Archive for December, 2011
Wishing you a happy holiday season
Posted in Global Warming on December 23, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Texas Groups Hail First-Ever Protections from Mercury Pollution
Posted in Global Warming on December 21, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Texas environmental and public health groups welcome today’s new EPA safeguards to reduce mercury and other toxic air pollutants from the smokestacks of the nation’s aging fleet of coal and oil-fired power plants. The new public health protection has been developed over nearly twenty years and is required by law under the Clean Air Act, [...]
ERCOT says Luminant can shut two Monticello power units
Posted in Air Quality, Energy, tagged electric reliability council of texas, ercot, Luminant, Texas on December 20, 2011 | 5 Comments »
Planning for Texas’ energy future must include drought proofing our energy supply with energy efficiency and renewable energy, not propping up old dirty fossil fuel plants. To that end, we applaud the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT – the Texas electric grid operator) for calling Luminant’s bluff to shut down the aging Monticello coal [...]
Help! Tar sands pipeline – it all comes down to Barack Obama and YOU!
Posted in Global Warming on December 16, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Big Oil’s representatives in the House and Senate are pushing legislation that would rush approval of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Up until now President Obama has stood strong, threatening to reject any bill that includes the pipeline. But in the last hour, some terrible news has begun to leak from DC. President Obama [...]
NRC halts STP expansion over foreign ownership issues
Posted in Global Warming on December 15, 2011 | 1 Comment »
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has suspended its review of the foreign ownership portion of the application to expand the South Texas Project nuclear plant over concerns that the owners haven’t done enough to ensure domestic control of the plant. Toshiba Corp., based in Japan, could obtain an 85 percent ownership stake in the two nuclear plants [...]
Sierra Club, Public Citizen, and Sandy Creek Reach Legal Agreement To Slash Air Pollution
Posted in Global Warming on December 14, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Earlier this week, Sierra Club, Public Citizen, and Sandy Creek Energy Associates filed a consent decree with a federal court settling legal challenges to the Sandy Creek Energy Station near Riesel, TX. Although the U.S. Court of Appeals had previously ruled in favor of Sierra Club’s and Public Citizen’s lawsuit against this proposed plant for [...]
US environmental authorities have declared for the first time that fracking may be to blame for groundwater pollution.
Posted in Water, tagged EPA, hydraulic fracturing, Texas, United States Environmental Protection Agency on December 9, 2011 | 2 Comments »
A draft finding by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could have a chilling effect on states trying to determine how to regulate the process. Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, involves pumping pressurised water, sand and chemicals underground to open fissures and improve the flow of oil or gas to the surface. The EPA found that [...]
Radioactive waste dump seeking amendment to its license
Posted in Nuclear, Radioactive Waste, Water, tagged environment, radipactove waste, TCEQ, Texas, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, waste control specialists, WCS on December 8, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Waste Control Specialists LLC (WCS) is seeking several amendments to its Radioactive Material License # R04100 from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). Five of the amendments request design changes to the Compact Waste Disposal Facility (CWF) and the Federal Waste Facility (FWF) for commercial and federal low-level radiactive waste disposal. The other two amendment [...]
2011 – A year of billion dollar weather disasters
Posted in Global Warming, tagged Hurricane Irene, National Climatic Data Center on December 8, 2011 | 1 Comment »
As 2011 winds to a close, the Weather Channel reports that it has been a volatile year of weather across the United States and the tally of weather-related disasters exceeding a billion dollars set a record for the most billion-dollar weather disasters in a single year earlier this year and now the National Climatic Data [...]
Rerouting Keystone XL: From Poisoned Aquifers to Polluted Land
Posted in Air Quality, Water, tagged keystone, pipeline spills, tarsands on December 7, 2011 | 1 Comment »
This is a guest blog by departing Public Citizen intern Chantelle B. In recent months, Nebraska’s government has taken a strong stand against the Keystone XL Pipeline’s route, which currently passes through the ecologically fragile Sandhills region and North America’s largest aquifer – the Ogallala – which, if polluted, could have disastrous effects. The majority of [...]
Fishing: A great pasttime, but you may not want to eat that fish without checking the state’s mercury advisories
Posted in Global Warming on December 6, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
One of the great things about living in Texas is our winters are mild enough that many outdoor activities are year round activities, including fishing. BUT . . ., before you eat that fish, be sure to check out the mercury advisories for the state’s waterways on the Texas Department of Health website to make [...]
What You Need to Know About the Perils in Gas Well Leases
Posted in Consumers, tagged fracking, Oil and Gas Leases on December 2, 2011 | 1 Comment »
According to a story in the New York Times, landowners across the country have signed millions of leases allowing companies to drill for oil and natural gas on their land, but some of these landowners — often in rural areas, and lured by the promise of quick payouts — are finding out too late what [...]
Texas, Neither the Worst Run State Nor the Best Run State: Where do we rank?
Posted in Good Government, tagged State ranking on December 1, 2011 | 2 Comments »
For the second year, 24/7 Wall St. has reviewed data on financial, health, standard of living and government services by state to determine how well each state is managed. Based on this data, 24/7 Wall St. ranked the 50 states from the best to worst run. The best-run state is Wyoming. The worst-run state is California. [...]
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