Last year was the hottest ever recorded in Texas
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data shows that average temperatures in 2023 were 3.5 degrees above the 20th century average. Full Story
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Alejandra Martinez is a Fort Worth-based environmental reporter. She’s covered the impacts of petrochemical facilities on Black and brown communities, including investigating a chemical fire at an industrial complex and how the state's air monitoring system has failed Latino communities. Her work on climate change includes exploring the health effects of extreme heat and how extended droughts affect water resources. Before joining the Tribune in 2022, Alejandra was an accountability reporter at KERA, where she began as a Report for America Corps Member and then covered Dallas City Hall. She also has worked as an associate producer at WLRN in South Florida. A Houston native, Alejandra studied journalism at the University of Texas at Austin and speaks fluent Spanish.
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![Austin-Travis County EMS first responders cart Robert Shipp, 75, of Bastrop, to an ambulance during a 102 degree summer day outside Austin Wrench A Part in Del Valle on July 7, 2023. According to the EMS crew and Shipp, he was seen passing out while searching for car parts under the hot sun, and hadn’t eaten any food or drank any water all day.]()
Credit: Joe Timmerman/The Texas Tribune -
How Texas polluters classify big facilities as smaller ones to avoid stricter environmental rules and public input
Industrial developers describe large facilities as “minor” polluters to avoid federal permitting requirements, and environmental lawyers say the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality lets it happen. Full Story
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![The GAF roofing shingles factory in West Dallas on Dec. 13. The factory reclassified itself as minor and averted public participation requirements in 2022.]()
Credit: Shelby Tauber/Inside Climate News -
Worried about safety, a small West Texas town challenges planned cross-border pipeline
Critics are calling on federal regulators to increase their scrutiny and oversight of the proposed pipeline, which would send gas from Texas to the Mexican coast for export to other countries. Full Story
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![The skyline of Van Horn, Texas, where residents are raising concerns about a proposed natural gas pipeline.]()
Credit: Martha Pskowski/Inside Climate News -
Bison return to Texas Indigenous lands, reconnecting tribes to their roots
Indigenous ranchers in Texas are receiving help from nonprofits to rebuild bison herds in the state. One family in Sulphur Springs that received five bison last month invited Texas tribal members to see the herd in person. Full Story
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![People, including tribe members, gather in a circle during a blessing ceremony for the three herds of bison gifted to Theda Pogue, affiliated with the Muscogee Creek Nation of Oklahoma, and her family on Saturday, November 4, 2023 at GP Ranch in Sulphur Springs, Texas.]()
Credit: Desiree Rios for The Texas Tribune -
Fear and worry shadow Texas oyster fishermen as another season begins with few reefs open
Despite fishermen’s wishes to delay the season in hopes that oyster reefs recover from years of environmental stress, the state pushed ahead with a Nov. 1 start. Full Story
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![Manuel Perez watches as neighboring oyster boats maneuver around the harvesting zone in Galveston Bay, outside of Texas City, on the first day of the oyster harvesting season, on Nov. 1, 2023.]()
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Former oil executive withdraws application to build private dam on South Llano River
The withdrawn proposal would have allowed the dam’s owner to take nearly 4 million gallons from the South Llano River, the main water source for Kimble, Mason and Llano counties. Full Story
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![A golf course borders Cedar Creek, a tributary of the South Llano River, Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023, in Junction.]()
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Llano River communities fight former oil executive’s plan for a private dam
Texas has thousands of private dams, but a former oil executive’s application to build one on the South Llano River would be the first in the watershed for recreational use. Opponents fear it would harm the river’s health and encourage more private dams. Full Story
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![Linda Fawcett stands in front of her painting “Water Witch,” in her dining room Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023, in Junction. Named after the moniker used to describe a person who used dowsing rods to search for water underground, the painting depicts Fawcett’s biggest fear of the Llano River going dry.]()
Credit: Eli Hartman/The Texas Tribune -
Toxic red tide algae, last seen in 2018, returns to Texas coast
Areas of the Texas Gulf Coast are seeing blooms of the algae, which can make people sick and kill fish. Full Story
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![Red tide cell concentrations are visible in the water near South Padre Island on Oct. 27, 2009.]()
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SpaceX can’t launch another rocket until dozens of fixes are made, FAA says
An investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration found multiple failures that led to the explosion of a SpaceX rocket in the Rio Grande Valley in April. Full Story
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![SpaceX's Starship lifts off from the company's Boca Chica launchpad on an uncrewed test flight before exploding, near Brownsville on April 20, 2023.]()
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EPA’s inspector general says agency isn’t enforcing benzene pollution rules at refineries in Texas, nationally
A report by the federal environmental agency’s internal watchdog found that EPA is failing to enforce its own pollution limits for the known carcinogen at many refineries — including some in Texas. Full Story
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![A Deer Park neighborhood next to Highway 225, which borders the refineries, petrochemical plants and industrial storage tanks that line the Houston Ship Channel. In 2019, air quality inspectors found that high levels of benzene emissions had wafted across the highway and into residential areas of Deer Park in the weeks after the ITC chemical fire was extinguished.]()
Credit: Mark Felix for The Texas Tribune/Public Health Watch