Sierra Club

Al Armendariz, Ousted EPA Chief, Leads Sierra Club's Drive to Chase Customers from TXU

Every week, managing editor Patrick Williams disappears into his office and reemerges a cranky, nicotine-addicted, third-person-referring superhero we like to call Buzz. Let's kick this off with a couple of truisms: It's hard to keep a good man down, and be careful what you wish for. We're looking ... More >>

Dallas-based Electricity Giant Energy Future Holdings Warns of Potential Bankruptcy, Reports Huge Losses

The fount of red ink spilling onto the pages of beleaguered power generator Energy Future Holdings' quarterly reports continues unabated. The Dallas company logged $3.36 billion in net losses for 2012. In its last quarter alone, the company reported a $1.95 billion net loss, due largely to a write ... More >>

Clean Energy Coalition Calls for PUC to End Foot-Dragging on Solar Regulations

Wind, sun and bullshit: Texas has plenty of all three, and we've done a good job converting wind to electricity. So, why hasn't the sunny Lone Star State done more to create more power from the sun? Well, you could blame the bullshit. Today in Austin, The Clean Energy Works for Texas coalition, a ... More >>

Land Comissioner Jerry Patterson Draws a Line in the Mud Over Keystone Protests

You'd think a guy with the job title "Texas land commissioner" would know a thing or two about Texas land. Little items, you know, like what the state boundaries are, what a landowner is and how to tell a Texan apart from, say, a Canadian. See also: - Keystone Pipeline Protesters Tie Themselves to ... More >>

Environmentalists to City: Your Long-Term Trash Plan is a Burning Pile of Garbage

On Tuesday, you saw a glimpse of Dallas' garbage future. The city's long-term solid waste plan had some relatively progressive ideas -- mandatory recycling, a plastic bag ban and "zero waste," for example -- but those won't even be up for actual discussion for another couple of decades. Once the ide ... More >>

Ag Commish Todd Staples Tweets Column That Says Contemporary Democrats Are Basically Nazis Without the Fabulous Outfits

Texas Commissioner of Agriculture Todd Staples sent a tweet to his followers Tuesday morning asking whether we're "worried about the direction of our country." Well, sure we're worried about partisan gridlock in Congress, the widening chasm of income inequality and drought conditions that cover most ... More >>

Looks Like the Tea Party's Gonna Elect Cruz Fair and Square. So, Let's Change the Game.

Texas will elect it's next senator today. Odds are, you won't vote for him. In fact, a good number of you, even if you're registered to vote, can't vote in the truly decisive race going down Tuesday, because you were dumb enough to vote in the Democratic primary in May. Suckers. So, let's all clap ... More >>

Tiny East Texas Towns Join Fight Against Keystone Pipeline. Should Dallas?

Together, they have a population of fewer than 2,000, but the tiny East Texas hamlets of Reklaw, Alto and Gallatin have an outsized mission: To halt the southern portion of TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline, a conduit designed to ferry some 830,000 barrels of Canadian tar sands a day from an Oklaho ... More >>

Al Armendariz, EPA Chief Ousted For "Crucifying" Energy Industry, Joins Sierra Club

When video surfaced earlier this year of EPA's regional administrator Al Armendariz comparing his strategy for regulating the oil and gas industry as the EPA's regional head to crucifixion, Republicans gladly accepted the former SMU professor's proffered head. Then, when they asked him to Washington ... More >>

Sierra Club Sues Energy Future Holdings, Accuses it of Thousands of Clean Air Violations

Sierra Club on Tuesday sued Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings, the state's largest unregulated generator of electricity, accusing the company's Big Brown coal-fired plant near Fairfield of thousands of violations of Clean Air Act standards. The environmental group gave the company an ultimatum l ... 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 >>

At a Time When Texas Electricity Is Scarce, Does It Make Sense To Export It To Mexico?

A company that supplies electricity to Texans called American Electric Power filed to renew its application to export electricity to Mexico with the U.S. Department of Energy back in December. It operates a 720-megawatt coal-fired power plant near Vernon, and apparently it has been supplying our so ... More >>

This Fracking Map: Activists Plot More Than 100 Drilling Leases on City-Owned Property

This afternoon, Dallas Residents at Risk, a coalition of of anti-fracking activists, will unveiling their map featuring what they say are more than 100 drilling leases on city-owned land totaling some 1,400 acres. The colorful visual shows that the extent of gas drilling leases in Dallas goes well b ... More >>

Gas Drilling Activists Send Council's Task Force a Letter and Their Top Five "Proposed Rules"

Photo by Patrick MichelsBack in April, Raymond Crawford and other local environmentalists brought to City Hall the 21-foot-long petition that helped spark the formation of the Gas Drilling Task Force.​When first formed back in June, the city council-appointed Gas Drilling Task Force had hoped to t ... 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 >>

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 >>

A Few Council Members Take in Gasland, But Not Before Mayor Mike Makes a Promise to City

Photos by Leslie MinoraAngela Hunt was asked whether it's likely Dallas will be sued by gas drillers awaiting their SUPs.​Mayor Mike Rawlings took the mic before last night's Observer co-sponsored Gasland screening and told the audience of council members, activists and concerned locals, "I wi ... More >>

Harold Simmons One Step Closer to Getting What He Wants: Everyone's Nuclear Waste

Annette and Harold Simmons​At the end of last year we spent quite a bit of time following Nuke Free Texas's efforts to stop  Governor Rick Perry's appointees on the Texas Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission from giving Waste Control Specialists the thumbs-up to bury nuclea ... 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 >>

Former NY State Comptroller Makes Case For Retiring Three of Luminant's Coal-Fired Plants

Big Brown​Former New York State First Deputy Comptroller-turned-investment banker Tom Sanzillo released a report this morning, via the Sierra Club, demanding that Dallas-based Energy Future Holding (and its Luminant subsidiary) shutter three of its coal-fired power plants: Big Brown (in Fairfield) ... More >>

Downtown Tomorrow, It's an EPA-Sponsored Open Season on Texas's Greenhouse Gas Regs

​If you were all revved up yesterday for a few solid hours of public debate on the environment, only to be abruptly denied, well, take heart -- at the Crowne Plaza Hotel tomorrow, the Environmental Protection Agency's holding an all-day hearing on its proposals for regulating greenhouse gases. Fro ... More >>

After Proposing Land Swap, State to Pay Dallas Homebuilder $13 Mil for Devils River Land

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department​A couple of months back we noted that the Texas Park and Wildlife Department had proposed making one hell of a trade with Dallas's Rod Sanders, co-founder of Huntington Home, for some land down in Val Verde County. Sanders, you may recall, owns the 17,638-acre D ... More >>

At Friday's Screening of Gasland, Rallying the Troops to Keep Gas Drilling Out of Dallas

Photos by Patrick MichelsAfter the movie, director Josh Fox, center, stuck around for a Q&A joined by the Sierra Club's Peter Wilson, Dallas drilling activist Raymond Crawford, DISH mayor Calvin Tillman and drilling activist Sharon Wilson.​Gas drilling opponents from around North Texas rallied ... More >>

Got Something to Say About Coal Ash Pollution? The EPA Wants to Hear From You Today.

Lower Colorado River AuthorityA new Sierra Club report says coal ash from Central Texas' Fayette Power Plant is polluting the groundwater nearby.​One month since the EPA's stolid road warriors blew threw Arlington to get your thoughts on pollution from gas drilling, the agency's making its triumph ... More >>

Did Joe Barton Have a Point?

Is the City of Dallas Really Going Green, Or Just Talking Till It's Blue in the Face?

The city of Dallas has made much of its efforts to "build a greener city" ... which means what, exactly? That, more or less, was the question posed earlier this week during a confab at the downtown Dallas library during a program billed as a dialogue on the "green economy," a catchphrase that's beco ... More >>

PCB or TYA: Those Hudson River Carcinogens Are Finally Rolling Into Texas

Back in February, Alexa wrote about the pending transport of Hudson River sludge to West Texas, where Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons's Waste Control Specialists will turn one state's trash into one man's treasure. That trash in question are millions of cubic yards of PCBs -- or polychlorinated bi ... 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 >>

Take a Deep Breath, Dallas. You Too, Fort Worth. No, Really.

Clearing the Air

Former County Judge Margaret Keliher keeps trying to blow away the smoke over pollution plans

Choke On It

North Texas gets schooled on the nasty politics of dirty air

What Pickens is Pickin'

Cancer Happens (Or: You Could Be Next)

Shark Bites

JAWS Unleashed is as sloppy as it is gory

Various Artists

Future Soundtrack for America (Barsuk Records)

What's the Catch?

This new Trinity River plan is suspiciously reasonable

Green Giant

Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug is credited with saving the lives of 1 billion people. So why is a small cadre of activists bent on tarnishing his legacy?

Muddy Waters

Mayor Miller rafts down the Trinity in search of truth

Down by the Old Mill

A band of East Texas environmentalists takes on a polluting paper plant and proves that might doesn't always make right, even in a company town

Mean Green

What do you get when you cross the Zapatistas with Dr. Dolittle? The Animal Liberation Front

Dumped on

Mistrust fuels McKinney's fight against plans for a landfill

Whizzing inside the tent

ExxonMobil shareholders use their stock to push a corporate giant toward change

Letters

Judging Joe Kendall; Elian's kidnapping; Clearing the air; Chaos on Lower Greenville

Letters

Those magic bridges; Baby Buddha; Duh; The happy snob

Bay botch

Oysterman Joe Nelson says pollution is slowly killing Galveston Bay. Is anyone listening?

Girding for battle

Letters

Letters

Ill Wind Blowing

Texas Industries wants permission to burn 270,000 tons of hazardous waste each year at a concrete plant 30 miles from Dallas. That would make it the nation's largest incinerator of toxic waste. Despite stunning ignorance about what this will do to your he

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