How the flooding in Southeast Texas got so dire
Since Sunday, multiple rounds of rainfall have soaked the region, causing rivers and creeks to swell and rise out of their banks. Full Story
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![The Lake Livingston Dam is seen releasing water on May 3, 2024, in Livingston. The Southeast Texas reservoir reached capacity during several days of intense rainstorms this week.]()
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Decayed power pole sparked the largest wildfire in state history, Texas House committee confirms
A lack of air support and ineffective coordination hurt efforts to contain this year's Panhandle fires, the committee said. Full Story
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![A building destroyed by fire sits in ashes in the Texas R.V. Park in Fritch, TX. Snow and rainfall on Thursday offered temporary relief to firefighters battling the blaze but weather conditions this weekend may cause the fire to spread again.]()
Credit: Mark Rogers for The Texas Tribune -
Companies aim to release more treated oilfield wastewater into rivers and streams
Texas regulators are issuing permits to discharge large volumes of treated “produced water” into some waterways. Questions remain about the toxic pollutants found in the wastewater. Full Story
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![An oil well adjacent to the Red Bluff Reservoir in Reeves County, Texas on February 24, 2020. NGL Water Solutions Permian has proposed to discharge treated produced water into the reservoir.]()
Credit: Justin Hamel for Inside Climate News -
Coal power plants must reduce pollution under new federal rules
The rules will require coal-fueled plants, including Texas plants that produced about 12% of power on the state’s grid this year, to reduce carbon emissions and mercury pollution and handle disposed coal ash more safely. Full Story
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![The entrance to the San Miguel Electric Cooperative coal-burning power plant on April 26, 2019.]()
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Oil and gas leaders at Tribune panel say the industry’s crucial to West Texas but pollution must be addressed
Panelists discussed how the industry has changed Midland and Odessa and how to confront environmental concerns. Full Story
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Valley activists wage transatlantic battle to stop natural gas exports from South Texas
As legal efforts fall short, Rio Grande Valley residents are pursuing a novel strategy to halt export terminals on wetlands: Lobby Europeans to reject gas from the U.S. Full Story
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![The Port of Brownsville Shrimp Basin, about 4.8 miles away from the Rio Grande LNG terminal.]()
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Water scarcity and clean energy collide in South Texas
A high-tech chemical company has purchased the last available water in the Nueces River to make hydrogen and ammonia for export. Full Story
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![The sun sets over the Port of Corpus Christi in March 2018.]()
Credit: Eddie Seal for The Texas Tribune -
After Texas’ largest wildfire is contained, a rancher moves on with a single calf
In testimony to state lawmakers, Dale Jenkins and his Panhandle peers shared the “hidden cost” of the wildfires. Full Story
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![Dale Jenkins poses for a photo inside a cattle pen where he left his livestock prior to the Smokehouse Creek fires on Wednesday, April 3, 2024 in Canadian. “You'd be out there fighting this fire and you're all by yourself,” Jenkins said. “There's not a soul round. But you've got light from the fire line. And you're working at it and concentrating so hard and finally you get to the end you finally put up the last flames and then it's just totally dark and totally quiet is a really it's an interesting feeling.”]()
Credit: Maria Crane/The Texas Tribune -
Public blasts Texas agencies, regulators for poor communication and oversight at wildfire hearings
Thursday’s hearing marked the end of the Legislature’s three-day marathon of public hearings. Full Story
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![Craig Cowden gives testimony to the house committee investigating the Panhandle wildfires Thursday, April 4, 2024 in Pampa.]()
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Texas wind energy firms need more technicians. Can they drum up student interest without state support?
The wind industry promises attractive salaries. But a lack of training programs and waning political support make it difficult to find new recruits. Full Story
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![Texas State Technical College Wind Energy Technology instructor James Chung, center, helps Steven Vasquez, left, and Shayne Howard, right, troubleshoot during a lab on logic gates Tuesday, March 5, 2024 in Sweetwater.]()
Credit: Eli Hartman/The Texas Tribune -
Utility pole inspection company declines to testify at Texas Panhandle wildfire investigation hearing
The Texas A&M Forest Service concluded that a fallen decayed utility pole caused the Smokehouse Creek fire. Full Story
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![State Rep Ken King, R-Canadian, speaks during an investigative house committee hearing on the Texas Panhandle wildfires Tuesday, April 2, 2024 in Pampa. In late February, the largest wildfire in Texas history raged across the panhandle, burning just over a million acres.]()
Credit: Maria Crane/The Texas Tribune -
Small nuclear reactors may be coming to Texas, boosted by interest from Gov. Abbott
A nuclear power plant hasn’t been built in Texas in decades because of cost and public fears of a major accident. Now the governor wants to find out if smaller reactors could meet the state’s growing need for on-demand power. Full Story
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![Reactor operators peer into the reactor pool to look at a blue glow emitting from Texas A&M University’s Training, Research, Isotopes, General Atomics (TRIGA) nuclear research reactor Monday, March 11, 2024 in College Station.]()
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In Texas, ex-oil and gas workers champion geothermal energy as a replacement for fossil-fueled power plants
Texas has become an early hot spot for geothermal energy exploration as scores of former oil industry workers and executives are taking their knowledge to a new energy source. Full Story
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![Cindy D. Taff, Chief Executive Officer of Sage Geosystems, poses for a photo on March 22, 2023 in Starr County Santa Elena, Texas. The startup is testing storing energy in the ground. “There’s some people that believe that there’s a climate crisis, and some people don’t believe it. We want this to be the energy of choice whether you believe in it or not because it’s cost-effective as well.”
Verónica G. Cárdenas for The Texas Tribune]()
Credit: Verónica Gabriela Cárdenas for The Texas Tribune -
Texas energy companies are betting hydrogen can become a cleaner fuel for transportation
Supporters say developing hydrogen as a fuel is critical to slowing climate change. Critics are concerned that producing it with fossil fuels will prop up the oil and gas industry. Full Story
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![Air Liquide’s facility manager Craig Allen at the largest hydrogen storage facility, on Sept. 5, 2023 in Beaumont.]()
Credit: Mark Felix for The Texas Tribune -
Texas firefighters completely contain Panhandle inferno that burned more than 1 million acres
A series of deadly wildfires have burned for nearly three weeks, destroying farms and ranches in several counties. Full Story
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![A burned yucca stands in a field after the Smokehouse Creek fire Sunday, March. 3, 2024, in Hemphill County, Texas.]()
Credit: Justin Rex for The Texas Tribune -
Gulf Coast petrochemical growth draws billions in tax breaks despite pollution violations
A new report by the Environmental Integrity Project compiled data on every U.S. plastics plant built, expanded or proposed since 2012, revealing massive growth in Texas. Full Story
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![Gulf Coast Growth Ventures, a $10 billion plastics plant built by ExxonMobil and SABIC, started operations this year on 1,300 acres of previously undeveloped land in San Patricio County, across the bay from Corpus Christi.]()
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Expuestos y en el olvido: El aire tóxico en una comunidad latina de Texas revela los fallos del sistema estatal de control de calidad del aire
Los datos públicos de una red de monitores de la calidad del aire alrededor del Canal de Navegación de Houston son difíciles de interpretar y a menudo son insuficientes, dejando a vecindarios de mayoría latina, como Cloverleaf, sin saber si el aire que respiran es seguro. Full Story
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![People walk through San Jacinto Park as a tanker ship passes through the Houston Ship Channel in La Porte. Thousands of families live and play near the world’s largest petrochemical complex.
Un grupo de personas camina por el Parque San Jacinto mientras un barco cisterna pasa por el Canal de Navegación de Houston en La Porte. Miles de familias viven y juegan cerca del complejo petroquímico más grande del mundo.
People walk in San Jacinto Park as a large tanker ship pass through Houston Ship Channel on the background in Saturday October 28, 2023 in La Porte, TX]()
Credit: Go Nakamura for The Texas Tribune -
Neglected and exposed: Toxic air lingers in a Texas Latino community, revealing failures in state’s air monitoring system
Public data from a network of state air monitors around the Houston Ship Channel is hard to interpret and is often inadequate, leaving Latino-majority neighborhoods like Cloverleaf unaware of whether the air they breathe is safe. Full Story
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![Cristina Lazo starts the daily routine of washing her daughter Alina’s hands, changing clothes and rubbing an ointment on her irritated eyes after coming home from the outside. Lazo believes the fumes from the nearby industrial sector are contributing to her 7-year-old daughter’s symptoms.
Al llegar a su casa desde el exterior, Cristina Lazo inicia la rutina diaria de lavarle las manos a su hija Alina, cambiarla de ropa y aplicarle una pomada en los ojos irritados. Lazo cree que la fuga de gases del complejo industrial cercano están contribuyendo a los síntomas de su hija de 7 años.
On November 10, 2023, Cristina Lazo helps her six-year-old daughter Alina wash her hands at their home in Cloverleaf, Texas.]()
Credit: Danielle Villasana for The Texas Tribune -
Xcel Energy acknowledges role in Texas’ Smokehouse Creek wildfire
The Smokehouse Creek Fire has grown to be the largest in state history. Full Story
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![A drone view shows firefighters spraying trees with water after the Smokehouse Creek fire burned through the area in Roberts County, on Feb. 28, 2024.]()
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Texas Panhandle wildfires: What you need to know about the blazes, damage and recovery
The full scope of damage still isn’t known, but some Panhandle residents have returned home. Firefighters continue battling the infernos. Full Story
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![Trees stand burned from the Smokehouse Creek fire on Sunday, March. 3, 2024, in Hemphill Co.]()
Credit: Justin Rex for The Texas Tribune