Mohammed squatted atop a five-foot pile of mulch, his shovel jabbed into the chaff somewhere out in the snake-infested, cedar-scrubbed hill country southwest of Dallas. Sweat darkened his black Reebok shirt and soaked his ankle socks and his coal-black hair. He was taking a breather from a community service project…
The much-anticipated Fort Worth Natural Gas Air Quality Study, a major million-dollar undertaking to determine the air quality effects of natural gas drilling, was released toward day’s end yesterday and indicates there’s no need to get your gas masks out just yet — for the most part. The study, conducted…
This just in from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas: Adjust your thermostats to 78 or higher now — or, at the very least, between 3 and 7 p.m. — or the whole state runs the risk of brownouts later. Why? Well, sure — it’s hot, hot, hotter than hell…
Today’s first meeting of the city’s gas drilling task force meeting played out like the pilot episode of a new TV series: It laid out the basic plot line without giving away too much. Which is to say it opened with an introduction of the nine task force members, as…
All at once the in-box filled up with releases from the Environmental Protection Agency, both the national HQ and the regional offices. Long story short: After a series of public hearings held last year, including this one in Arlington, the EPA has decided to go ahead and take a long,…
A long-time Deep Ellumite gave me a tip the other day: If you want to see a cool place where a guy with a great beard makes motorcycles from scratch, check out the gray building on Main Street.So I did, and that’s where I met Aaron Kaufman, the 29-year-old self-taught…
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, slow fly-bys of Dallas over the next day or so, taking “baseline air samples” so…
On the way out to the ballpark a couple of weeks ago, as we drove down 30 over Belt Line, the boy noticed for the first time how close the Trinity River runs next the freeway. I told him that’s known as the West Fork of the Trinity, which merges…
Last month, we mentioned a far-reaching University of Texas at Austin study of complaints about gas drilling operations that’s just now getting underway. Meant to connect the dots between air, soil and water quality complaints from the Barnett to the Marcellus Shale, the nine-month project from the university’s Energy Institute…
Several Friends of Unfair Park have sent a heads-up about a particular wager over Mavs-Heat — no, not the governors’ cheapskate bet, but this what-the pitting Bishop Kevin Farrell of the Diocese of Dallas against Archbishop of Miami Thomas Wenski. Stone crabs and cigars, tortillas and pecan pie — now…
I’ve taken the almost-8-year-old who lives in my house to several of ‘cross-the-street neighbor Heritage Auction Galleries’ dinosaur auction previews, because, right, kids love dinosaurs. Which is why I expect at some point, between June 9 and 11, we’ll find ourselves once again wandering the fossils: It’s time for the…
‘Round this very moment exactly one week ago today we were all preparing to duck and cover beneath Kirstie Alley as hailstones the size of calf fries began forming in the skies above North Texas. Turns out, the weather was even worse than we thought the morning after.This afternoon, the…
Update at 3:37 p.m. Friday: Looks as though the bill’s author in the Senate plans to strip Bonnen’s amendment out of the bill before it goes to the governor’s desk. Amid these “late nights and high feelings” of the tail end of the 82nd Texas Legislature, House lawmakers took a…
From time to time over the years we’ve revisited the tornado of 1957, which, at the time, was easily the best-documented twister in history. There’s even a whole website devoted to the F3 that killed 10 and “carved a sixteen mile path through Oak Cliff and West Dallas over a…
When the space shuttle Endeavour touches down in a little more than a week, NASA’s shuttle program will come down to just one more mission: Atlantis’s launch set for July. It’s the moment private space industry’s been gearing up for, when America’s space program will really depend on small entrepreneur-led…
On and off last year we took a look at the sad state of the 108-year-old Davy Crockett School on Carroll Avenue, a designated city historic landmark since 1993 and almost all but empty since the Dallas Independent School District moved its students to close-by Ignacio Zaragoza Elementary in ’89…
It would seem 508 Park Avenue’s been heavy on my mind of late, even more than usual, what with Robert Johnson’s just-passed 100th birthday and First Presby’s not-just-yet-sealed-deal purchase and Friday’s flashback to the sounds of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys cut at that very same spot two years…
A week ago today, as you may recall, the University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Institute announced they’d be joining the growing ranks of universities with major studies of hydraulic fracturing, with a $300,000, nine-month project of their own. Today, thanks to the Texas Tribune and KUT News, you can…
In these final days of the 82nd Texas Legislature, lawmakers in Austin are throwing support behind Eastlake Rep. Jim Keffer’s bill that’d require drillers to report the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing at each of their drill sites. The bill got an overwhelming nod from the House yesterday (and just…
There’s really no bad time to check back in on construction at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science — but especially on a day like today, when some serious money has just changed hands. In a ceremony high atop the next-door Park Seventeen building, the museum announced Texas Instruments…
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 story short: The county wants state and federal…
Dallas anti-gas drilling activist Raymond Crawford just copied us on a letter he’s sending to state Sen. Royce West today, asking him to “personally get involved [and] do whatever it takes to help stop HB3105,” which is Rep. Jim Keffer’s proposed legislation that would essentially neuter cities’ ability to regulate…
