"Tell A Plant How Dangerous CO2 Is!" Your Weekly Environmental Roundup For Texas And Beyond

 

Texas plans for continuing drought as Europe grapples with its own water crisis.  Santorum refuses to believe in climate science though a pacific nation will soon disappear.  Zombie Keystone Pipeline rises from the dead once more. Austin bans bags.  Corpus cashes in on coal.  All that and more in this week’s environmental roundup

Texas

• The Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA), submitted a new water management plan to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) that will, according to LCRA General Manager Becky Motal “balance the interests throughout the basin and protect customers during severe droughts, like the one we are still experiencing.”  The major proposals would change the way LCRA provides water to agricultural interests (primarily water intensive rice farming) in Colorado, Matagorda, and Wharton counties.  Currently, there is a single “trigger point” for releasing water to farmers.  If the water in the Highland Lakes is high enough on January 1st of each year, farmers are allowed to draw an unlimited amount of water throughout the year.  The new plan would add a second trigger point, in June, and would also require LCRA to monitor lake levels, and shut off supply, if they get too low.  Water management plans, such as this, will be critical to Texas’s future, as our population and our thirst continues to rise.

• The Port of Corpus Christi, Ambre Energy, and Cline Mining Corp. are planning to construct a massive new coal export terminal with the capacity to move 20 million tons of coal per year by 2017.  While coal consumption has declined in the United States in recent years as evidence of coal-fired power’s notorious history of pollution and adverse health effects have come to light, the emerging economies of China and India, and concerns about the safety of nuclear power in the wake of the Fukushima disaster have boosted coal consumption overseas.  The Sierra Club issued a damning report on the port’s plans.  In it, they highlight not just the environmental dangers that coal presents, but also the poor economics of coal.  The report shows how the ports of Los Angeles and Portland invested heavily in coal export infrastructure only to see those facilities fail due to the volatility of the market.  As Kevin Parker, global head of asset management at Deutsche Bank, said, “coal is a dead man walking. Banks won’t finance them. Insurance companies won’t insure them, and the economics to make it clean don’t work.”

• Austin became the first city in Texas to ban single use plastic bags after the city council unanimously approved the bag-ban ordinance on March 2, though there are a few exceptions for dry cleaners, restaurant carry out food, and bags that hold perishables.  Clean Water Action applauded the ordinance saying, “plastic bags clog our streams and storm drains, litter our streets, threaten wildlife and cost our city over $800,000 each year to manage.”  Several other Texas cities, including McAllen, Corpus Christi, and Odessa, are considering similar bans.

The Nation

• The Keystone XL Pipeline is up for yet another vote in the US Senate today, even though a similar amendment was voted down last week.  This amendment, introduced by Pat Roberts, would “mandate drilling off of every coast in our nation and in the Arctic Refuge, allow oil shale development on millions of acres in America's west,” in addition to allowing the Keystone pipeline to go forward, according to Elly Pepper of the NRDC.  In short, the Roberts amendment would be a disaster.

• Everyone’s favorite climate expert, Rick man-on-dog Santorum, continues to make baffling statements on the dangers of climate change.  In an Oped for Redstate, he asserted that he is the only candidate for President “that has not bowed, and will never bow” to the reality of climate change, adding, “this debate is about whether human activity plays a role, and whether U.S. emissions cuts can have any effect when China and India refuse to go along. The apostles of this pseudo-religion believe that America and its people are the source of the earth's temperature.  I do not.”

Here is another, “insightful” statement from Santorum on carbon dioxide emissions:

• A study from the University of California-Davis shows that groundwater in California’s Central Valley is heavily by nitrate runoff from industrial farming.  Nitrate pollution can lead to numerous adverse health effects, including methemoglobinemia (blue baby syndrome) which can be fatal for infants.  At least 2.6 million people in the region depend on that water for drinking.

The World

• Texas is not the only place experiencing crippling drought.  The European Environmental Agency presented its findings recently showing that water supplies throughout the continent are severely at risk.  Former Soviet Premier, Mikhael Gorbachev, said, “The deficit of freshwater is becoming increasingly severe and large-scale - whereas, unlike other resources, there is no substitute for water. Continuation of water consumption at 20th Century rates is no longer possible.”

• The 100,000 citizens of Kiribati, an island nation in the South Pacific, are preparing to move their entire nation as rising ocean levels could cause the low lying nation to disappear within the next 30 years.