Council will discuss updating the city's 4-year-old water conservation and drought contingency plans, as this is shaping up to be yet another dry, dusty year. The update is necessary but won't come cheap: If and when council gives the okee-doke, the city will pay Alan P ... More >>

Out in West Texas, Harold Simmons Is Burying Hudson River Carcinogens

Ever wondered what's at the bottom of New York's Hudson River? Andrews, a small West Texas town 350 miles west of Dallas, is about to find out.Last month, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality approved an application to allow the disposal of low-level radioactive waste in a site just outside ... More >>

Wonders a Downwinder: A Bad Wind A-Blowin' In From Midlothian?

As those crushed cars continue to burn, baby, burn at that steel plant in Midlothian, Jim Schermbeck of Downwinders at Risk asks that we share the part of the story going "completely unreported," as he puts it in a missive sent Unfair Park's way: "Contamination from this fire could easily reach Dall ... More >>

In West Texas, a Dallas Company Fights to Bury Radioactive Waste

On its Web site, Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists LLC sells itself as an "innovative and cost effective [solution] for the proper and safe management of radioactive, hazardous, and mixed waste." In other words, the company with its HQ in Three Lincoln Centre on LBJ Freeway wants to bury some n ... More >>

American Toxic

The railroad tie plant that gave birth to tiny Somerville may now be killing the town, residents claim

Choke On It

North Texas gets schooled on the nasty politics of dirty air

Cleaning the Air About Jim Foster

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (And Up Your Ass)

It should come as little surprise that today Governor Rick Perry, whose aides have publicly questioned the existence of global warming, has appointed a career bureaucrat with no little environmental knowledge, to chair the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Buddy Garcia, one of three TCEQ co ... More >>

Concrete: In the Bad-Air Mix

This is a cement kiln. It makes cement. And it also makes pollution. A lot of it. That is so bad for, like, the environment and stuff. Here's something else to add to the list of Things That Are Slowly Killing Us and The Earth and Stuff: cement kilns. Never gave it much thought till, oh, 18 minutes ... More >>

Go Dump in the Lake

You're not going to like what officials are secretly worried about at Lake Ray Hubbard