Rural Reporting Project
Texas has the largest rural population of any state—3.8 million people—yet many journalists treat much of the state as flyover country. The Observer has made reporting on rural Texas a priority with this long-term project. Staff writer Christopher Collins, who has investigated how crop dusting is putting Texans’ health at risk and the connection between destructive Panhandle wildfires and a mismanaged federal land program, is spearheading the effort from West Texas. View an interactive story map here.
Something in the Air
In the Texas Panhandle, which produces a fifth of the U.S. beef supply, communities are being choked by fecal dust from nearby feedlots. The state’s regulatory agency isn’t doing anything about it—and it’s about to get a whole lot worse.
In the Texas Panhandle, which produces a fifth of the U.S. beef supply, communities are being choked by fecal dust from nearby feedlots. The state’s regulator...Read More
Bald Eagle Numbers on Lake Buchanan Hit a Record Low
The midwinter survey of bald eagles at Lake Buchanan found the lowest number ever recorded, and illegal duck hunting could be a factor.
Charles Tischler had no trouble spotting the white-throated caracara and red-tailed hawks wheeling through the sky above Lake Buchanan on Sunday. But those aren...Read More
Trump Harvests Support in America’s Farmlands
At a farm convention in Austin, the nation’s agriculture sector warmly welcomed a president who has hurt them in the past.
Donald Trump flew down to Austin on Sunday evening to commune with the sunburned, work-weary farmers and ranchers who comprise one of his most prized voting blo...Read More
We Asked You About Health Care in Rural Texas. Here are Your Stories.
Much has been written about medical deserts, but these are the experiences of people who call them home.
Rural health care is in crisis in Texas: More than one-fifth of Texas’ 254 counties have only one doctor or none at all. Of the state’s 158 remaining rural ...Read More
This West Texas Town is a Reproductive Health Void
Family planning clinics and abortion clinics across Texas have been closing at an alarming rate. Rural hospitals are shuttering their maternity wards. For many Texans, this means traveling hundreds of miles just to access basic reproductive health care services.
Critical Condition: Part 3 Labor Away Family planning clinics and abortion clinics across Texas have been closing at an alarming rate. Rural hospitals are shutt...Read More
5 Stories About Rural Texas You May Have Missed in 2019
A view into the weird, sad, and sometimes funny world of rural Texas.
Once again, we’ve completed another excruciatingly slow journey from one December to the next, exhausted and unrewarded for our trouble. Let’s take stock of...Read More
Report: As TCEQ Sits Idle, Polluters Double Illegal Air Pollution in 2018
Unauthorized emission incidents resulted in 135 million pounds of illegal air pollution, according to a new report by Environment Texas.
The oil and gas industry in Texas is largely responsible for doubling the amount of illegal air pollution in the state last year, according to a report released...Read More
Bald Eagle Numbers at Lake Buchanan Are Declining. No One’s Exactly Sure Why.
From 2015 to 2019, an average of four birds per year came to Lake Buchanan—less than half of the 10.4 average for the five years before that. Could the noise from hunters be to blame?
Tim Mohan is intimately familiar with Lake Buchanan, the northernmost of the six Highland Lakes that squiggle through the Hill Country toward Austin. The outdoo...Read More
The Last Nurse in Memphis, Texas
Carole Ward, a former nurse practitioner, ran the only health clinic in a small town in the Panhandle until she retired in 2017.
This story is part of “Critical Condition,” a series investigating Texas’ rural health care crisis. Read Part 1 here. Carole Ward, a 66-year-old nurse p...Read More