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Blogs
November 28, 2014
Texas Parks Will Have Clear Skies 141 Years from Now Under Half-Assed State Plan
NixBCAfter all of us and our children are dead, Texas will finally get this pesky ozone problem under control. That's according to a state clean air plan that the Environmental Protection Agency just rejected but Texas environment officials are continuing to defend anyway. Texas environment officia ... More >>
Blogs
November 25, 2014
What Does It Mean Ii Weekend Quakes Were Caused by Fracking?
Paul Friberg can't say whether the earthquakes that shook North Texas on Saturday, Sunday and Monday were caused by fracking. He says that there are only a handful of instances in the world in which an earthquake strong enough to be felt -- as all three of the recent quakes were -- has been definiti ... More >>
Blogs
November 11, 2014
After Banning Fracking, Denton Braces for Backlash from Drillers, a Bush and its Own Lawyer
Last week, the City of Denton became the first city in the state to pass a city-wide ban on fracking. The ban passed in a landslide, with 59 percent in favor of the ban and 41 percent against, after more than five years of struggle between anti-fracking activists and the energy industry. See also: ... More >>
Blogs
November 5, 2014
Denton Fracking Ban Passes, But for How Long?
By the time Denton's city offices opened this morning, officials already had two brand new lawsuits waiting for them. As Denton's attorneys begin the weary post-election process of sorting through a legal defense against this inevitable barrage of suits, it's clear the battle over the ban on frackin ... More >>
Blogs
November 3, 2014
Nonstop Electioneering Could Sway Last-Minute Decisions on Denton Fracking Ban
On the last day of early voting in Denton, the Denton Civic Center parking lot was abuzz with one of the most controversial, high-cost issues in Denton history: The fracking ban. The city is considering what would be the state's first citywide ban on fracking. In a state that has eagerly embraced h ... More >>
Blogs
October 30, 2014
Underdog Anti-Frackers Struggle for Denton's Vote, But Fight Could Swing Either Way
As early voting wraps up this week, Denton County has seen a surge in voters, as well as campaign spending. Much of that has to do with the fracking debate, which has also incurred more spending than any other campaign in Denton's history. See also: Frackers Have Launched an Aggressive Campaign to ... More >>
Blogs
October 13, 2014
Frackers Have Launched an Aggressive Campaign to Kill Denton's Drilling Ban
If you've driven up I-35 to Denton in the last month, you may have seen one of the many billboards popping up around town. The billboards loudly proclaim the economic damage that a city ordinance banning natural gas and oil drilling could cause to the city, and encourage residents to vote against th ... More >>
Blogs
October 1, 2014
Fracking Emission Carcinogens Found in Denton Playgrounds
A new report published by ShaleTest, an independent environmental research agency in Denton, found levels of benzene in several Denton parks that exceed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality's long-term exposure limitations. Benzene is a carcinogen found in cigarettes, gasoline and is a comm ... More >>
Blogs
September 16, 2014
Proposed Texas Social Studies Textbooks Get Climate Change Wrong Too
As if Texas social studies textbooks haven't been getting enough flack for pointed political and religious biases, a report released Monday by the National Center for Science Education highlights inaccuracies about climate change in proposed state textbooks. See also: SMU Academics Speak Out Agains ... More >>
Blogs
September 4, 2014
Sierra Club Ordered to Pay Luminant's Attorneys' Fees in Big Brown Suit
For years, Luminant's Big Brown coal-fired plant has been described as one of the worst air polluters in the state, sitting at or near the top of the EPA's list of plants spewing nitrogen oxide, which can cause respiratory illnesses. So, it would seem a ripe target for a Clean Air Act lawsuit filed ... More >>
Blogs
August 25, 2014
Texas Leads the Nation in Illegally Injecting Diesel into Wells, Which Is Not a Good Thing
Regulation of the mysterious chemicals used in fracking fluid used in drilling for oil and gas has been pretty much off limits to the Environmental Protection Agency ever since Congress in 2005 stripped the EPA of its authority to regulate fracking fluid under the Safe Drinking Water Act. In a meag ... More >>
Blogs
August 14, 2014
Texas Is Actually Considering (Slightly) Tighter Fracking Regulations
Just a few weeks after Denton failed to pass a ban on fracking, the Texas Railroad Commission is proposing tighter regulation on oil and natural gas drilling in response to the north Texas earthquakes. At its monthly meeting yesterday, the commission accepted a new set of rule proposals regarding ... More >>
Blogs
July 16, 2014
Denton Didn't Ban Fracking Last Night, but Voters Will Get a Chance to in November
After listening to testimony from hundreds of speakers stretching past 2 a.m. this morning, the Denton City Council ultimately voted not to ban fracking, instead sending a petition asking for a ban to voters. But while most on City Council were hesitant about passing an all-out ban -- it was defeate ... More >>
Blogs
July 15, 2014
Gas Industry Is Looking Nervous About Denton's Proposed Fracking Ban
The initiative to ban fracking in Denton started out as many seemingly hopeless political campaigns often do, just a petition by angry homeowners fighting a well-funded industry that had already trampled the Denton City Council in court and follow-up negotiations. But now that little petition has ... More >>
Blogs
June 19, 2014
As Texas Shakes and Regulators Stall, Midland Will Have its Water and Frack Too
If you live just a little northwest of Fort Worth, chances are you've felt an earthly rumble and grumble at least once in the last six months. In the cities of Azle and Reno, dozens of such small earthquakes have struck in the last year. For an area that has historically been short on seismic moveme ... More >>
Blogs
June 17, 2014
Dallas Needs a Pop-Up Pestaurant
Did you make it to El Come Taco for the tacos de chapulines? Owner Luis Vilallva got a batch of grasshoppers in from Mexico and turned them into delicious tacos. While I was there, a number of customers were also enjoying the delicacy. I saw a good bit of chatter about the tacos on Twitter and Faceb ... More >>
Blogs
June 9, 2014
More Evidence Shows Flaming Faucet Anti-Fracking Guy Has a Point, But the State Is Sticking With the Industry
If an angry homeowner-turned-environmental-activist keeps getting vindicated by research, but all the important government people just ignore it, does the research make a sound? Probably not. Steve Lipsky, the homeowner in Parker County who became famous for being able to set his water on fire afte ... More >>
Blogs
May 16, 2014
The Feds Say They Caught a Dallas Man Smuggling Dead Hummingbirds from Mexico
You can, provided you're willing to break a handful of federal laws and international treaties and locate a willing buyer, sell a dead hummingbird. A well-preserved specimen of certain varieties will fetch upward of $350 on the U.S. black market, according to federal prosecutors. Who, you might won ... More >>
Blogs
May 9, 2014
As Denton Voters Come Out Against Fracking, City Council Passes Surprise Temporary Fracking Ban
After the Denton City Council had its butt handed to it in court by oil company EagleRidge last Fall, Denton civic leaders decided to pretty much stop fighting EagleRidge altogether and let it drill close to a few residential neighborhoods. Residents complained, but the city said it had no choice, b ... More >>
Blogs
May 8, 2014
Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger's Sean Lennon: "Once You Frack, You Can't Go Back."
With the mind-expanding psychedelic rock outfit Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, Sean Lennon (the 38-year-old son of John Lenon and Yoko Ono) and his girlfriend, model and artist Charlotte Kemp Muhl, have tripped into an enchanting realm. Since their first album, 2010's Acoustic Sessions, the duo have ... More >>
Blogs
May 7, 2014
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 >>
Blogs
April 24, 2014
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 >>
Blogs
April 10, 2014
Texas, Accused of Downplaying Cancer Fears, Grudgingly Re-examines Flower Mound Cluster
People who live in Flower Mound may or may not be at higher risk for developing cancer. The state already assured the public that there isn't a cancer cluster back in 2010, but after a UT-Austin researcher published a recent report challenging the state's methods, Texas has grudgingly agreed to look ... More >>
Blogs
April 7, 2014
Tyler News Director Goes on Rant about Climate Change, Calls Global Warming "Laughable"
Tyler, Texas, which has produced many yellow roses and U.S. Representative Louie Gohmert, is also home to Neal Barton. Barton is the news director of KETK, the local NBC affiliate, who occasionally takes the liberty of delivering a bombastic on-air op-ed. Think Dale Hansen, minus the humor and self- ... More >>
Blogs
April 4, 2014
Exxon Is Way More Optimistic on Climate Change Than the UN
We're all getting sophisticated enough to agree that climate change is real, climate-deniers are wrong and someone should do something about it. Good for us. But what any of that actually means is still a major point of debate. On Monday the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ... More >>
Blogs
March 12, 2014
Denton Homeowners Are Suing to Stop EagleRidge's "Loud and Constant" Fracking Operation
It might seem like an obvious point: no, you can't just start a massive industrial operation right next to a middle-class residential neighborhood. Most homeowners aren't cool with that. But Dallas-based EagleRidge Energy has boldly gone ahead and extracted oil on sites next to a few Denton resident ... More >>
Blogs
February 21, 2014
Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson is Suing to Stop a Fracking Development Outside Dallas
Just a few days after the Weather Channel published a damning, in-depth report documenting how natural gas drilling is wreaking havoc on Texas' air quality, a group of wealthy property owners outside Dallas are dealing with another dark side of the energy boom: a really ugly water tower. Residents ... More >>
Blogs
February 19, 2014
Denton City Council Says It Must Allow Fracking Near Homes, so Homeowners Turn to Voters
Last fall, Eagleridge Energy won some permits to frack right next to a few Denton neighborhoods, despite a new city ordinance that was supposed to keep the company further away. The city said sorry, it was powerless to stop Eagleridge, because the company had found an extremely clever loophole. So n ... More >>
Blogs
February 11, 2014
Wendy Davis' Opponents Say She'll Kill Texas' Oil Boom, but What Does Her Record Say?
We know that a Wendy Davis-governed Texas would probably be more into preserving natural resources than a Texas ruled by Greg Abbott, who has sued the EPA a modest 17 times. But in a state famous for its lax environmental regulations, how much tougher would Davis be? Local environmental issues, pa ... More >>
Blogs
January 14, 2014
Texas Comptroller: Fracking-Like "Game-Changer" Could Avert Looming Water Crisis
Few people are kidding themselves that the $2 billion voters set aside for water projects in November will be sufficient to quench Texas' growing thirst. The population is growing too fast and the prospect of drought looms too large. Coping with that will take some combination of new infrastructure, ... More >>
Blogs
January 10, 2014
Inspector General May Have Cleared EPA in Flaming Water Case, But Parker County Man Says It Caved to Politics
The EPA inspector general dumped it right before Christmas, when the media had checked out on holiday auto-pilot. Because of this curious timing, the report didn't get nearly the play it should have. But it can be summed up like this -- given the EPA's statutory authority under the Safe Drinking Wat ... More >>
Blogs
January 3, 2014
For Barnett Shale, 2013 Saw Drilling Activity at Its Lowest Ebb in a Decade
The Barnett Shale set off a national renaissance in the production of oil and natural gas through fracking. But as we look back on 2013, it's clear that the boom has left North Texas behind, for now anyway. Drilling and permitting activity in the area has fallen to a 10-year low. The Railroad Commi ... More >>
Blogs
December 26, 2013
The EPA Says It Was Right About Its Range Resources Investigation After All
When a natural gas company is accused of making an oopsie during fracking, the EPA's response has typically been to come down hard on the company at first but then back away. That was one of the the major plot points of the "Gasland" documentaries. Environmentalists and homeowners accuse the agency ... More >>
Blogs
December 12, 2013
Dallas Council Passes Tough New Fracking Rules Industry Calls a "Moratorium" on Dallas Drilling
Other cities sitting on the Barnett Shale are popular among the natural gas industry for quickly handing over their land to be fracked. But Dallas has turned out to be a surprisingly tough conquest. On Wednesday afternoon, the Dallas City Council finally passed its long-awaited fracking ordinance, a ... More >>
Blogs
December 4, 2013
SMU Researchers Link North Texas Earthquakes to Fracking Wells -- Again
A team of researchers at SMU has reached a conclusion that may seem obvious to those who have felt the 20-plus earthquakes that rattled North Texas last month: The recent bursts of seismic activity could be linked to fracking. The researchers, led by recent SMU grad Ashley Justinic, took a close lo ... More >>
Blogs
November 27, 2013
Denton Residents Angry as EagleRidge Continues to Frack Near Homes
Earlier this year, the city of Denton approved regulations that would supposedly stop gas companies from drilling new wells near homes. Yet recently, residents in the Vintage neighborhood began noticing some suspicious noises and vibrations. They were coming from an old gas well site nearby. Denton ... More >>
Blogs
November 21, 2013
Two Texas Congressmen Are Pushing to Strip the Feds of the Power to Regulate Fracking
According to the natural gas industry, states are doing a really, really great job of keeping a tough eye on the natural gas industry. "State regulators have done an awfully good job," says the CEO of one energy company. "States are doing a good job of regulating hydraulic fracturing," adds the ma ... More >>
Blogs
October 15, 2013
Greg Abbott Hits and Misses on Greenhouse Gas Challenge Before Supreme Court
Gubernatorial hopeful and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott probably won't get a chance this time around to roll back every meaningful regulation that curbs carbon-dioxide emissions -- the gas driving climate change -- but he will take a shot at a significant one. The high court announced Tuesday ... More >>
Blogs
October 8, 2013
U.S. Supreme Court Has Snubbed Luminant's Petition to Toss EPA Pollution Limits
The U.S. Supreme Court will not hear an appeal from Dallas-based Luminant seeking to topple Clean Air Act limits on emissions increases resulting from planned startups and shutdowns of its power plants. The state's largest generator of electricity sought an exemption for these operations from fines ... More >>
Blogs
September 26, 2013
Dallas' Proposed Fracking Law Would Allow Gas Drilling in Parks
Dallas keeps promising not to drill on parkland, yet city officials keep look for ways to allow energy companies to do exactly that. The latest push comes in the form of draft of Dallas' proposed fracking law, a long-awaited proposal to outline how natural gas drilling should be regulated within ci ... More >>
Blogs
September 25, 2013
Most Texans Believe Global Warming Is Real, Just Not that People Are Causing It
Good news: The vast majority of Texans think global warming is real. Seventy percent, according to a just-released study from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication. That's way more than one might expect from listening to the people they choose for statewide office and proof that Texas' ma ... More >>
Blogs
September 23, 2013
In Parker County, Regulators Forced to Revisit Allegations that Drilling Caused Contaminated Water
Last year, we brought you the story of Steve Lipsky, whose little slice of paradise in Parker County became a proxy in the war between the EPA and state regulators. It wasn't long after Range Resources began stimulating a nearby natural gas well by hydraulic fracturing that Lipsky noticed his water ... More >>
Blogs
September 4, 2013
Gas-Industry Funded Report Says Fracking Made You $1,200 Richer
Is the gas industry mature enough to have a serious discussion with the American public about hydraulic fracturing, one that explores the benefits of domestic natural gas drilling but also carefully considers methane leaks, groundwater contamination, earthquakes and other potential risks that peer-r ... More >>
Blogs
August 29, 2013
In South Texas, Researchers Say the Oil Boom, Not Fracking Fluid, Is Causing Earthquakes
Just as the Dallas City Council shot down an energy company's plans to drill for gas in the city limits, a new study raises further questions about the role energy exploration plays in small earthquakes shaking up Texas. Earlier research has linked quakes to the disposal of fracking fluid. So Cliff ... More >>
Blogs
August 26, 2013
The Industry Unveils a New Tactic in the Dallas Fracking Debate: Calling Its Opponents Liars
Environmental activists, in spite of the lobbying of the energy industry and some sleight of hand by city staff, appear to be winning the fracking debate. The City Plan Commission has twice denied Trinity East Energy permits to drill on city parkland it leased for $19 million. Last week, it effectiv ... More >>
Blogs
August 23, 2013
Door Slowly Closing at Plan Commission on Frack Sites Along the Trinity River
Before the Dallas Plan Commission got to what is almost certainly the most controversial matter it has ever deliberated on -- whether and how the city should drill for natural gas -- it spent more than an hour on the positioning of a wooden fence and a gazebo in relation to the street in a neighborh ... More >>
Blogs
August 16, 2013
DOJ Sues Dallas-based Power Generator Luminant for Alleged Clean Air Act Violations
Last summer, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency put Dallas-based power generator Luminant on notice, warning the utility that its northeast Texas Big Brown and Martin Lake plants were in violation of the Clean Air Act. The company's coal-fired plants, EPA contended, had been modified, resultin ... More >>
Blogs
August 7, 2013
Dallas Officials Look to Be Ignoring Fracking Recommendations to Let Trinity East Drill on Parkland
You're forgiven if you've lost track of the gas drilling debate in Dallas. It's an arcane subject to begin with. Throw in byzantine layers of City Hall bureaucracy and city officials' subtle push to let Trinity East Energy drill on land it leased from the city, and it reaches brain-exploding levels ... More >>
Blogs
August 5, 2013
A Little Context for U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson's Epic Jeremiad Against Lamar Smith's EPA Subpoena
U.S. Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson got a few things off of her chest last week during a recent House committee hearing. Last week, the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, chaired by Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, issued a congressional subpoena for the first time in more t ... More >>
Blogs
July 29, 2013
In the Fracking Debate, Residents and Politicians Are Turning Up the Heat on the EPA
We wrote last week about how the Environmental Protection Agency is catching heat from both sides of the fracking debate, for its continued backing away from research suggesting that drilling for natural gas can contaminate drinking water. It's happened in Parker County, Texas, as well as in the P ... More >>
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