Texas Parks and Wildlife unveiled proposed new rules Thursday to slow the advance of rapacious zebra mussels, which have hitchhiked their way as far south as Lake Lewisville with the help of oblivious boaters. The invasive Eurasian mollusk propagates so rapidly that they stopper public water-uptake pipes, coat the hulls…
Texas is still almost entirely covered in drought, but it’s easy to forget it. North Texas has been comparatively dry, while much of the rest of the state received some much-needed rain over the summer. It has not, however, been nearly enough to replenish the state’s shrinking reservoirs. If this…
From its website, City Trapping comes off as slick, big ol’ hog-snatchin’ company, with a perfectly corporate “About Us” description: “We help alleviate your destructive feral hog problems in a secure, safe, and humane process.” But it’s actually just one guy, hunting-loving business owner Osvaldo Rojas, who does all the…
The clean-up of toxic land around the former Exide lead smelter in Frisco hasn’t even begun yet, and already it has drawn criticism from state regulators and now the city’s own expert. In testimony submitted on behalf of Frisco in Exide’s bankruptcy proceedings, William Wheatley, an engineer and former director…
The Dallas Zoo released video footage of its 2-month-old cheetah cubs, named Winspear and Kamau. Notwithstanding the fact that one of them is the namesake of a border casino opera house, this is a big deal. Cheetahs are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity. They often suffer health problems, and…
Is the gas industry mature enough to have a serious discussion with the American public about hydraulic fracturing, one that explores the benefits of domestic natural gas drilling but also carefully considers methane leaks, groundwater contamination, earthquakes and other potential risks that peer-reviewed research has linked to fracking activity? Fracking…
Frisco residents worried about a power company’s plan to install high-voltage power lines above ground next to their homes have been frustrated by the company’s handling of their complaints in recent weeks, but this morning they can celebrate a momentary victory: Their city council last night passed a resolution opposing…
Just as the Dallas City Council shot down an energy company’s plans to drill for gas in the city limits, a new study raises further questions about the role energy exploration plays in small earthquakes shaking up Texas. Earlier research has linked quakes to the disposal of fracking fluid. So…
Luminant, the Dallas-based energy generator, has long been a ripe target for environmentalists, who complain that its aging, coal-fueled power plants — in particular North/Northeast Texas’ Big Brown, Martin Lake, and Monticello — are fouling the air with extraordinary amounts of toxic pollutants and greenhouse gases. Under the Obama Administration,…
Local officials talk a good game about killing mosquitoes this West Nile season, but are they doing enough to warn us before they unleash mosquito-killing insecticides in our neighborhoods? These are insecticides that, as we’ve covered, might not be so good for people to breathe in. City Hall’s own website…
Bad news from Eat the Yard, the army veterans-turned-organic local gardeners who were on our cover a few weeks ago: they think that four of their seven gardens got hit with the toxic insecticides the city has been spraying to kill West Nile-infected mosquitoes. To be safe, Eat the Yard…
We want to kill the mosquitoes, but we don’t want to kill the bees. Is it possible for Dallas health officials to process those two competing ideas in their heads at once? Let’s hope so. Last year, Dallas sprayed an insecticide that killed everything — the mosquitoes and the bees…
It was an unusually wet July this year, or so it seemed to North Texans accustomed to summers of monotonous, unbroken heat. In reality, the 2.05 inches of precipitation was right around the historical average, and it came in drizzles that evaporated almost as soon as the sun re-emerged. It…
We wrote last week about how the Environmental Protection Agency is catching heat from both sides of the fracking debate, for its continued backing away from research suggesting that drilling for natural gas can contaminate drinking water. It’s happened in Parker County, Texas, as well as in the Pavillion area…
Fracking hearings held by the U.S. House almost always make for fine kabuki theater. Back when Rockwall’s skydiving septuagenarian nonagenarian Congressman Ralph Hall ran the show, you couldn’t glean much from the proceedings other than the impression that any scientific inquiry into the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing was just…
The Environmental Protection Agency has a tendency to walk away from its own research suggesting that fracking pollutes drinking water. A Congressional hearing scheduled for today will look into why that is. The hearing, called “Lessons Learned: EPA’s Investigations of Hydraulic Fracturing,” will be held jointly by the House Science,…
A powerful ex-oil industry executive has proposed a new energy plan for Texas, and it may not surprise you to learn that his plan involves oil. Lots and lots of oil. Leonardo Maugeri used to be a top executive at Eni, a company that has the double honor of being…
Luminant, the Dallas-based electricity generator, doesn’t have the greenest public image. It’s aging fleet of coal-fueled power plants includes some of the dirtiest in the country. It pumps millions and millions of tons of greenhouse gases and other pollutants into the atmosphere. Then, when pushed to modernize its coal plants,…
Get your tissues ready: Exxon Mobil gives some of its money to charities in Africa, according to a lengthy report in Sunday’s Dallas Morning News. The DMN politely explains that Exxon has a “complicated” relationship with Africa. On the one hand, critics say that Exxon isn’t transparent about where its…
It doesn’t take much to impress a water engineer. For Robert Mace, an administrator at the Texas Water Development Board, the highlight of the year was gulping down a tall glass of lukewarm water. “It could have used a couple of ice cubes,” he says, but otherwise it was clean…
Grand Park, Frisco’s planned $23-million, 275-acre paradise of the outer-ring ‘burbs, will probably be contaminated with lead, and staffers at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality know it, according to documents and emails obtained by Frisco Unleaded. As we’ve reported before, the park’s lake and water features will be fed…
Dallas congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson has co-sponsored legislation that would establish a national historic park on the moon, to commemorate the United States’ initial moon landings and to protect those sites from future commercial moon explorers. In other words: Even on the moon, location, location, location…
