Tag Archives: town

Drought is taking a toll on the Texas beef industry

by rakil23 Posted on February 28, 2013

Drought is taking a toll on the Texas beef industry

By Susie Cagle

Where’s the beef? Well, it’s not in West Texas these days. It’s always been kind of dry and desolate, but the last two years of epic drought have taken a serious toll on the region, driving in tumbleweeds and driving out agriculture and related business.

Earlier this month, a West Texas Cargill cattle processing plant suspended operations, leaving about 2,300 residents of Plainview out of work, more than 10 percent of the town’s population. The company says it’s not a permanent closure, but let’s be real, Cargill: This is looking a lot like devastating dust-bowl economics, round two. From The New York Times:

Dozens of former plant workers have already moved, finding new jobs with the plant’s owner, Cargill, or other companies outside Plainview or outside the state, many pulling their children out of the town’s 12 public schools. When workers receive their last paychecks in three weeks, the question is whether they will stick around. And then, the more existential question, can the town survive without those who leave?

With fewer than 8,000 households in the city and hundreds of them set to leave (or already gone), schools could lose millions in funding, and the ghost-town effect could accelerate. The Amarillo Globe-News reports:

The shutdown and its ripple through the regional economy could mean an annual loss of $1.1 billion in economic activity, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Economist Steve Amosson predicted in January when Cargill made the closure announcement.

American cow-eating is pretty terrible for the planet — arguably this Cargill plant is suffering to some extent by its own hand. But that’s no consolation to the workers who are now struggling to make it in an even more dry, more desolate Plainview. The Times reports that every Saturday, residents and laid-off Cargill employees walk in a circle around the closed plant, praying for a miracle. Soo I’ll hold off on celebrating.

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Drought is taking a toll on the Texas beef industry

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N.Y. town board sued for banning discussion of fracking at meetings

by 7GrittonMaine146 Posted on February 12, 2013

N.Y. town board sued for banning discussion of fracking at meetings

By Philip Bump

City government meetings are boring and tedious and deal with boring, tedious things — zoning, ceremonial items, paying a city’s bills. Most also allow time for the public to comment, which almost always entices the local gadflies and cranks to show up and share whatever’s on their minds. And it’s often the most interesting part of the meetings.

Nonetheless, the town board of Sanford, N.Y., got tired of one particular topic coming up in public comments: fracking. Speaker after speaker would rail against the practice, which is currently banned in the state. The town board reached its limit last fall, voting to ban any further comment from the public on the topic.

In spirit, we can appreciate the frustration. In practice, however, we would strongly encourage elected officials to remember that public meetings don’t exist for their convenience. To help remind the Sanford board of that fact, local residents (with the support of the Natural Resources Defense Council) are suing. From the Associated Press:

“If people are silenced by their own elected representatives, how can they trust them to act in their best interests?” said Natural Resources Defense Council attorney Kate Sinding as her group announced the U.S. District Court lawsuit. NRDC and Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy filed the lawsuit on behalf of town residents who are members of their groups.
Robert Freeman, director of the state’s Committee on Open Government, said a public body isn’t required to allow the public to speak at meetings. If the town board chooses to permit public participation, it can adopt “reasonable rules” to ensure fairness.

“The fact is that the Open Meetings Law gives the public the right to be there, but says nothing about the right to speak,” Freeman said.

Sinding disagreed, saying boards can adopt rules such as time limits or equal time provisions. “It does not mean completely banning speech on a particular topic, especially one of the most important and timely topics in the state,” she said.

credopolicysummit

Protestors target New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Towns in upstate New York fall into three categories, as you’d expect: pro-fracking, anti-fracking, and undecided. Sanford’s leadership certainly falls into the first category. Many other towns fall into the second, several of them recently pledging to maintain local fracking bans even if the state’s is lifted. Others, like Penn Yan in the Finger Lakes region, are divided.

Sanford would very likely be a hub of fracking activity if the state’s ban is overturned, particularly if the revocation is done by region. From The New York Times’ Green blog:

According to the lawsuit, the town leased land to XTO Energy [in] 2008 and later issued a permit allowing the company to use a road to enable it to withdraw water for use in natural gas extraction. Sanford’s town board also approved a resolution calling on the New York Legislature to “stand aside” in the fracking debate and allow state officials to issue permits allowing fracking, the suit noted. …

Around two-thirds of the land in the town has been leased to the gas industry, according to Melissa Bishop, a resident who opposes fracking and the town’s vote to stop discussion on the subject. She accused the board of failing to allow the democratic process to unfold on matters of public interest.

If the lawsuit and common sense both fail, there is another option for Bishop and other Sanford residents. In 2014, some of those town board members will be up for reelection.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Marcellus, N.Y., namesake of the Marcellus shale formation, bans fracking

by sreg2 Posted on January 17, 2013

Marcellus, N.Y., namesake of the Marcellus shale formation, bans fracking

By Philip Bump

Wikipedia

The eponymous Marcellus shale outcropping.

The ongoing debate over hydraulic fracturing in New York focuses on the Marcellus shale, a geological formation that runs from New York through Pennsylvania to West Virginia. Energy companies are salivating at the prospect of  fracking in the state. But no matter what New York Gov. Cuomo decides on the existing fracking ban, there’s one place that no one will be able to frack: Marcellus, N.Y. — the town for which the formation is named.

From Syracuse.com:

The Marcellus town board voted unanimously Monday to ban the exploration and production of natural gas and petroleum in the town.

By a 5-0 vote, the board passed a local law amending its zoning codes to prevent “ all exploration and production of natural gas and petroleum in the town,” Supervisor Daniel J. Ross said this morning. …

There are still a lot of unanswered environmental questions, as well as concerns about fracking’s effect on public and private water supplies, [Ross] said.

Marcellus also banned the industry based on land use. A 2002 comprehensive plan adopted by the town prohibits all heavy industry, Ross said.

This reminds me of that time Meth, Ky., cracked down on drug abuse.

Hat-tip: Ben Smith.

Source

Marcellus bans gas and petroleum exploration in town, Syracuse.com

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Richmond, Calif., fights back against Chevron’s choke hold

by ghd12australia Posted on January 3, 2013

Richmond, Calif., fights back against Chevron’s choke hold

By Susie Cagle

Chevron has dominated the town of Richmond, Calif., for 110 years, but that dominance is finally being called into question. Tensions have been escalating for decades, but came to a head after a fire in August 2012 at the oil giant’s Richmond refinery belched toxic smoke all over the Bay Area.

When Chevron sought city permits to rebuild the refinery, the Richmond mayor and City Council called for stronger pollution and safety controls. But in December, the city Planning Department approved permits that will allow the company to bring the refinery back to full production with only very minor improvements in emissions.

Last month, Chevron agreed to pay $145,600 to settle 28 different air-quality violations that had taken place at the refinery before the fire. That works out to $5,200 for each screwup, which ranged from not filing reports on hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide pollution incidents to the fact that the the oil giant didn’t check part of the refinery for leaks for two years.

For most of its 110 years in Richmond, Chevron — the town’s biggest employer and a big donor to local political campaigns — has put out fires and paid fines and not looked back, while local residents suffered from sustained health problems. Now, The New York Times reports, the winds are shifting:

“They went through a period of time when they took a very hard-line, confrontational position with the City of Richmond, and I don’t think it was working for them very well,” said Tom Butt, a councilman who has been critical of Chevron and who won re-election in November, despite the oil company’s support for three other candidates. “They were facing a situation where the majority of the City Council were not their friends, and so they decided to try a different position.”

Sean Comey, a Chevron spokesman, said the company felt the need to adopt a new strategy toward Richmond, though he did not go as far as to acknowledge that it was a direct response to the city’s changing politics.

“Probably about four, five years ago, we sat down to really reassess what the state of our relationship was with the community where we had been for more than 100 years — and it wasn’t where we wanted it to be,” Mr. Comey said.

So Chevron built some community gardens and threw some holiday parties and tried to appear really excited about civic goings-on.

“Richmond kind of gets into your blood,” said Andrea Bailey, Chevron’s manager of community engagement in Richmond. “There’s so much going on, and there’s this precipice of greatness. It’s exciting.”

And then the company was like, “But they still hate us? Whyyyy?”

Maybe because Chevron is also trying to buy the city council. In last year’s race, it spent $1.2 million and succeeded in getting two of its three preferred candidates elected.

Still, Chevron says its polling shows “favorability with over 50 percent of residents,” even after August’s fire. I wonder if Chevron is also following the #FuckChevron hashtag that’s become popular on Twitter with Bay Area residents. Best get the community engagement manager on top of that one.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

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Adorable little Michigan town has big plans for cutting carbon emissions

by Myrna Posted on December 18, 2012

Adorable little Michigan town has big plans for cutting carbon emissions

By Philip Bump

Ann Arbor is a small town in Michigan that, like so many small towns across the Midwest, has been hard-hit as industry has increasingly moved away or overseas. A pleasant place with small hills and tree-lined streets, Ann Arbor has never had any distinguishing characteristic: no classic architecture, no famous music hall, no museums of note. Just a standard small town with a little main street, like so many other thousands littering the region.

But now, at last, Ann Arbor has done something to help it stand out, something of which — after so many years! — it might rightly be proud.

mike_miley

This is the town’s train station! Adorbs.

From AnnArbor.com (it doesn’t even have a real newspaper!):

The Ann Arbor City Council took action Monday night to adopt a Climate Action Plan, a 188-page document that outlines dozens of ways to reduce the community’s carbon footprint.

Building on previous environmental goals set by the City Council, the new plan recommends three targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades.

That includes a goal of reducing the entire community’s emissions by 8 percent by 2015, by 25 percent by 2025, and by 90 percent by 2050 — all relative to 2000 baseline levels.

I mean, first of all it’s cute that such an insignificant town has a city council! Just goes to show you that democracy can take root in even the driest soil.

But, second, this is a good idea. The city’s plan includes improved energy efficiency, transitioning to renewable energy production (right now, I believe they use an old coal furnace out back of Doc Bridge’s), increasing food labeling so that residents know how much carbon dioxide was produced for each item, and reducing recycling and garbage pickup. Interesting steps that could probably only fly in such a small backwater.

The city has already seen a drop since 2000 in the amount of carbon dioxide produced in its commercial and industrial sectors — a success that it hopes to increase across the board.

“This is one more step in a long history of action that we’re taking and recognizing that a global problem like climate change is more than we can handle on our own,” [Council Member Chuck] Warpehoski said.

I mean, how great is that? It’s like when they have a big pledge drive on TV and a little kid sends in a quarter from her piggy bank because she wants to help. Ann Arbor, you are the cutest little thing. Let’s hope that this, if nothing else, gives you something to be proud of.

P.S.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Tiny twisters could power your town — someday

by Myrna Posted on December 14, 2012

Tiny twisters could power your town — someday

By Susie Cagle

You thought you were cool with your wind turbines, hippies? Canadian inventor Louis Michaud sees your wind turbines and raises you a freaking tornado.

m_bridi

Yes, climate change may be unleashing monster tornadoes upon us now, but those aren’t the tornadoes Michaud wants to “control and exploit.” Today the inventor won a grant through the Thiel Foundation’s “revolutionary” Breakout Labs to develop power-generating twisters.

The Toronto Star reports:

[B]y today’s measure, Michaud’s idea is the definition of radical. Through his company AVEtec — the AVE standing for “atmospheric vortex engine” — the long-term plan is to take waste heat from a thermal power plant or industrial facility and use it to create a controllable twister that can generate electricity.

Here’s how it works: Waste heat is blown at an angle into a large circular structure, creating a flow of spinning hot air. We all know heat travels upward and as it does it spins itself into a rising vortex.

The higher the twister grows, the greater the temperature differential between top and bottom, creating stronger and stronger convective forces that act like fuel for the vortex, eventually allowing it to take on a life of its own.

The result is that hot air initially blown into the bottom of the structure starts getting sucked in so forcefully that it spins electricity-generating turbines installed at the base …

Given the destructive history of naturally formed tornadoes, many people might be freaked out by the thought of having man-made tornadoes intentionally scattered near cities and power plants.

Michaud assured that his twisters are much safer to operate and control than, say, a nuclear plant. And because they’re fuelled by the waste heat that’s initially supplied, all the operator has to do is throttle back or cut off that heat to weaken or stop the vortex.

True to its self-proclaimed radical spirit, Breakout Labs has also backed meat and leather 3D printing from Modern Meadow. Essentially it funds magic.

So hey, is anyone out there working on a protective forcefield for cyclists …?

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

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Tiny twisters could power your town — someday

by biglermyrta910 Posted on December 14, 2012

Tiny twisters could power your town — someday

By Susie Cagle

You thought you were cool with your wind turbines, hippies? Canadian inventor Louis Michaud sees your wind turbines and raises you a freaking tornado.

m_bridi

Yes, climate change may be unleashing monster tornadoes upon us now, but those aren’t the tornadoes Michaud wants to “control and exploit.” Today the inventor won a grant through the Thiel Foundation’s “revolutionary” Breakout Labs to develop power-generating twisters.

The Toronto Star reports:

[B]y today’s measure, Michaud’s idea is the definition of radical. Through his company AVEtec — the AVE standing for “atmospheric vortex engine” — the long-term plan is to take waste heat from a thermal power plant or industrial facility and use it to create a controllable twister that can generate electricity.

Here’s how it works: Waste heat is blown at an angle into a large circular structure, creating a flow of spinning hot air. We all know heat travels upward and as it does it spins itself into a rising vortex.

The higher the twister grows, the greater the temperature differential between top and bottom, creating stronger and stronger convective forces that act like fuel for the vortex, eventually allowing it to take on a life of its own.

The result is that hot air initially blown into the bottom of the structure starts getting sucked in so forcefully that it spins electricity-generating turbines installed at the base …

Given the destructive history of naturally formed tornadoes, many people might be freaked out by the thought of having man-made tornadoes intentionally scattered near cities and power plants.

Michaud assured that his twisters are much safer to operate and control than, say, a nuclear plant. And because they’re fuelled by the waste heat that’s initially supplied, all the operator has to do is throttle back or cut off that heat to weaken or stop the vortex.

True to its self-proclaimed radical spirit, Breakout Labs has also backed meat and leather 3D printing from Modern Meadow. Essentially it funds magic.

So hey, is anyone out there working on a protective forcefield for cyclists …?

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

Twitter

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Tiny twisters could power your town — someday

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