Results tagged “environmentalquality”

Mayor White traveled to Austin two weeks ago to speak to the state legislature about SB 1317, a bill that would prevent cities from creating ordinances that protect air quality. It was no secret that the bill was targeted at the mayor's recent move to minimize the pollution caused by refineries that lie outside Houston city limits. The bill, authored by State Sen. Mike Jackson (R - LaPorte), was passed by the Senate yesterday, despite...

Good morning, Houston. Looks like the Legislature could be gearing up for a debate of Biblical proportions: state Rep. Warren Chisum (R-Pampa) has proposed a bill that would require public high schools to offer courses on the Old and New Testaments. Chisum said the courses, which would be electives, would focus on history and literature, bt critics worry that teachers' religious beliefs could seep into the classes and that certain historical perspectives — Catholic...

Energy is big business in Houston, but how we often produce it — burning coal or oil — is dirty business. So it's great to hear about local companies investing money in new, cleaner power-producing technologies, especially when their success is far from a sure bet. Thursday Hunton Energy announced plans to build a power plant south of Sugarland that will use two separate approaches to keep greenhouse gases out of the air. First, they...

Looks like there might be a pretty important element missing in Houston's fight against pollution: federal prosecution of environmental crimes. According to the Chronicle, the last time prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office convicted anyone of an environmental crime on its own was 2004, when two Fayette County farmers were fined $500 for the illegal use of a pesticide. It's part of a downward trend in environmental prosecutions from the Southern District of Texas, which...

Though a study on pollution conducted by a city task force didn't really break any new ground, environmental advocates hope it'll be a big step toward cutting local pollution — and, according to the task force's report, people in east Houston need all the help they can get in that regard. The study looked at 179 chemicals released from cars, industrial plants, ships and small businesses and considered their potential to cause cancer, lung disease...

A crew searching near the Ship Channel for a missing 3-year-old toddler came across something unusual Monday: eight plastic bags containing the bodies of dogs. County animal control investigators said they don't know where the dogs came from or who put them on a pile of trash alongside Market Street Road. "Somebody maybe picked them up from a veterinary clinic, and rather than take them to a landfill or somewhere else, they just dumped them...

No cause has been announced yet for a fire at a Deer Park chemical plant yesterday that shut down part of Highway 225 and injured one worker. The fire broke out in an aluminum handling warehouse at Akzo Nobel Chemicals on Battleground Road at about 3:25 p.m. and was followed by a series of small explosions. The employee, who suffered second- and third-degree chemical burns, was taken to the UTMB in Galveston, where he's in...

Just when you're starting to think living next door to a refinery isn't so bad, the refinery releases some kind of fog that leaves caramel-colored oily residue all over houses, cars and anything left outdoors. It happened to some Baytown residents this week when some gas oil — a heavy, waxy substance similar to crude oil — leaked from a storage tank Monday and a cloud of oil-containing steam drifted over to the Archia Courts public housing complex.

Residents near Dallas started noticing a major change in the water color in a section of the Trinity River -- burnt orange. Since the river flows to the east of Houston as it empties into the Gulf, should we be worried? Not necessarily: Officials with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said more tests will be done, but potential dangers appear to be minimal. Also, authorities said people in North Texas should not expect burnt...