Category Archives: environmental news

environmental news, local news

If you don’t like the weather …

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We have this saying in the Texas Panhandle.

It goes like this: If you don’t like the weather, just wait 10 minutes. You can add whatever time frame you’d like. I prefer the 10-minute reference, because it just sounds kinda cool.

We say this to each other just to remind ourselves of how quickly the weather changes in this part of the country. Man, does it ever! In a hurry, too!

Well, the weather forecasters are telling us something really strange. The high temperature in Amarillo on Friday is going to hit 70 degrees, give or take a degree or two. Oh yes, the warm temps will be accompanied by heavy wind. Not just wind, mind you, but the nasty gale-force blow.

After that? The bottom falls out! The high Saturday will be 40ish. The low will be — gulp! — 5 degrees.

The temp will decline even more on Sunday.

So, there you have it. Late summer-like temperatures on Friday. Then comes the deep freeze on Saturday.

Oh, I almost forgot. We’re going to get our first snow of the season.

Just think: Winter doesn’t even arrive until next week.

environmental news

Why these picks for Energy and the EPA?

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Donald J. Trump one day will meet with the media.

One day … perhaps.

When he does, the president-elect might have to answer a set of questions from journalists. They deal with two key Cabinet picks.

Why did he choose two men — Scott Pruitt as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency and Rick Perry as secretary of energy — after they both have all but declared war on the agencies they will be asked to lead?

Pruitt is no fan of the EPA. As Oklahoma attorney general, he has sued the agency time and again for this and that reason. He’s allied with the fossil fuel industry. He seems to hate the clean-air rules the EPA has laid down. He doesn’t believe that climate change is real — and dangerous.

Former Texas Gov. Perry in 2011 said he wanted to eliminate the Energy Department … or at least he tried to say so, but he got hung up in that “oops” moment during a Republican presidential debate.

I’m puzzled by these two picks. I have some hope that Perry might have changed his mind about the Energy Department. I’m not at all comfortable with Pruitt and his continued commitment to battle the very agency he is being asked to oversee.

I just hope the president-elect takes some time to explain to many of us out here what in the world he is thinking about these two critical agencies.

environmental news, national news, political news

Would a Secretary Perry bring wind into U.S. energy grid?

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Let’s play out a possible scenario that, the more I think about it, sounds increasingly intriguing.

It’s the idea of naming former Texas Gov. Rick “Oops” Perry as the country’s next energy secretary.

Set aside for a moment that Perry once said he wanted to get rid of the Energy Department. His recitation of the three agencies he’d dismantle produced his infamous “oops” moment during a 2012 Republican presidential debate.

Let us also set aside that Perry once called Donald J. Trump a “cancer on conservatism.” The president-elect is considering him for this key Cabinet post anyway. Hey, Perry did end up endorsing and campaigning for Trump. I guess they’ve made up.

Perry served as Texas governor for 14 years, longer than anyone in state history. On his watch, the state managed to do something quite correct with regard to energy policy. It has become — along with California, imagine that — among the leaders in wind energy generation in America.

I’m not entirely clear on what direct role Gov. Perry played in all of that. I do know, though, that during the time he served as governor, the state’s sprawling landscape has become “decorated” with wind turbines, in many instances for as far as one can see.

The Texas Panhandle is among those places where wind power has become major “alternative energy” source.

It is as clear as can be that Perry comes from a state that also produces a lot of fossil fuel. Oil and natural gas also are quite prevalent throughout Texas.

I will remain hopeful, though, that a former governor of a state that has developed such a huge — and growing — alternative energy industry might want to imbue a federal agency that he might lead with the same policy.

Drill, baby, drill isn’t the only way to rid the nation of its dependence on foreign oil. Indeed, we’ve already come a huge distance in that regard during the eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency, which has promoted many forms of clean alternative energy sources to heat and cool our homes, fuel our motor vehicles and power our industrial plants.

Would an Energy Secretary Rick Perry continue that policy? Would the president who nominated him allow such a thing?

My hope springs eternal.

environmental news

What about the ‘protection’ in EPA title?

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I’m still trying to fathom the unfathomable about one of Donald J. Trump’s key administration appointments.

That would be Scott Pruitt being named to head the Environmental Protection Agency. I added the emphasis for a reason. Now I shall explain.

The EPA is designed, as its title suggests, to protect the environment, to ensure that we have clean air, water, that our land doesn’t blow away in the wind. Its mission is to enact regulations to ensure that we preserve our land, water and air.

President Nixon, of all people, thought creating the EPA was a worthwhile endeavor, so he did it in 1970.

The president-elect, though, has selected a sworn enemy of the EPA. Pruitt is the Oklahoma attorney general who has sued the EPA because he — and presumably the rest of his state government — doesn’t like the regulations that the EPA places on industries, such as oil and gas exploration, which is a big deal in Oklahoma (and in Texas, for that matter).

Pruitt’s mission in his public life hasn’t been to protect the environment, or to shore up the agency assigned to do that important task. Oh, no. He has declared war on the EPA.

I am failing big time to grasp how this appointment is supposed to work. Is the president-elect in league with this guy, Pruitt? Does he want to disband, dismantle and disassemble the EPA?

The very term “EPA” has become, in effect, a four-letter word in what has become of Republican orthodoxy. What a shame it is that a tried-and-true Republican, Richard Nixon, would create a valuable federal agency only to have it placed in the hands of someone who seemingly wants to destroy it.

When in God’s world did clean air and water become bad things?

environmental news, national news

Trump finds religion on climate change?

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I thought Donald J. Trump called the issue of climate change a “hoax” promoted by China as a way to harm U.S. industries.

Isn’t that what he said while campaigning for president of the United States?

OK. He did say that.

Why, then, did he and his daughter Ivanka meet with former Vice President Al Gore today? Gore’s signature issue is — yep — climate change. He’s written books about it. He has delivered countless lectures about how he believes human beings have contributed greatly the changing climate around the world. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the subject.

Gore also has taken more than his share of ridicule from political conservatives who debunk the notion he puts forth and which has been supported by the vast majority of scientists worldwide.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/donald-trump-administration/2016/12/al-gore-trump-meeting-232203

Gore was quite circumspect when talking to reporters after the meeting. He revealed next to nothing about what they discussed.

My guess? Gore talked to the president-elect about climate change and sought to persuade him that it is far from a hoax.

environmental news

Bless the National Parks System

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This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on upcoming retirement.

BADLANDS NATIONAL PARK, S.D. — Many of us gripe about some aspect — or perhaps all aspects — of the federal government.

I intend here to sing the praises of the National Parks System.

We arrived at Badlands National Park packing what’s called a “Senior Pass.” What does it do? It gets us into any federal park site for free. We’ve had these passes for some time now, but it’s a serious blast being able to wave one of them at a park ranger, enabling us to enter one of these parks without paying a fee.

We came to Badlands to see a site we’d seen more than 40 years earlier. We blasted through the region in the summer of 1973 with my wife’s mother and stepfather, and our then six-month-old son.

It was hotter ‘n hell the day we came here then. It was in mid-July, after all.

We walked into the visitors center at the eastern end of the park. I told the ranger behind the counter that the park was “more beautiful than I remembered. That was more than 40 years ago.”

“Well, the park has eroded one inch per year since your last visit,” he said. I did the math quickly in my head and responded, “So, we saw 43 inches less of it today than we did back then. Is that about right?”

Yep, he said. “How long will it be before the park disappears?” I asked. He answered, “It will take about 50 million years for that to happen,” he said. “Fine, then I’ll see you on the other side when that happens and we’ll talk about how beautiful the Badlands used to look,” I said.

Full-time retirement’s arrival will allow us to partake even more of these sights on our journey through North America. If only the Canadians would allow us into their national parks for free.

environmental news, national news

No thank you on wind turbines

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SANDHILL COUNTRY, Neb. — They love their sandhills in northwest Nebraska.

They love them so much that one sees signs that read “Save the Sandhills” as you tool along U.S. Highway 83 northbound into South Dakota.

“I wonder from what or whom they’re wanting to save the sandhills,” I asked my wife.

Then it became evident.

We noticed another set of signs: “Say ‘no’ to wind turbines.”

There you have it. They don’t want no stinkin’ wind turbines polluting the landscape in Sandhill Country.

Interestingly, as we noticed campaign signs for all manner of political candidates on the eve of the election, we didn’t see evidence of a ballot measure calling for construction of wind turbines. I guess, therefore, that the good folks here are launching a pre-emptive strike against anyone who might want to install the big-bladed turbines that have become part of the landscape in, say, West Texas, Eastern New Mexico, the Oklahoma Panhandle and even parts of Kansas.

This more or less cuts to another question: Do the folks in northwest Nebraska — what few of them one can spot — not care about national energy policy, or about whether wind power could help us develop cleaner, safer, non-foreign sources of energy?

I’m guessing they do.

Just don’t put the big ol’ blades in their territory.

environmental news, local news, State news

If you have to … do it, just don’t tell me

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WICHITA FALLS, Texas — Drinking potty water isn’t exactly to my liking.

But that’s what they’re doing in this Wichita County community. They’re processing waste water and turning it into potable water … the stuff you can swill with allegedly no discernible after taste.

The officials in Wichita Falls swear by what they’re doing.

For one thing, it is reducing by a considerable amount the volume of fresh water the city’s 100,000 or so residents are consuming.

The city had to do it back when so much of Texas was enduring the punishing drought. They developed technology to turn — pardon the intentional pun — crappy water into fresh drinking water. It’s my understanding that the locals aren’t complaining about it.

Given that Wichita Falls has a limited supply of drinking water — with it all coming from surface-water reservoirs — the city felt it had no choice but to find a way to convert the waste water into the drinkable liquid.

When I first got wind of this initiative, I approached then-Amarillo City Manager Jarret Atkinson — a well-known expert on water development and conservation — and said the following:

If you have to develop this kind of technology for Amarillo, fine! Go for it! Just don’t tell me.

environmental news, political news, State news

Well done, ‘Smitty’ Smith

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The headline was an attention-getter for me.

“‘Smitty,’ a Texas Lobbyist for the Small Fry, Retiring After 31 Years.” That’s how it appeared in the Texas Tribune.

Why did it grab my attention? Well, for starters, I’ve long admired Tom “Smitty” Smith’s courage in lobbying for causes that aren’t particularly popular in Texas.

He’s lobbied on behalf of environmental groups. consumers, the “little guy,” if you want to call it that.

Smith led Public Citizen of Texas for 31 years, which is nearly about as long as I’ve lived and worked in Texas. I arrived here in1984 and became acquainted almost immediately with Smith once I started standing my post on the editorial page of the Beaumont Enterprise, way down yonder in the Golden Triangle.

We hit it off right away.

To be candid, I have lost contact with Smith over the years. I don’t recall meeting with him with nearly the frequency in Amarillo that I did in Beaumont. Plus, I’ve been away from daily journalism for four years, severing that professional connection.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/09/21/analysis-smitty-texas-lobbyist-small-fry-hangs-it-/

Ross Ramsey’s piece in the Tribune, though, encapsulates Smith to a “t.” He is an everyman. As Ramsey notes: “He’s from that part of the Austin lobby that doesn’t wear fancy suits, doesn’t drive the latest luxury cars and doesn’t spend its time fawning over and feeding elected officials. Smitty has a beard, an omnipresent straw hat and, often, a colorful sheaf of flyers making his points on whatever cause he’s pushing at the time.”

I particularly liked Smith’s commitment to environmental issues, which in Texas can be seen as a tough sell. Texas isn’t known as a haven for tree-huggers. We remain pretty much a throw-away society. We still love our big cars and trucks. Oil refineries and petrochemical plants still pour toxins into the air.

Smith, though, has been a champion for alternative forms of energy. He likes wind and solar power. Although the sun isn’t yet a major energy producer in Texas, wind certainly has assumed its place. Texas is now the leading state in the production of wind energy. “Smitty” Smith had a big hand in that development.

Smith seemed a bit out of place in a state that, according to Ramsey, is anathema to the values that Smith promotes: Ramsey writes: “Smitty has been a leading voice for government intervention and regulation of big industries and interests in the capital of a state with conservative, business-friendly politicians from both parties who pride themselves on light regulation, low taxes and a Wild West approach to money in politics.”

I regret not keeping up with “Smitty” Smith better in recent years. I wish him well in his retirement. He has fought a good fight on behalf of everyday Texans.

Well done, Smitty.

environmental news

Panhandle has reason to celebrate national parks

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The Texas Panhandle’s two significant federal park attractions aren’t likely to attract the attention garnered by actual national parks.

But as the National Park Service marks its 100th birthday, I thought it would be good to hold up the Panhandle’s parks for your attention.

Lake Meredith National Recreation Area, all 44,000 acres of it, is going through some serious change. The park is being improved, developed and made more attractive to visitors coming to the region.

Do you remember the drought that ravaged the area in 2011-12? Sure you do. Lake Meredith park officials began repurposing some of its features to become a more land-based attraction. The lake itself was diminishing rapidly, falling to a low of 26 feet.

Then something quite unexpected happened in the spring and summer of 2015. The rain started to fall. It kept falling upriver. The Canadian River poured into the lake. The level rose to more than 60 feet. Boaters returned to the lake.

The lake — in this centennial year of the National Park Service — is in far better shape than it was just two years ago.

The Lake Meredith NRA is enjoying a return of visitors. People are enjoying the water, along with the hiking trails and the campgrounds being developed throughout the area.

We have a national monument, too. Alibates Flint Quarries isn’t far from Lake Meredith. It features exhibits where the park rangers show tourists how Native Americans dug out stones to use for tools and weapons. That park, too, is being improved for better use by those coming to the region to understand its history.

Texas does not set aside much of its land for public use. Statewide, the percentage of public land remains minuscule. In the Panhandle, we place great emphasis on private land ownership.

But these two federal sites are worth saluting as the nation marks the centennial year of the National Park Service.

We also ought to thank the Almighty for restoring that big lake’s water level.