U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Coal Is Making a Comeback, and Nobody Burns it Like Texas

For a time, coal was moribund, on life support. We thought perhaps the country was permanently shrugging off its dependence on the dirtiest of all fossil fuels. Coal-fired power plants were being mothballed en masse. The share of electricity generated by them fell 25 percent between 2005 and 2012. ... More >>

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 >>

There Will Be Tar Sand

Tarry Canadian bitumen is barreling its way to Texas via the Keystone XL pipeline. Will it bring energy independence or environmental calamity?

ERCOT Greenlights Temporary Shutdown Of Power Plant As TXU Weathers Financial Doldrums

Electricity is so cheap right now that for some generators it doesn't even pay to make it. At the end of August, Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings, the former TXU, announced it would mothball two units at its Monticello coal-fired plant for six to seven months. ERCOT, the state's grid manager, gav ... More >>

Someone Really Should Explain to Mitt Romney How Markets Affect Coal

If your debate-watching drinking game included a shot for each use of the word "coal," you either peed on your roommate's couch or had your stomach pumped. Or both. The primitive fuel was invoked some 22 times, apparently, mostly by Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor ... More >>

There's a War on Coal Raging in Rep. Ralph Hall's Head

We haven't checked in on our favorite congressman, Representative Ralph Hall (R-Antediluvian Era) lately. Not since he dove from a functioning aircraft dressed in nothing but a form-fitting American flag. Turns out, he's been rummaging through a dusty, cobwebbed steamer trunk stuffed with contracept ... More >>

Boom or Doom?

America’s fracking gold rush portends the greatest environmental disaster of a generation.

Was Luminant Bluffing Texas When It Threatened Power Plant Shutdowns Over EPA Regs?

Does Texas' biggest electricity generator, Dallas-based Luminant, just have one hell of a poker face, or should we not read too much into Friday's announcement that it will idle two units at its Monticello plant for six months? If you'll recall, the company threatened to idle the units last summer, ... More >>

The EPA Wimped Out on Cement Plants, but the Fight Continues in DFW Next Week

Just south of Dallas along Highway 67 in Midlothian is perhaps the country's largest concentration of cement plants. TXI, Holcim, and Ash Grove all operate facilities within a couple of miles of each other, and the emissions they pump into the air tend to waft over Dallas when the winds are right, a ... 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, Ousted EPA Chief, Stood Up Congress Yesterday, But the Show Went On

Former EPA Regional Administrator Al Armendariz was the designated whipping boy at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing this week, though it proceeded in absentia. Armendariz totally blew it off, to the supreme indignation of Chairman Ed Whitfield, a Kentucky Republican, and the assemble ... More >>

EPA Nut-Kicking Braggadocio Doesn't Save Judge in High-Profile Fracking Case From Republican Primary Opponent

Voters up in Parker County must not have thought much of district Judge Trey Loftin's campaign mailers bragging about how his "decision regarding deceptive actions by environmental extremists made the EPA reevaluate its national policy." That's pretty grandiose, and it sounded like he was referring ... More >>

Trey Loftin, the Judge in a High-Profile Fracking Case, is Bragging in Campaign Mailers About His EPA Nut-Kicking

Politics is politics, and incumbents running for re-election in conservative Parker County, Texas, where the local economy is fueled entirely by shale-gas production, want to look like champions of the industry. But what if you're a judge? And what if, at the very moment you put up fliers of Rush Li ... More >>

EPA Regional Chief Al Armendariz Steps Down In Wake of "Crucify" Comment

Before SMU prof Al Armendariz had even warmed the seat at his post as EPA regional chief, he was pilloried as an activist whose research into the air pollution caused by fracking operations made him unfit to run a five-state office overseeing some of the industry's most important drilling grounds. ... More >>

EPA Regional Chief Al Armendariz is Accused of "Crucifying" the Energy Industry in Texas

When President Obama appointed SMU prof Al Armendariz to the EPA regional post in Dallas back in 2009, it was to the sound of collective groaning from the energy industry and Republican politicos. Only months before, he'd authored a study citing oil and gas production as a major source of air pollut ... More >>

UT Poll: Most Folks Want To Keep the EPA, And What is This 'Fracking' You Speak Of?

Shale gas extracted by fracking deep formations in Texas, New York, Pennsylvania and elsewhere is supposed to be the bridge fuel to the sustainable age, capable of powering power plants and, hell, even our cars. It's become the centerpiece of President Obama's "all of the above" energy plan. In Tex ... More >>

Environmental Chemist Wilma Subra on the Barnett Shale Bonanza and Its Costs

By 2008, the high price of natural gas, coupled with the novel combination of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, touched off a modern-day gold rush in the Barnett Shale. Regulators were caught on their heels. "They moved forward very rapidly, and state regulatory programs had a difficult ... More >>

Clean Electricity Bill Could Be A Bonanza For Shale Barons

A senator from New Mexico has proposed a bill that could change the face of Texas electric generation. And it has another interesting side-effect: It could reinvigorate a shale gas play depressed by tanking prices. U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman, chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committ ... More >>

Thar She Blows: A Great Idea Rises at City Hall. Fetch the Harpoons.

Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. A huge idea turned up at City Hall yesterday. Huge. This is like a Blue whale beaching itself on the banks of the Trinity River. I'm afraid City Hall is going to send a crew out there and chop it into cat-food. We need to stop and take a big look at this ... More >>

A Simple Response to Texas' Blackout Blues: Bend Over

A picture is worth 6,700 words. If you look around on our home page, you'll find "Blackout Blues," a story by Brantley Hargrove about North Texas' biggest electricity company, the EPA, money and lies. It's a good read. The gist of the story is simple: We're screwed. How screwed? Well, the Texas Pub ... More >>

Rockwall's Rep. Ralph Hall Blasts EPA and Science at Fracking Hearing

Allow us to re-introduce you to the octogenarian congressman who's currently perched atop the catbird seat in the oversight hearings every fracker in America is watching with bated breath. His name is Ralph Hall. He's the chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. One of its s ... More >>

Pesticides Are Threatening the Bee Population, Dan Rather Reports

In preparation for Greek Fest I was warned: "Beware of bees with your loukomades." The fried dough balls, dripping with honey, seemed the perfect attractor for a violet swarm. I pictured myself going all Chris Farley as I ran through the festival. Bees! There were no bees, though. I ate loukomades ... More >>

After Talking Water Supply, Cause of Quakes, Drilling Task Force Gets Down to Business

Photo by Leslie MinoraPhilip Dellinger, Regional Ground Water/Underground Injection Control Chief for the EPA, presents a fracking overview.​Water, water, everywhere -- more than ample supply to frack, according to Jody Puckett, the director of Dallas Water Utilities, who spoke at yesterday's ... More >>

A Breath of Fresh Air: Plano East Senior Named One of America's Great Young Inventors

Param Jaggi​Spend this morning learning how to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen -- by filtering it through algae, duh. Thanks, Param Jaggi! No, seriously. Thanks. The Plano East Senior High School senior's a genius. Says so right here, in the latest issue of Popular Science, in which he was name ... More >>

Dallas's Gas Drilling Task Force Navigates, Sort Of, the Labyrinth of Fracking Regulations

Photo by Leslie MinoraTask force chair Lois Finkelman and members Terry Welch and Cherelle Blazer mull over fracking regulations at yesterday's meeting.​The city's gas drilling task force slurped down a hearty helping of alphabet soup last night, with visits from representatives of the EPA (En ... More >>

Mavs Parade Starts Today With a Slow, Boring, Making-Sure-We-Won't-All-Die Flyover

Don't be alarmed. They're just guarding against deadly chemical accounts. OK, be a little alarmed.​The other night, when Mark Cuban was snuggling with his shiny new safety blanket and dreaming about a flyover for Thursday's parade, this wasn't likely what he had in mind: The EPA will conduct low, ... More >>

Oscar-Nominated Gasland Director Josh Fox On Gas Drilling in the Barnett Shale and the Backlash from Industry

Patrick MichelsGasland director Josh Fox answers questions at an October screening at the Magnolia, alongside DISH mayor Calvin Tillman and gas drilling activist Sharon Wilson.Almost as soon as Gasland nabbed one of this year's Academy Award nominations for best documentary, industry groups rushed o ... More >>

Goodbye Blue Sky: When You See This Plane Buzz Downtown Monday, Don't Run Like Hell

​What you see above is one of the Environmental Protection Agency's AeroCommander 680s, which the agency uses to sniff air quality via Airborne Spectral Photographic Environmental Collection Technology. (I dunno.) Which I mention only because the Dallas Police Department just sent this heads-up we ... More >>

Smokestack Lightning: Since Texas Won't Regulate Emissions, E.P.A. Will Handle Permits

Sam MertenWhat Gov. Rick Perry thinks of the Environmental Protection Agency​Surely you're aware of the ongoing battle between the Environmental Protection Agency and Governor Rick Perry over the state's enforcement (cough) of the Clean Air Act. Long story short: The governor says the feds don't h ... More >>

Downwinders at Risk Launches First-Ever TV Campaign Against TXI, TCEQ and Rick Perry

Two months ago, TXI made a big deal out of shutting down four wet-process cement kilns in Midlothian -- a move hailed by Jim Schermbeck, head of Dallas-based Downwinders at Risk, as "the culmination of a 21-year fight that began in 1989 by a group of residents who found that burning hazardous waste ... More >>

Judge Gives City the Gas to Put CNG-Powered Taxis at the Front of the Line at Love Field

​Back in March, you may recall, cab drivers at Love Field were none too pleased with the city council's decision to give compressed natural gas-powered taxis front-o'-the-line privileges at the airport. A month later, the Association of Taxicab Operators went to federal court to block the city fro ... More >>

Watersports Complex Says Fish Trap Lake's Safe. DHA Says It Isn't. But What Says the City?

From an Economic Development Committee agenda item in April 2010​For the last several days I've been trying to find out the answer to one simple question: Is the water in Fish Trap Lake -- site of the Dallas Watersports Complex since put on indefinite hold by the Dallas Housing Authority -- safe f ... More >>

Talking Trash and Carrying Water at City Hall

​The city's more or less shut down till Tuesday, what with a furlough day and Memorial Day on the schedule. Which is why City Hall has early-posted its Wednesday council briefing agendas on two subjects near and dear to every citizen: water and trash. At least one of 'em is gonna cost more next fi ... More >>

The Inland Port Files For Chapter 11, Which Doesn't Surprise Given The Economic Climate And The Political One (aka John Wiley Price)

Downwinders at Risk Hails SMU Engineering Prof's Appointment as EPA Administrator

Al Armendariz​Al Armendariz, a research associate professor in SMU's Department of Environmental and Civil Engineering, was on National Public Radio earlier this week discussing health issues suffered by folks living near the Barnett Shale; said Armendariz of airborne toxins discovered by res ... More >>

Before Belo Garden, Soil Remediation

Maybe you just forgot -- it's been a few years -- but there's supposed to be a Belo Garden downtown.​Said the city's own time line back in '07, the Belo Garden downtown should have been completed by ... let's see ... last month, matter of fact. And revised guesstimates last summer set the start da ... More >>

Just Why Is the EPA Considering Waste Management's Lobbyist For Dallas Director?

Alexa SchirtzingerThis morning, in the reflection of Dallas's Fountain Place building, a small group of environmental activists gathered as previously announced to oppose the nomination of former Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission head John Hall as the new regional director of the Enviro ... More >>

Gustav Isn't Screwing Around, and Neither is the City of Dallas

Breathe Easier? Not So Much.

Choke On It

North Texas gets schooled on the nasty politics of dirty air

Cleaning the Air About Jim Foster

Parts Per Billion and Other Things You Really Oughta Care About If You Breathe

Concrete: In the Bad-Air Mix

Can't Spell Wednesday Without the "W" (Hotel)

Up the Crick

To Deep Ellum's problems, add this: an underground raging river of poop

Bay botch

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

Troubled waters

DFW Airport officials were warned years ago that they had a problem with water pollution. So why are fish still dying?

Blowing smoke

Denton residents like Parks and Delores Olmon want to know how a posse of city slickers managed to railroad plans for a lead-belching copper factory in their town

Letters

Darling will cough up $4 million

Local company agrees to plead guilty and pay record fine in pollution case