ENVIRONMENTAL HEADLINES, JUNE 30 – JULY 13
TREES CUT IN PREPARATION OF RAZING RIVER OAKS CENTER
Houston Chronicle 7/12/07
Contractors removed a line of trees, including several large oaks, from the edge of the River Oaks Shopping Center Wednesday as Weingarten Realty Investors continued its preparations to demolish part of the 70-year-old center.
WIND BEHIND CITY’S PLAN TO SAVE ON POWER
Houston Chronicle 7/13/07
Hoping to stabilize a $150 million annual electricity bill, Houston officials have negotiated a contract to ensure that a third of the city’s power is generated by wind.
PERRY MAKES ALTERNATIVE ENERGY, VIABLE BIOFUELS A PRIORITY
PUMP DESIGNED TO HARVEST ENERGY FROM WAVES
TXDOT LOSING $72M IN FEDERAL FUNDS
Houston Business Journal 7/12/07
The Texas Department of Transportation said Thursday that $72 million in federal aid for highways funding has been rescinded.
AREA RIPE FOR PRODUCING AIR-POLLUTING OZONE
Galveston County Daily News 7/11/07
Ozone, an air pollutant that forms when nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds are heated by sunlight, has regularly reached high levels at Galveston’s Scholes International Airport, said a professor during a trade union meeting this week.
WHITE HELICOPTERS TO HOVER OVER AREA PLANT
Baytown Sun 7/7/07
Refineries, chemical plants and industrial facilities across Harris County will have some guests flying overhead later this month. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) hopes its second helicopter trip around the Houston Ship Channel will help clear the polluted air.
STATE TO USE HELICOPTERS TO FIND LEAKS
GEOHAZARD STUDY BACK ON COUNCIL AGENDA
Galveston County Daily News 7/12/07
Galveston city council members hope today to debunk some of the myths they say are circulating about the geohazards study.
PIRATES’ BEACH UP FOR REZONING
NEW PROGRAM AIMS TO SPUR PRESERVATION OF SPRING CREEK GREENWAY
Houston Chronicle 7/3/07
A new program in the works for wetland mitigation could speed up preservation efforts for Spring Creek Greenway, the planned 12,000-acre park-and-trail system along Spring Creek.
ASTROS, WASTE MANAGEMENT PARTNER IN RECYCLING EFFORT
Houston Business Journal 7/6/07
The Houston Astros have teamed up with Waste Management Inc. to promote recycling at Minute Maid Park.
PLANNER TAKES NEW LOOK AT URBAN LIVING
Houston Chronicle 7/9/07
Andres Duany bends over a table in a makeshift studio in Houston, sketching rapidly with a black marker on tissue-thin sheets of white paper. Colleagues from his planning team lean in to hear as he pours out ideas.
HOUSTON NEEDS MORE THAN SLUGFEST OF SLOGANS
Houston Chronicle 6/30/07
As the Houston region continues to sprawl into the hinterlands, Houstonians are beginning to realize, (as documented in the 2007 Houston Area Survey), that the by-products of haphazard growth – namely traffic congestion, flooding, air pollution and neighborhood disruption – are no longer tenable. They are increasingly concerned about the loss of green space, growing poverty and crime, failing schools, public health, and a general decline in our quality of life.
DEAD OCELOT BAD NEWS FOR FALLING US POPULATION
Reuters 7/13/07
The unexplained death of a breeding-age ocelot in southeast Texas has brought the endangered cat a step closer to extinction in the United States, a wildlife biologist said on Thursday.