Materials Sector

Dioxin-contaminated Fish Still Being Hauled Out of the San Jacinto River -- And Eaten -- Vince Ryan Warns

Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan is asking for a quick trial date in the San Jacinto River Waste Pits case because people are still fishing the San Jacinto River and may be eating dioxin-contaminated fish. Ryan announced his action today saying that somehow, people haven't gotten the word about th ... More >>

NFL Films President Steve Sabol (1942-2012): 5 Top Ways He Was An Innovator, Visionary, Storyteller

''Today of course those techniques are so common it's hard to imagine just how radical they once were. Believe me, it wasn't always easy getting people to accept them, but I think it was worth the effort.'' -- Steve Sabol in a 2011 interview with the Associated Press, discussing his and his father' ... More >>

Harris County Sues Over All That Dixon in the San Jacinto River

Harris County attorney Vince Ryan announced he's suing a collection of companies for 45 years' worth of pollution in the San Jacinto River, and he's asking for up to $25,000 a day in penalties. Ryan is suing International Paper Company, Waste Management, Inc., Waste Management of Texas, Inc. and Mc ... More >>

“Great New Work”

Kids Plant a Garden at Piney Point Elementary

​It was inspiring to watch a few hundred schoolchildren working furiously with trowels and hands, digging holes, planting flowers, bushes, fruit and vegetable seeds, and not tossing dirt on each other. That was the scene at the reconstructed Piney Point Elementary (Pagewood Lane at Fondren) a ... More >>

Billy Elliot

Chevron Phillips Settles Suit Over Pollution At Baytown Plant, No Thanks To TCEQ

Chevron-Phillips: The TCEQ wouldn't step in, so local groups did​After years of illegally emitting carcinogens and other toxic pollutants into the air, Chevron Phillips Chemical Company has agreed to a settle a lawsuit against it and clean up its Cedar Bayou plant in Baytown."We can all breathe ea ... More >>

Deep Down

Beauty School Dropouts

HISD might close cosmetology program.

Greenpeace Says Dow's Freeport Chemical Plant Has Lousy Security

You won't be smiling when the leak comes​Think all those toxic chemicals stockpiled at industrial plants around Houston are safe and secure? Well, think again.According to Greenpeace, the giant holding tanks and railroad cars full full of hazardous materials are ripe for disaster -- be it by terro ... More >>

Bugs: There Are Two States Actually Buggier Than Texas

It's a bug's life in Texas​Houston, as you slap your arms, face and neck while trying to enjoy a sunset, reassure yourself that things could be worse: You could be in Florida or Louisiana.Those two states are officially and somewhat scientifically more bug-infested than Texas, according to an indu ... More >>

Fire At LyondellBasel Plant Won't Affect HISD

Few details are available on the blaze right now​There's a smoky fire at the LyondellBasel plant southeast of town, and most educational experts that learning shouldn't take place next to a smoky fire at a chemical plant.As many as eight HISD schools could be affected by fumes, depending on which ... More >>

Bubble Wrap Wonderweek

Pop, pop, pop music

A Quiet Hell

Thanks to lax enforcement by TCEQ, plants along the Houston Ship Channel launch tons of toxic gases into our air, and face little penalty even when they exceed pollution limits over and over again.

The State's Environmental Watchdog Sucks

​Four years ago, Houston Mayor Bill White and his environmental policy director Elena Marks didn't think that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality was doing a very good job enforcing pollution violations and keeping the area's oil refineries and chemical plants in check. The city had ... More >>

Sunoco -- Doing Whatever It Takes In La Porte

​We have little understanding of how a local chemical manufacturing plant can flaunt state environmental regulations for an entire year and not get called on the carpet for it until nearly two years later, but that describes the goings-on at the Sunoco, Inc., plant in La Porte.At its facility jus ... More >>

Dow Chemical, Always Helping The Kids. By Polluting The Air

If you worry about pollution -- especially in light on the EPA's latest study of the cancer risk posed by air pollution -- you might see that instead of threatening our lives, air pollution actually helps all of us, especially those of us who are most vulnerable, the kids.For purposes of illustr ... More >>

Dow Chemical Thankful It's In A Pollution-Loving State Like Texas

The Dow Chemical Co. got whacked last week with a $202,325 fine for air pollution violations, but if we had to guess, we'd say the world's second-largest chemical company thanks its lucky stars it does business in a state like Texas, where a history of violations doesn't mean much.In calculating th ... More >>

More Help (The Hard Way) For Retrofitting School Buses In Brazoria County

Solutia Inc. is a "small business" in the overall scheme of things in the petrochemical universe, but the organic chemical production plant outside of Alvin managed to outdo the big boys on Wednesday when it racked up the biggest pollution fine of the week in our great state.For its achievement, So ... More >>

Two Tons Of Steel

Junkyard Drive-In: Texas Oil on Film

Aurora Picture Show re-creates watching movies from your car

Oldies, And Not Goodies, On The Pollution Front

The wheels of environmental justice move ever so slowly. To call it a snail's pace would be an insult to mollusks everywhere. But it is what is, as we say in the parlance of our times, so now we have the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality assessing penalties against two local polluters for ... More >>

Arbor Day Celebration

Web exclusive!

The "Golden" Triangle -- Pay No Attention To the Tons Of Pollutants

In calculating the latest pollution fine levied against BASF Fina Petrochemicals LP in Jefferson County, state regulators made a note that might make residents of "The Golden Triangle" reconsider the nickname for their home.The Beaumont-Port Arthur area, documents say, has been exposed to 11.4 tons ... More >>

A Handy Guide To Terror Targets In Houston

Sometimes it seems like organizations that want to protect Americans from terrorism end up doing all the terrorists' research for them. The Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank headed by John Podesta, formerly Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff, has compiled a handy guide to the nation' ... More >>

Point Comfort Alcoa Plant May Close

The Alcoa plant in Point Comfort, about 125 miles from here, is a pretty massive operation: It can produce up to 2.3 million metric tons a year of alumina, which is the stuff from which aluminum is made. Now it may be shutting down. An Australian newspaper (an Australian company partners with ... More >>

Children’s Museum of Houston Thanksgiving

Web exclusive!

Formosa Plant Keeps On Polluting

Ike Brings On The Pollution

The Bright Side Of Pollution

Port Arthur Shares The Polluting Load

Home Front

Best Radio News

Best Nonprofit

Garden of Good and Evil

Rachel Carson's environmental quest gets surreal at Main Street Theater

Carrying the Torch

Rangers get fired up over Bush's Healthy Forests Initiative

Bill Minutaglio

Friday, January 10

Keep On Truckin'

Two Tons of Steel has gone from cover band to kings of the Texas dance hall

Going off the Rails

A proposed line into the Bayport Industrial District has residents from Clear Lake to the East End vowing to stop the "toxic train" in its tracks

Best Place to Take Out-of-Towners

Fred Hartmann Bridge

Green Port?

A Port suit accuses several companies of contaminating its land for decades

Fish Tales

Rayburn's bass diminish as debates continue over pollution discharges

Retro Active

Two Tones of Steel

Letters

First in the Nation

Toxic Leak?

Texas City petrochemical giants scramble to discover who released their secrets

Among Friends

Buster Brown's financial disclosure includes an interesting omission -- and addition

The Poison Connection

A "gas leak" in a Matamoros chemical plant wafts a poison and paper cloud toward a corporate office in Houston