ECONOTES 2011-10-19: Environmental Headlines for the Houston Region
Featured
- Drought causing unusual aquatic behavior in bay (Shannon Tompkins – Houston Chronicle, 10/17/2011)
The Texas drought has had a major impact on coastal marine environment. The drought has caused an outbreak of red tide along the coast. Red tides most often occurs along the Texas coast when environmental conditions combine to bring together high water temperatures, high salinity levels and little water movement. These red tides have been occurring for more than two weeks, killing many species of fish.
http://www.chron.com/ - Texas sun may soon heat up solar power (Jack Z. Smith – Star-Telegram, 10/16/2011)
Solar-power accounts for a fraction of 1 percent of the state’s electric power generation, but industry professionals and advocates of renewable energy believe that Texas could soon become the top generator of solar power in the U.S. within several years. Sheer size, wide-open spaces, sunshine and a large, fast-growing population give Texas its potential to further the solar power industry.
http://www.star-telegram.com/ - Houston taking more water from Lake Conroe (Purva Patel – Houston Chronicle, 10/16/2011)
The demands for water have increased once again. The City of Houston started taking 15 million more gallons a day from Lake Conroe this weekend to help meet water demands. The San Jacinto River Authority estimates Lake Conroe’s levels will drop by up to 1.5-feet a month. City officials predict that the higher release will likely be in effect through the end of the year.
http://www.chron.com/news/
EcoNotes
- 18 October
- Drought and conservation on agenda for next Texas Legislature (Jay Blazek Crossley – Houston Tomorrow)
http://www.houstontomorrow.org/ - TCEQ fines Valero $591,798 for air violations (Your Bay Area News)
http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/ - Downtown to get new free shuttle bus next May (David Crossley – Houston Tomorrow)
http://www.houstontomorrow.org/ - Finding solutions that work for biosolids doesn’t have to be a long, arduous task (BC Water News)
http://www.bcwaternews.com/ - Texas gets more fed transport funding than it pays in gas tax (Jay Blazek Crossley – Houston Tomorrow)
http://www.houstontomorrow.org/ - Suntech Sees Stronger U.S. Solar Growth (Nichola Groom and Matt Daily – Planet Ark News)
http://planetark.org/ - U.S. Study Suggests Pricing Carbon From Ground To Consumer (Deborah Zabarenko – Planet Ark News)
http://planetark.org/ - Gulf algae bloom affects much of Texas Gulf Coast (Christopher Sherman – Yahoo! News)
http://news.yahoo.com/ - 17 October
- Drought causing unusual aquatic behavior in bay (Shannon Tompkins – Houston Chronicle)
http://www.chron.com/ - $4.5m Hazardous Tree Removal Process Begins With Removal of Dead Street Trees (Guidry News)
http://guidrynews.com/ - Baytown Residents Give Input On New Mobility Plan (Gail Delaughter – KUHF News)
http://app1.kuhf.org/articles/ - I Can Create 1.2 Million Energy Jobs: Perry (Steve Holland – Planet Ark News)
http://planetark.org/ - Perry slashed environmental enforcement in Texas ( Chris Tomlinson – Google News)
http://www.google.com/ - 16 October
- Houston taking more water from Lake Conroe (Purva Patel – Houston Chronicle)
http://www.chron.com/news/ - The Park in Dallas: A useable green roof atop a downtown freeway (Barbara Kessler – Texas Climate News)
http://texasclimatenews.org/ - Kinder Morgan bets big on future of natural gas (Brett Clanton and Purva Patel – Houston Chronicle)
http://www.chron.com/ - Texas sun may soon heat up solar power (Jack Z. Smith – Star-Telegram)
http://www.star-telegram.com/ - 14 October
- Historic drought killing trees across Texas, changing landscape for years to come (The Washington Post)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ - Houston Will Increase Water Withdrawals From Lake Conroe (Carrie Feibel – KUHF News)
http://app1.kuhf.org/articles/ - The Controversial Plan for Drawing Clean Power From Old Oil Wells (Brian Clark Howard – The Atlantic)
http://www.theatlantic.com/ - Would a Rick Perry administration censor climate science? (Andrew Freedman – The Washington Post)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ - Mobility plan focuses on city’s future transportation needs (Mark Fleming – The Baytown Sun)
http://baytownsun.com/ - Texas Faces Billions in Water Costs as Drought Imperils Economy (David Mildenberg and Whitney McFerron – Bloomberg Business Week)
http://www.businessweek.com/ - 13 October
- Breaking the Drought-Denial Cycle (Brian Resnick – The Atlantic)
http://www.theatlantic.com/ - 12 October
- A talk with investigative journalist Arnold Mann about mold, environmental illness, and MCS (Greg Harman – The San Antonio Current)
http://sacurrent.com/ - UH in $3.1M wind turbine research project (Houston Business Journal)
http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/ - The ‘San Antonio Seven’ still sidelined by illness years after chemical and mold exposures (Greg Harman – The San Antonio Current)
http://sacurrent.com/ - 11 October
- Restoring wetlands theme of Sheldon Lake State Park field day Oct. 27 (Guidry News)
http://guidrynews.com/ - 7 October
- Powerful voices along the Keystone XL pipeline path dominate final hearing (Liz Barratt-Brown – Switchboard)
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/ - State Department Hears From Public on Canada-U.S. Oil Pipeline (C-Span)
http://www.c-span.org/