January 21, 2013
The Case of the Missing Radioactive Rod
File this under the "things that should never go missing" category.
Environment
Energy
January 21, 2013
Appeals Court Sides With Texas in Fight Over EPA Air Pollution Rule
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down the Environmental Protection Agency's Cross-State Air Pollution Rule.
January 21, 2013
Is Fracking Causing All These Earthquakes?
StateImpact Texas found a substantial connection between hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," and the sudden surge in Texas quakes.
January 21, 2013
Cleaner Beaches Thanks to the Drought?
Were cleaner beaches in 2011 an unexpected upside to the drought?
Energy
January 21, 2013
What Does the Drought Mean for the Texas Miracle?
As much as anything, the economic boom in Texas depends on water. So what will industry do as the state gets drier? The Texas Tribune's Kate Galbraith explains.
January 21, 2013
Hot Enough For Ya? It’s Worse in Oklahoma
Last summer’s average temperatures in Texas set a record for the hottest summer ever, but new data finds Oklahoma was more scorched.
January 21, 2013
West Texas Wildfires Burn Again
One year after the Rock House fire, more than 20,000 acres in Jeff Davis County are aflame.
Politics & Policy
January 21, 2013
Harold Simmons Wants More Waste to Fill His Dump
If you build it, will they come dump their nuclear waste? Not necessarily, as Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons is learning.
January 21, 2013
Thirsty Texas Fights Water War on Two Borders
At the same time Texas is fighting to get water from Oklahoma, state officials want to block Mexico from pumping water out of the Rio Grande.
January 21, 2013
Texas’s Love Affair with “Big Chicken”
How have industrial chicken farms changed Texas?
January 21, 2013
Tornado-Ravaged Dallas-Fort Worth
Devastating photos and incredible video of the twisters that hit North Texas Tuesday afternoon.
January 21, 2013
Texas Waterways are Nation’s Fourth Most Polluted
Companies released some 14.6 million pounds of industrial pollutants and toxic chemicals into Texas' waterways in 2010. Find out which water channels are the dirtiest.
January 21, 2013
Company Denies Dumping Pig Blood in Trinity
The Columbia Packing Co. denies knowingly releasing pig blood into the Trinity River and responds to allegations it has a secret sewer pipe that bypasses the city's monitoring device.
January 21, 2013
New LCRA Water Plan Approved
The Lower Colorado River Authority approved a new water management plan Wednesday, giving it more tools to deal with extreme drought.
January 21, 2013
Dust Bowl Texas: The Drought is Not Over
Don't let the recent rains fool you: ninety percent of Texas remains in a drought.
Politics & Policy
January 21, 2013
Combing Through the Hate Mail to Climate Scientist Katharine Hayhoe
The Texas Tech professor and climate change evangelist has received hundreds of vicious emails since Newt Gingrich pulled her chapter from his book.
January 21, 2013
TM Informer: What Is Wildfire Season?
The Texas Forest Service recently announced that the state’s current “wildfire season” may not end. The TM Informer answers the question, When does it usually start and finish?
January 21, 2013
Dust Bowl Texas: Today in Drought News
It may have rained where you live Tuesday, but the drought continues to impact everything from butterflies to barbecue and golf to drinking water.
Listen
January 21, 2013
Life by the Drop: A Special Report on Drought, Water, and the Future of Texas
TEXAS MONTHLY partnered with StateImpact Texas and KUT News to take a close look at how the state can manage a growing population amid a shrinking water supply. Listen to reports from NPR’s John Burnett, Texas state photographer Wyman Meinzer, and more audio and online reports.
Technology
January 21, 2013
Industrial Evolution
As much as anything, the Texas economic miracle depends on water. Lots of water. So what are all those power plants, refineries, and factories going to do as the state gets drier and drier and drier?
Politics & Policy
January 21, 2013
Drawing Straws
The future is likely going to require us to move large amounts of water from wet but sparsely populated places (a.k.a. East Texas) to thirsty, booming cities. Good thing there’s a plan for that. There is a plan, right?
From the Archives: Photo Essay
January 21, 2013
Between Hell and Texas
Over the past year, state photographer Wyman Meinzer has roamed the Big Empty, documenting the drought’s toll. Will he ever take another pretty picture?
Texas History
January 21, 2013
When the Sky Ran Dry
Bad as the current drought is, it has yet to match the most arid spell in Texas history. Nearly two dozen survivors of the fifties drought remember the time it never rained.
History
January 21, 2013
The Writing on the Wall
The Lower Pecos River rock paintings were created four thousand years ago by a long-forgotten people. But their apparent message may be as useful today as it was then: Follow the water.
Editor's Letter
January 21, 2013
The Truth About Texas: Water = Life
As last year’s historic drought reminded us, Texas has always lived life by the drop, just a few dry years away from a serious crisis. With our population expected to nearly double over the next fifty years, this situation is about to become more, not less, challenging. This month we
Editor's Letter
January 21, 2013
Dry, the Beloved Country
The first serious coverage of water in TEXAS MONTHLY came just a couple months shy of our two-year anniversary, in a story by Greg Curtis entitled “Disaster, Part I. Lubbock is running out of water.” (A companion piece, “Disaster, Part II,” argued that Houston was sinking into
News & Politics
January 21, 2013
Disaster, Part Two: Houston
Along the Houston Ship Channel the water is eight feet high and risin’.
News & Politics
January 21, 2013
Disaster, Part One: Lubbock
West Texans are going to have to figure out what they’re going to do when the well runs dry.
Web Exclusive
January 21, 2013
Talking Trash
More anecdotes from the "Don’t Mess With Texas” campaign.
Food & Drink
January 20, 2013
Consider the Oyster
If you’re a half shell fanatic like me, you’ll be just as alarmed as I was to hear that oystermen in Galveston Bay—the source of some of the country’s most delicious mollusks —are still struggling to make it after Hurricane Ike.
Feature
January 20, 2013
Litter Did We Know
A tidy look back at 25 years of “Don’t Mess With Texas”— the most successful anti-littering campaign in world history.
Politics & Policy
January 20, 2013
Oil and Water
The spill in the Gulf is just the latest in a string of catastrophic regulatory failures that prove how incompetent government is. And how important it is.
Rick Bass
January 20, 2013
Wild at Heart
My mother trained me to be a naturalist in our suburban backyard, one bird call at a time.
Feature
January 20, 2013
Lands That I Love
Our natural resources are under greater threat than ever before. Meet three very different people who are doing something to save Texas. Literally.
Green Guinea Pig
January 20, 2013
This Is for Wheel
The hybrid of my dreams.
Energy
January 20, 2013
The Gospel According to Matthew
Why does a rich Houston investment banker spend his days traveling the globe, preaching to the uninformed and indifferent that the world’s supply of crude oil is in steep decline and the end of life as we know it is very, very near? Maybe because it is.
Politics & Policy
January 20, 2013
Green Star State
How Texas can become the world’s clean energy leader.
The Culture
January 20, 2013
Boone Pickens Wants To Sell You His Water
And you’re going to need it, eventually, since Texas’ most precious natural resource is being depleted at an alarming rate. His plan is to pump vast amounts from his land in the Panhandle and pipe it to parched cities like El Paso and San Antonio—for a hefty price, of course.
Energy
January 20, 2013
Oil and Water
Offshore drillers are finding mammoth reservoirs in places that were once considered barren, which is why the Gulf of Mexico is booming again.
Politics & Policy
January 20, 2013
“Read My Lips: No New Texas”
George H. W. Bush has given Texas the Republican convention—and little else.
Letter From Galveston
January 20, 2013
No Man’s Island
A year has passed since Hurricane Ike slammed into Galveston, but my hometown is still reeling from a storm without end.
September 27, 2012
Texas Trees Hit Hard By Drought In 2011
More than 300 million trees died in Texas in 2011 due to extreme drought conditions
September 20, 2012
Survey Says Texas Has Three of America’s Dirtiest Cities
Three Texas metropolitan areas landed on Travel + Leisure's list of America's dirtiest cities.
May 21, 2012
Ballooning Issue Floats Around Texas Panhandle
A global helium shortage has U.S. senators looking at new legislation to preserve the resources coming out of federal reserves near Amarillo.
April 3, 2012
Condemning the Judges Who Eviscerated the Open Beaches Act
Land Commisioner Jerry Patterson, former Galveston legislator A.R. Schwartz, and TEXAS MONTHLY's Paul Burka all blast the Texas Supreme Court for last week's ruling.
Letter from Matagorda County
March 31, 2012
A Grain of Doubt
For more than 75 years, rice farmers in Matagorda County and elsewhere along the Gulf have shared the waters of the Colorado River with urban residents in the Hill Country. But with city centers booming and an almost-certain drought ahead, the state is being forced to choose between a water-intensive
March 21, 2012
Achoo! Two of the Nation’s Top Ten Spring Allergy Capitals are in Texas
The Asthma and Allergy Foundation just released its "Spring Allergy Capitals" survey, which put McAllen at number two and San Antonio at number nine.
Politics & Policy
February 9, 2012
Louie Gohmert Wants to Make Sure Alaska’s Caribou Get Some
The Republican congressman from Tyler says an oil pipeline radiates heat, making it a popular "date" destination for caribou.
January 24, 2012
A River (of Pig Blood) Runs Through It
Columbia Packing Co., a meatpacking plant in Dallas's Oak Cliff neighborhood, has been accused of dumping pig blood into Cedar Creek, which feeds into the Trinity River.
Politics & Policy
January 3, 2012
Newt Leaves Texas Tech Climate Scientist Out in the Cold
The Texas Tech atmospheric climate scientist who wrote a chapter on climate change for Newt Gingrich's forthcoming book was shocked to learn the GOP hopeful had scrapped her contribution.