Take Action: Help Secure Funding For Palo Pinto Mountains State Park
Palo Pinto Mountains State Park is just waiting for residents of the DFW Metroplex to explore. If only we could. The park is open, by appointment only, to small groups but you can change that by taking action! Imagine taking your kids camping or stargazing so close to the Metroplex, yet still in the rural and wild. Contact your legislators and ask them to support Texas Parks and Wildlife's request for site development. Photo by TPWD
Lone Star Chapter Awards Call For Nominations!
Know someone who did outstanding work last year worthy of recognition? Let's recognize them! Each year, we take some time to look back at the previous year and recognize the great work of inspiring environmental activists and innovators from around our state with awards to show our appreciation.
These are awards that honor not only Sierra Club volunteers and staff, but also other individuals and organizations who have done so much to defend, improve, and celebrate the Texas environment. We will honor award recipients at a special banquet Austin (date and location TBD). The nomination period will be open until March 15, 2017.
More Radioactive Waste Could Be Heading To West Texas
Texas may soon be a dumping ground for high-level nuclear waste and the risks are simply not worth it. A company called Waste Control Specialists wants to store high-level radioactive waste for 50 years in West Texas. They would presumably ship it somewhere else after that. The plan to import the most dangerous of all radioactive waste and dump it on poor communities on the Texas/New Mexico border is representative of environmental racism and creates the risk of accidents, terrorism, and potential contamination along the transport routes throughout the country.Photo by Beks 219
Report - Gas Pipeline Giant Inflated Politicians With $2.7 Million
Texans for Public Justice has published a new report that FOLLOWS THE MONEY. Is it a coincidence that after receiving $900,000 in campaign contributions from pipeline billionaire Kelcy Warren and Energy Transfer Partners that Texas Governor Abbott appointed him to the Texas Parks & Wildlife Commission? Is the man behind the Dakota Access, Trans-Pecos, and Comanche Trail pipelines really fit to serve on a commission tasked with protecting and preserving treasured natural areas? We think the answer is clear.
Get The Frack Out Of Our Parks
It doesn't make sense if you step back and look at it. Parks and wildlife areas are preserved areas, protected from commercial and industrial development. It's a park after all, right? Well, sure, unless there is recoverable oil and gas below it.
If that's the case, sorry kids. Drillers could get first dibs.Photo by TPWD
Report From Two Rivers By Mark Glover
January at camp was cold. Nearly every night saw temps drop to freezing or below. But the hearty souls that live there and those that come out for the weekend, carry on, because in many ways that is what the camp is about - to carry on. The drums beat. Sunrise. We gather in a circle near the sweat lodge as the native led ritual begins. A ceremony to the great spirit. A sprinkling of tobacco. A smudge. Another day. A new day.
Photo Gallery - Brownsville Marches Against Climate Change
In mid-February, about 200 residents from across the Rio Grande Valley gathered to march from Washington Park down the streets of Historic Brownsville to raise concerns of climate change impacts, indigenous resistance to fossil fuels, environmental racism, the proposed LNG export terminals, fracking, pipelines, poor drainage and flooding in Valley colonias, diseases spread by climate change: zika virus, the Donna, TX toxic Superfund site, and the polluting Alamo, TX wastewater treatment facility.Take a look at the photos from the awesome march.
TOPS ON FACEBOOK - Another day, another pipeline spill. This time, an estimated 15,000 barrels (630,000 gallons) near Trenton, Texas.
- A natural gas pipeline exploded in Refugio, Texas. People in the town, which is 45 miles northeast of Corpus Christi, began reporting a loud boom, then a fireball in the distance. Photos from the blast were posted by residents in Beeville, about 30 miles from Refugio.
- 100 people claim that they were sickened after a lifetime of consuming toxic seafood from the fouled San Jacinto River. They are expected to take center stage in a legal showdown that pits residents and property owners mostly from Channelview, Highlands, Baytown and Houston against the companies that inherited the dioxin and PCB-tainted dumping grounds.
- A study found that Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind DAPL, reported 69 spill accidents, polluting rivers in four states in the last two years alone.
- It's not a matter of IF pipelines break, it's a matter of WHEN.
Photo by Elizabeth Gonzalez via Corpus Christi Caller Times
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Serious Questions About Using Warfarin To Kill Feral Hogs
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller recently announced a new weapon in the arsenal to reduce the feral hog population: a poison called Kaput Feral Hog Bait. While the former State Representative is treating Kaput like the holy grail of feral hog control, anyone who cares about ecosystem health and the humane treatment of animals should be deeply concerned.
Welcome New Interns!
The Texas Sierra Club team is excited to welcome three outstanding volunteer interns for the Winter/Spring terms.
Two of our new interns, Ruth Kilsby and Carolyn Harper, are working with our communications team to bolster our capacity in research, writing, social media, and other digital engagement strategies. Our third intern, Dinu Krishnamoorthi, supports the outreach activities of our Beyond Coal Texas team. Check them out!
TOPS ON TWITTER First African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Environmentalist. History-Maker. Resister. #ShePersisted #BlackHistoryMonth "Education, if it means anything, should not take people away from the land, but instill in them even more respect for it, because educated people are in a position to understand what is being lost. The future of the planet concerns all of us, and all of us should do what we can to protect it. As I told the foresters, and the women, you don't need a diploma to plant a tree." -Wangari Maathai
Weak Railroad Commission Sunset Bill Prompts Several Legislators To File Reform Bills
The Railroad Commission of Texas -- that ill-named agency that is supposed to regulate oil and gas (and coal and uranium mining as well) -- is going through "Sunset," a process intended to improve state agencies. The Sunset Commission only recommended modest reforms, however. Well, some legislators who did not serve on the Sunset Commission, have stepped up to the plate and introduced a number of important reforms. Read about the first set of bills here, and the second set of bills here. Photo by Al Braden
Take The Plunge - Tell Your Legislators To Support Water Conservation!
The trickle of water bills introduced in this session of the Texas Legislature has now become a steady stream of legislation. Some of those bills, however, actually seek to stem the flow of water - or, to be precise, prevent water from being wasted. The proposals - initially recommended by the state Water Conservation Advisory Council - are fairly modest but they would advance water efficiency and decrease water loss. As always, however, it will take public support to prevent these bills from being dammed up in the legislative process.
Celebrate Texas Water Day At The Texas Capitol
Sponsored by the Texas Water Foundation, "Texas Water Day" will be held in Austin at the Capitol on Wednesday, March 22, 2017. The Water Symposium will be located in the Capitol Auditorium, E1.004 from 1:00-4:00pm followed by a Reception in the Legislative Conference Center, E2.002 from 4:00-5:00pm.Join us to celebrate our most essential natural resource, water!
TOPS ON INSTAGRAM Is it Spring yet? Yeah yeah yeah, the calendar says March 20, but you may have noticed the trees are flowering and the wildflowers (thank you, Ladybird Johnson) have begun to erupt from the medians and shoulders of our highways and interstates. Our most popular Instagram post for February also attests that warm weather is just about here to stay. "Dogwoods in Dallas" comes from our stellar organizer, Cherelle Blazer. Do you have a photo you'd like to share with us? Please send it to Olka Forster at olka.forster@sierraclub.org. We'd love to share it with our growing Instagram community. Be sure to follow us @TexasSierraClub.
Director's Message
"Sierra Club, through its Borderlands Project, has opposed erecting even limited stretches of physical barriers between the U.S. and Mexico. Each predicted negative impact of the wall has come to pass: unfair and discriminatory confiscation of private land, disruption of families and communities, decimation of wildlife habitat, flooding, and interruption of vibrant economic relationships along the border."
In this month's Director's Message, Reggie James lays out the myriad reasons why a wall on our southern border is a bad idea, and finds support from an unlikely place.
Donate To The Lone Star Chapter
When you donate to the Sierra Club's Lone Star Chapter, you support local efforts to:
- Protect wild and treasured places, from the Big Bend area to the Big Thicket
- Keep our air and water clean
- Ensure adequate water supply for people and environment
- Ensure a clean energy future
- Reduce climate disruption
- Keep pressure on politicians and corporations to ensure safe and healthy communities
Your financial help allows us to meet the challenges of protecting and preserving our treasured Lone Star state!
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