The Lone Star Sierran - March 2014

Over the weekend, up to 168,000 gallons of fuel oil spilled into Galveston Bay after a barge and a ship collided Saturday afternoon. The spill closed the Houston ship channel for three days, backing-up shipping in and out of the port city. The accident occurred close to the Bolivar Flats Shorebird Sanctuary a crucial habitat for thousands of birds.

The Galveston Bay Foundation (GBF) in a partnership with the U.S. Coast Guard and the Texas General Land Office is the designated volunteer management organization for the clean-up operation. Due to an outpouring of support, the GBF is no longer accepting volunteers for its clean-up listserve, but there are number of other ways the public can assist. If you discover oiled wildlife you can call-in the sighting to (888) 384-2000 or email wildlife@co.galveston.tx.us. Of course, you can also sign-up with GBF to protect the Bay year round. Sign-up here to receive their volunteer announcements.

On February 26, 2014, a federal district court judge in Waco ruled against Sierra Club and for Luminant in a Clean Air Act case the Chapter brought against the Big Brown plant in Freestone County. The ruling at the end of a three-day trial was a big disappointment to the Sierra Club team and its attorneys and partners at Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) and Earthjustice. The Big Brown plant was commissioned in 1971 and it is one of the dirtiest power plants in America. It is frequently in the Top five list for dirtiest emitters of toxic mercury and sulfur emissions, and its burned large quantities of low-rank lignite coal that is strip mined by massive machines that scar the Texas countryside.

The case alleged that the Big Brown plant owned and operated by Luminant and their parent company Energy Future Holdings, repeatedly – thousands of times over five years - failed to meet their permit limits for soot emissions and frequently violated standards for “opacity.” Soot is also known as particulate matter and it is an especially dangerous pollutant linked to cardiac, respiratory, and other serious health problems. The Lonestar Chapter is fully considering its appeal options, and plans to move forward with a similar case against the equally dirty Martin Lake plant in NE Texas.

Environmental and social justice advocates around the state were stunned following the results of the March 4th primary when State Representative Lon Burnam lost to his opponent by just 111 votes. Rep. Burnam, a 16-year veteran of the Texas House, has been a stalwart supporter of the environmental movement throughout his tenure in politics.

There is a glimmer of hope, however. According to Rep. Burnam (via the Fort Worth Star-Telegram), hundreds of his opponent's mail-in-ballots may have been illegally cast, and as a result, Rep. Burnam's campaign is suing his opponent. The result could mean that ultimately the election result will be overturned. Stay tuned....

• Dallas City Council passes plastic and paper bag ban: Beginning January 1, 2015, grocery stores and retailers will start charging customers five cents for every paper and plastic bag they use.
• Central Texas' State Parks May Open to Public: For years the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has kept four state parks closed due to budgetary constraints. Four tracts of land - Palo Pinto Mountains State Park, Kronkosy State Natural Area, Chinati Mountains State Natural Area, and Davis Hill State Park - are currently being reconsidered for public use.
• Austin City Council Negotiates 150 MW Solar Farm: This past week Austin City Council agreed to a deal with SunEdison for 150 MWs of solar power in West Texas. The negotiated rate sits at $50 per MWh, which is well below the rate currently paid by Austin Energy consumers. In fact this rate is currently the lowest rate for solar in the US!
• San Antonio Water System Reconsiders Brackish Desalination: In our February newsletter you may recall an article applauding the San Antonio Water System (SAWS) for promoting a brackish water desalination program rather than encouraging the large-scale importation of fresh groundwater. We applauded too soon. This month SAWS is reconsidering desalination after pressure from the business community.
• Denton Group Gets Vote on Fracking Ban: An organization called The Denton Drilling Awareness Group, has obtained enough petition signatures from local residents to allow for a ban hydraulic fracking within city limits to be placed on the city’s November ballot.
• Controvery Spreads Over Houston's Recycling Plan To increase Houston’s 6% recycling rate, the city is proposing to remove recycling bins from the curbs altogether and have citizens consolidate all of their waste into one bin. Has anyone ever heard of funding recycling awareness campaigns?

Two important documentaries premiered at the SXSW film conference this month in Austin, highlighting two headline-grabbing, environmental stories that have impacted Texas in the last several years.

Director Margaret Brown’s, The Great Invisible, won the festival’s grand jury prize. It depicts the aftermath of the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, following the lives of survivors from the Deepwater Horizon rig as well as the fishermen and other workers in Texas, Alabama, and Louisiana whose lives depend on the coast and were put out of work as a result of the catastrophe.

Austin-based director John Fiege in Above All Else offers a unique glimpse into the life of one East Texas landowner, David Daniel, as he struggles to fight against the impending construction of the Keystone pipeline through his property. It is a beautifully shot film that captures both the helplessness of fighting the inevitable and the power of inspiring others to pick-up the battle where you left off – a story that should be familiar to anyone who spent any time in the environmental movement in Texas.

The Lone Star Chapter invites you to venture off to Big Bend National Park April 14-18th to help us restore its native grasslands. We will be camping at the park throughout the week near the park's lodge. The park will provide equipment, seed and restoration supplies for the project. The Chapter will provide lunches while we are working. Wednesday (April 16th) will be a free day for you to poke around the park as you wish. If you don't have transportation, a passenger van will be leaving Austin on Sunday the 13th traveling through San Antonio en route to Big Bend and returning Saturday, the 19th. The participation fee is only $25.

Spaces are limited, so please contact Lone Star Chapter Conservation Chair, Evelyn Merz, at elmerz@hal-pc.org if you are interested!

The Texas Chapter of the Population Media Center is hosting a statewide call tomorrow for activists to discuss population growth and the environment. Anyone is welcome to join. Tomorrow's guest speaker will be Sierra Club's own Kim Lovell.

Kim Lovell has been with the Sierra Club since 2009, where she currently serves as the Program Director for the Global Population and Environment Program. Kim will share with us the connection between family planning access, reproductive health, climate change and sustainability, based on the belief that healthy communities and a healthy planet go hand in hand.

You can RSVP via Facebook here