ECONOTES 2013-09-10: Environmental Headlines for the Houston Region
Featured
- Zero Emissions Renaissance Comes To Houston, Of All Places (Nino Marchetti – Earth Techling, 9/3/2013)
Smith Electric Vehicles is now involved in a pilot project in the Houston-Galveston, Texas area in collaboration with the Center for Transportation and the Environment replacing diesel delivery vehicles with all-electric medium- and heavy-duty models. Funded in part by a $2.43 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) that’s being matched by millions from the private sector, the H-GAC Zero Emission Truck project aims to deploy 30 zero emission trucks that combined are expected “to reduce petroleum consumption by over 250,000 gallons of diesel fuel over the 2-year demonstration period.
http://www.earthtechling.com/ - NASA Planes Will Fly Houston Skies On Pollution-Data Mission (Carrie Feibel – KUHF News, 9/3/2013)
Typically, pollution is measured at ground level — with instruments placed on top of buildings, or sometimes in vehicles that drive along the Ship Channel. NASA also can track air quality from space, with orbiting satellites. But that leaves a big gap in between — the atmosphere, a place where wind and weather move pollution around, and where chemicals mix together and disperse. NASA is launching two research airplanes tomorrow from Ellington Field. The planes will spend a month flying over the Houston region and measuring air pollution to fill in critical data gaps.
http://app1.kuhf.org/ - Austin nonprofit expands bee rescue to Houston (Mary Dahdouh – Houston Chronicle, 9/4/2013)
About one mouthful in three in a healthy diet comes either directly or indirectly from honeybee pollination. Yet, the bee population is growing smaller, averaging a 33 percent drop each year in the U.S. since 2006 – a decline that could threaten the economic viability of bee pollination – and Texas is not immune. Central Texas Bee Rescue, a nonprofit Austin-based Texas Central rescue group, expanded last month to Houston to save feral honeybees. The honey produced in the new Houston base will help stock numerous Whole Food shelves to fund the nonprofit rescue operation.
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/
EcoNotes
- 9 September
- Shell to pay $1.1 million in fines for Arctic air-quality violations (Yereth Rosen – Planet Ark News)
http://planetark.org/ - G20 countries agree to phase down potent greenhouse gas (Valerie Volcovici – Planet Ark News)
http://planetark.org/
- Shell to pay $1.1 million in fines for Arctic air-quality violations (Yereth Rosen – Planet Ark News)
- 6 September
- Animals in peril after TxDOT bulldozes beaver dam in West Houston drainage ditch (Tyler Rudick – culturemap Houston)
http://houston.culturemap.com/ - Third Quake in a Week Hits East Texas Town (Mose Buchele – StateImpact)
http://stateimpact.npr.org/ - White House reviewing U.S. 2014 biofuel targets (Ayesha Rascoe – Planet Ark News)
http://planetark.org/
- Animals in peril after TxDOT bulldozes beaver dam in West Houston drainage ditch (Tyler Rudick – culturemap Houston)
- 5 September
- More growth for Energy Corridor (Nancy Sarnoff – Houston Chronicle)
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/ - Geothermal power has nearly doubled since ’96 (Zain Shauk – Houston Chronicle)
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/ - Along the Canadian River, Concerns About Drought and Threatened Fish (Kate Galbraith, The Texas Tribune – StateImpact)
http://stateimpact.npr.org/ - Texans Use Less Power than Expected, Baffling State Regulators (Dave Fehling – StateImpact)
http://stateimpact.npr.org/
- More growth for Energy Corridor (Nancy Sarnoff – Houston Chronicle)
- 4 September
- Can Stephen Colbert save the Deer Park prairie? (Lisa Gray – Houston Chronicle)
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/ - Austin nonprofit expands bee rescue to Houston (Mary Dahdouh – Houston Chronicle)
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/ - Project to restore Katy Prairie habitat (Houston Chronicle)
http://www.chron.com/ - New Chemical Safety Guidelines Issued In Wake of West Fertilizer Explosion (Terrence Henry – StateImpact)
http://stateimpact.npr.org/ - Look up: Pollution-sniffing planes flying above Houston this month (Houston Chronicle)
http://blog.chron.com/ - The Best Farmers Markets and Juice Bars in Houston (Ebony)
http://www.ebony.com/ - Texas highways more clogged, more costly (Dug Begley – Houston Chronicle)
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/ - Texas grid can handle winter power demand, planners say (Emily Pickrell – Houston Chronicle)
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/
- Can Stephen Colbert save the Deer Park prairie? (Lisa Gray – Houston Chronicle)
- 3 September
- NASA Planes Will Fly Houston Skies On Pollution-Data Mission (Carrie Feibel – KUHF News)
http://app1.kuhf.org/ - KPC starting ambitious prairie reconstruction and trail-building project this fall (Zach Haverkamp – The Rancher)
http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/ - Zero Emissions Renaissance Comes To Houston, Of All Places (Nino Marchetti – Earth Techling)
http://www.earthtechling.com/ - Regional Clean Air Coalitions Take The Next Step To Improve Air Quality (Elena Craft – Environmental Defense Fund)
http://blogs.edf.org/ - Chris Sonnier: Program manager of Austin’s SXSW Eco conference (Texas Climate News)
http://texasclimatenews.org/ - New state water board convenes for the first time (Tim Eaton – The Statesman)
http://www.statesman.com/ - Houston teacher named Food Revolution Hero (Houston Chronicle)
http://www.chron.com/ - Fall is near? Houston City Hall Farmers Market returns with eight new vendors (Joel Luks – culturemap Houston)
http://houston.culturemap.com/ - Study finds domestic drilling revival has big payoff (Jennifer A. Dlouhy – My SA News)
http://www.mysanantonio.com/ - Farming gets citified: Growers, educators, politicians gather to consider feeding Houston (The Examiner)
http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/ - Bayou Land Conservancy: Deer Park Prairie reprieved (Houston Chronicle)
http://www.chron.com/ - Hens for Houston moves ordinance forward (The Leader)
http://www.theleadernews.com/ - A Labor Day of Earthquakes For Timpson, Texas (Mose Buchele – StateImpact)
http://stateimpact.npr.org/ - County budget approved at $278M (Howard Roden – The Courier of Montgomery County)
http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/ - Water Policy on Minds of Ag Commissioner Hopefuls (Neena Satija – The Texas Tribune)
http://www.texastribune.org/ - More on Texas Cattle Rustling (Mose Buchele – StateImpact)
http://stateimpact.npr.org/
- NASA Planes Will Fly Houston Skies On Pollution-Data Mission (Carrie Feibel – KUHF News)
- 2 September
- Endangered sea turtles nesting at record level along southeast U.S. coast (Harriet McLeod – Planet Ark News)
http://planetark.org/
- Endangered sea turtles nesting at record level along southeast U.S. coast (Harriet McLeod – Planet Ark News)
- 31 August
- Fighting Pest, Farmers Find Strange Ally: A Drought (Elizabeth Koh – The New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/ - Testing what’s in the air one Houston neighborhood at a time (Ingrid Lobet – Houston Chronicle)
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/
- Fighting Pest, Farmers Find Strange Ally: A Drought (Elizabeth Koh – The New York Times)
- 30 August
- How whooping crane youngsters learn from their elders (Pete Spotts – The Christian Science Monitor)
http://www.csmonitor.com/ - Texas A&M institute researchers: Relocation may save freshwater mussels (Texas A&M AgriLife)
http://today.agrilife.org/ - Part 2 – Making Fossil Fuel a Thing of the Past: World’s Largest Cities Reduce CO2 with Large-scale Energy Efficiency Projects (CLEAN)
http://www.cleanhouston.org/ - Water managers thinking creatively when it comes to conservation (Dan Robertson – YNN)
http://austin.ynn.com/
- How whooping crane youngsters learn from their elders (Pete Spotts – The Christian Science Monitor)
- 29 August
- Texas Refinery is Nation’s Biggest with Problems to Match (Dave Fehling – StateImpact)
http://stateimpact.npr.org/ - Dallas City Council Denies Permits for Fracking (Terrence Henry – StateImpact)
http://stateimpact.npr.org/ - Texas’ Top 10 Eagle Ford Shale oil producers, slideshow (James Aldridge – San Antonio Business Journal)
http://www.bizjournals.com/ - Breakthrough Commercial Algae Production Cultivation System (PRLOG News)
http://www.prlog.org/
- Texas Refinery is Nation’s Biggest with Problems to Match (Dave Fehling – StateImpact)
- 28 August
- Texas ranks in top 10 for new clean energy jobs (Sanford Nowlin – San Antonio Business Journal)
http://www.bizjournals.com/ - Five Things You Should Know About Energy in Texas (Michael Marks – StateImpact)
http://stateimpact.npr.org/ - Feds net $102.4 million in Gulf lease sale (Jennifer A. Dlouhy – My SA)
http://www.mysanantonio.com/
- Texas ranks in top 10 for new clean energy jobs (Sanford Nowlin – San Antonio Business Journal)
- 27 August
- Americans want more wind, less costs (Zain Shauk – Fuel Fix)
http://fuelfix.com/
- Americans want more wind, less costs (Zain Shauk – Fuel Fix)
- 26 August
- Memorial City area gains 500 energy employees from Energy Corridor (Shaina Zucker – Houston Business Journal)
http://www.bizjournals.com/
- Memorial City area gains 500 energy employees from Energy Corridor (Shaina Zucker – Houston Business Journal)
- 23 August
- This Little Piggy Went to Market. This Little Piggy Pooped in the Bayou. (Charriss York – Watershed Texas)
http://watershedtexas.org/
- This Little Piggy Went to Market. This Little Piggy Pooped in the Bayou. (Charriss York – Watershed Texas)