Environment
A New Study Shows that the Oil and Gas Industry is Wasting a Shocking Quantity of Natural Gas in Texas
Texas State Park Could Close as Vistra Energy Seeks to Sell Land Near Shuttered Power Plant
For decades, the energy company has leased to the state the property on which Fairfield Lake State Park sits. But there’s no guarantee the new buyer will do the same.
For decades, Fairfield Lake State Park has been a fixture of family life for Brenda Pate. She’s spent countless hours at the park, an expanse of timber, trail...Read More
El Paso School Consolidation Exposes More Kids to Lead and Other Hazards, Parents Say
Parents in a low-income neighborhood claim the school district is putting their children at risk by sending them to a campus where researchers found lead levels posing a “moderate to high risk” in 2016.
Hilda Villegas’ daughters Bernice and Katherine are grown now, but she still shudders when she thinks about their years at Frederick Douglass Elementary Schoo...Read More
Could Kinder Morgan’s ‘Permian Highway’ Scar the Hill Country?
On its 430-mile path to the Gulf, the natural gas pipeline would gash the iconic Hill Country, a region relatively free from oil and gas development.
The golden-cheeked warbler — a compact, yellow-headed songbird that migrates from Mexico to Central Texas each March — is in trouble. The endangered species...Read More
Millions of Plastic Pellets in Lavaca Bay? Formosa Says it’s Just ‘Trace Amounts’
After decades of polluting the air and water in Point Comfort, Formosa is now being confronted about its release of millions of plastic pellets.
Once a week, Diane Wilson launches her kayak on Cox Creek, a brackish stream near Point Comfort that feeds Cox and Lavaca bays, and paddles for four to five hou...Read More
Environmentalists Fear Conservative Group’s Push to End Corporate Subsidies is Really Just a Hit on Renewables
“TPPF only talks about tax breaks for renewables without touching the vastly greater subsidies that support coal and other fossil fuels.”
In the last few months, the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) has ramped up its war on wind. To kick off the 86th Texas Legislature, the Austin-based conser...Read More
Report: Power Plants are Leaking Cancer-Causing Toxins into Groundwater Across Texas
An environmental group found that all of Texas’ coal-fired power plants have polluted groundwater with multiple chemicals, including arsenic, which was detected at 13 of the 15 sites.
In 1975, Alonzo Peeler Jr. figured that selling a small section of his ranchland to a power company was a sage financial move. Now 78, the lifelong rancher says...Read More
The Border Fence vs. Wall Debate is a ‘Trap’ for Democrats
“Steel slats, concrete barriers, or bollard-style fences – they are all the same,” said a McAllen congressman. “I will not stand by as some of my fellow Democrats fall into this trap.”
During a Monday interview with “Fox and Friends,” Democratic Senator Chris Coons claimed to see light at the end of the government shutdown tunnel. In recen...Read More
TCEQ is Finally Doing Something About an East Texas Polluter
After years of inaction, the state environmental agency is poised to force German Pellets to install pollution controls at its Woodville processing plant.
One day in late November, a cloud of white smoke swept through Woodville, a small East Texas town of 2,500 about 55 miles north of Beaumont. It was a moment tha...Read More
The Texas Observer’s Best Features of 2018
Our favorite longreads of the year.
The Texas Observer’s Best Features of 2018 Our favorite longreads of the year. – by Rose Cahalan and Forrest Wilder December 26, 2018 Like children, it...Read More