Environment

Next time somebody wants to charge you 25 percent extra for a house because it’s near a man-made private lake in Texas, ask him to tell you who’s on the hook when the dam blows out. That’s the lesson homeowners are about to learn in Arlington. Prestonwood Lake, about 3.5…

My job is hard. Sometimes I hear terrible things — things I have to live with because of my work. For example, in a recent conversation I was told something positive about the Trinity Forest Golf Club. How do you think that made me feel? But I soldier on, and…

At the very core of the Hurricane Harvey story is a writing problem that has bedeviled me ever since Harvey hit Houston a year ago. When Harvey struck Houston in August 2017, it tied with Katrina in New Orleans a dozen years earlier: Together, they are the two costliest tropical…

When Texas Gov. Greg Abbott preemptively declared Hurricane Harvey a disaster last Aug. 23, chemical plants and oil refineries in the Corpus Christi area shut down before rain from the storm even started falling, according to a new report from the Environmental Integrity Project. That minimized unnecessary air pollution caused…

I’m not really supposed to tell you this, but sometimes I find myself writing about a topic for a long time, and then all of a sudden I wonder what in the world I’m even talking about. Yeah, I know. You can’t believe that. Shocked and amazed. But it happens…

Every once in while, we should take a little trip to the Outermost Thought Ozonosphere, if for no better reason than we need a vacation. And on a recent visit out there, guess what I found! Dallas! At the global cutting edge. No, I mean really. C’mon, I’ll take you…

Environmental activist Erin Brockovich, who incited outcry three weeks ago on social media after calling out Plano for the level of chlorine in its drinking water, questioned the accuracy of information coming from the North Texas Municipal Water District at a community meeting in Frisco on Thursday evening. Brokovich, the…

For the better part of month, Plano, the North Texas Municipal Water District and one very active Facebook group have found themselves in a fight that traces its origins to a single Facebook post. If the past is any guide, however, their ordeal could soon be coming to an end…

Amid the clamor Tuesday about environmental activist Erin Brockovich’s planned visit to town and a raucous Plano City Council meeting that saw one woman tossed from council chambers for shouting that the city’s water had “more chlorine than a pool,” the city and the North Texas Municipal Water District promised…

Atmos Energy has shut off gas to 2,800 homes in Northwest Dallas because of gas leaks, explosions and fires; a child is dead; thousands of people remain shut out of their homes; the company acknowledges that aging steel gas pipes in shifting soil are the problem; and yet Atmos tells…

Oh, right, I’m so offended by all those terrible bike-share bikes showing up around town, polluting the landscape by their unaesthetic presence. No, I’m not. You know what does offend me? Cars. Trucks. Last time I checked, bikes weren’t giving kids leukemia. Check it out. The regional nonprofit clean-air advocacy…

Response to the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Houston is, sadly, a great example of the severe political entropy and impotence at the top of our political system. But don’t look there. If we look not up but down, to the level of grassroots, we’re going to see where the…

Under normal circumstances when a Republican member of the Congress from Texas calls you “unconscionable,” you probably should just report to the nearest convent and ask them to lock you up in the laundry for the rest of your life. Your moral struggles have come to an end. U.S. Rep…

At some point in the weeks ahead, Congress will commit the nation to an immense investment in Houston and Beaumont/Port Arthur. The opening bid from the White House last week was almost $8 billion in federal funds, probably a mere fraction of the ultimate disbursement. The country should view this…

New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie is accusing Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of hypocrisy over disaster relief, which does make for a certain kind of show. But here in Dallas we could tell people a thing or two about that show. Forget mere hypocrisy. The real show is way…

Whenever Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has been asked questions about the state’s lack of preparedness for the catastrophe now eating Houston, he has deflected to expressions of gushing admiration for the bravery of all Texans. And he’s not wrong about Texans. Particularly among rural Texans, there is a powerful all-hands-on-deck…

The argument against leaving all those gaudy Confederate memorials in their places of honor in the city is that they amount to a corrupted version of history written by the losers. I could make the same argument about this private outfit that the mayor wants to create to rule a…

Explore any aspect of Dallas as intently as naturalist Ben Sandifer does on his birding and biking expeditions, and you are bound eventually to see all the rest of the city somewhere in the weave, especially if you look at all of it with the same wonder. Sandifer’s most recent…

For now, let’s pretend for a minute that nobody wants to build an expressway on top of the Trinity River through downtown Dallas. For the sake of argument, let’s just pick up that naughty little gnome of an idea by the ears and plunk it down in the center of…