Most Recent in Texas Politics:

1The Lege This Week: Adventures in Circular Finger Pointing

2The Lege This Week: Out Cold

3The Lege This Week: Senators Poke, Prod and Punch Paxton

4The Lege This Week: Amid Pandemic, Abbott Prioritizes Red Meat

5The Lege This Week: Texas Redistricting Will Be A Summer Showdown

6Will the Texas Legislature Stop Police from Arresting People for Fine-Only Offenses?

Most Recent in Environment:

1Biden Plans to Ban All New Fracking Leases on Public Land. Will He Actually Do It?

2The Sunniest City in Texas is Expanding … Natural Gas Production

3What to do With a “Tidal Wave” of Texas Wind Turbine Blades

4Teens for a Green New Deal

5Why the South Is Organizing Its Own Green New Deal

6Solar Energy is Hitting a Growth Spurt. So Is The Disinformation Around It.

Most Recent in Border:

1How Texas Courts Went Virtual

2In ‘At the Ready,’ Latinx High Schoolers Train to Be Border Patrol Agents

3Forgotten for Over a Century, Border Hero Jovita Idár Is Rediscovered by Her Hometown of Laredo

4Deaths in ICE Custody Skyrocketed During the COVID-19 Pandemic

5Local Organizers Explain the Republican Surge in South Texas

65,000 People Contract COVID-19 While In ICE Custody, Including This Father Of 5

Most Recent in Criminal Justice:

1Clogged Toilets, Snow Inside: How the Winter Storm Exacerbated Problems in Texas Lock-Ups

3Exploring the Rise, Fall, and Lingering Trauma of the Death Penalty in Texas

4Anatomy of a Crime

5Fort Bend County Will Soon Have Its First Black Sheriff Since Reconstruction

6How Texas Jails Avoid Investigations of Inmate Deaths

Most Recent in Education:

1The Long, Winding Road that Led to the SBOE’s Decision for Texas Schools to Teach Abstinence-Plus Sex Education

2Efforts to Save What’s Left of Mary Allen Seminary Reveal The Challenges of Preserving Black Placemaking in Texas

3Texas Has the Widest Digital Divide in the Nation. What Does that Mean for the School Year?

4The New Ensemble

5Raise a Glass to the Class of COVID-19

6Tough Decisions Ahead for School Leaders in Rural Texas

Most Recent in Health Care:

1Editorial: Texas Wasn’t Prepared for the Statewide Vaccine Rush

2COVID-19’s Deadly Toll on Texas Workers

3COVID-19 Response has Been Starkly Different for Indigenous Communities in Texas

4After Sarah Davis’ Election Defeat, Texas Reproductive Health Advocates Worry About Losing a Powerful Republican Ally

5For Families That Lost Loved Ones or Jobs to the Pandemic, Thanksgiving Carries an Extra Weight This Year

6How We Got Here

Most Recent in The Interview:

1Researcher Howard Henderson on Reimagining Policing in the U.S.

2Texas Observer Founding Editor Ronnie Dugger Reflects on 65 Years of Publication

3How Katharine Hayhoe Stays Hopeful as the Planet Warms

4Author William Lopez on How Immigration Raids Inflict Long-Lasting Trauma

5Why a Texas Gun Control Activist is Optimistic About the Chances for Reform

6American Health Care is Broken, Especially in Texas. What Can We Do About It?

Most Recent in Books:

1“Wings of Ebony” Brings Black Girl Magic to Life

2A New Book Celebrates the Work of Architect John S. Chase

3The Flâneur of Downtown Dallas

4Remembering a Jewish Upbringing in Meyerland, Texas

5How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

6A New Short-Story Collection Imagines a Texas Town’s Secession

Most Recent in Features:

1How to Die in Texas

2Young Texans Keep Spelling Bees Going From Home

4San Antonio Embraces Mandaean Refugees

5The Ghosts of Jefferson

6Little Arthouse on the Prairie

Most Recent in Essay:

1Editorial: Look Down Ballot for Democratic Wins in Texas

2What the Black Lives Matter Protests Mean for East Texas

3Raise a Glass to the Class of COVID-19

4What’s a Bookstore for?

5Lessons on the Long Game from Goose Island’s Whooping Cranes

6In a Pandemic, Poor Defendants Could Pay With Their Lives

Most Recent in Eye on Texas:

1Eye on Texas: The Essential Women of Austin

2Eye on Texas: A House Divided

3Eye on Texas: The Black Yearbook

4Eye on Texas: Border Tuner

5Eye on Texas: The Broken Wheel Ranch Project

6Eye on Texas: Spike Johnston

Most Recent in Poetry:

1Poet Claudia Delfina Cardona on Her Debut Poetry Chapbook

2Author Saeed Jones on Empathy, the Power of Memoir, and Growing up Gay in North Texas

3Remembering W.S. Merwin, Honorary Texan

4Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

5Houston Poet Analicia Sotelo’s Debut Smashes Latino Stereotypes

6Parallel Planes

Articles tagged: coal mining

Freeport LNG plant in Quintana.

by Naveena Sadasivam

The Five Foulest Texas Environmental Stories of 2016

Lowlights include failing to track chemical spills during floods and rejecting the link between earthquakes and fracking.

Tue, Dec 20, 2016 |

Thanks to investigative reporting, this year we learned of new ways the powerful in this state are messing with Texas. From failing to oversee toxic waste injec...Read More

by Naveena Sadasivam

Green Groups Urge Lawmakers: Don’t Leave Taxpayers on the Hook for Coal Cleanup

Tue, Aug 23, 2016 |

Following an Observer investigation into loose coal regulations that could put taxpayers on the hook for mine cleanup, green groups are demanding change....Read More

by Naveena Sadasivam

Mine Games

With little more than a promise, the Texas Railroad Commission is trusting a struggling coal industry to pay for the cost of cleaning up old mines.

Thu, Aug 18, 2016 |

In mid-2014, Texas’ biggest utility, Energy Future Holdings, was about to file for bankruptcy, and Texas regulators suddenly had a big problem on their hands...Read More

Luis Martinez, a Maverick County resident who opposes the Dos Republicas mine, speaks out against the TCEQ's decision to grant the mine a wastewater permit Wednesday. Nearby Elm Creek runs through Martinez's property.

by Naveena Sadasivam

TCEQ: Contested Coal Mine Can Release Wastewater Into Drinking Supply

Locals called the environmental regulators' decision ‘unconscionable.’

Wed, Jul 6, 2016 |

Locals called the TCEQ's decision "unconscionable," saying that wastewater from the mine will pollute drinking water for Maverick County residents....Read More

Bobby Inman Blames the Unions

by Forrest Wilder

Mon, Apr 19, 2010

Updated below Bobby Ray Inman now seems to be blaming labor unions for the West Virginia mining disaster that killed 29 people at the non-union Upper Big Branch...Read More

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