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Texas will be getting another eye in the sky

July 14, 2011 1 comment

mysanantonio

Second aerial drone is coming to Corpus Christi.
By Gary Martin

WASHINGTON — A second unmanned aerial vehicle soon will be based at Corpus Christi Naval Air Station, providing surveillance of the Gulf Coast and the U.S.-Mexico border above Texas, officials said Wednesday.

A third Predator drone maintained in Arizona is used to monitor Texas border areas over the Big Bend region and El Paso.

Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael Kostelnik, who heads the U.S. Customs and Border Protection UAV program, told a House Homeland Security subcommittee the new drone would provide additional surveillance, and “on any given day there could be three or more (unmanned) aircraft in Texas.”

Texas lawmakers on the Homeland Security Committee asked Secretary Janet Napolitano in a letter this year to base in Texas one of two additional UAVs approved by Congress.

“Technology is part of Read more…

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Amazing -‘Massive Growing Sinkhole’ In Texas

July 12, 2011 Comments off
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Wallow Fire Threatening Power Supplies to New Mexico and Texas

June 9, 2011 Comments off

christianpost

Firefighters have battled through the night in an attempt to protect numerous Arizona mountain communities from the spreading Wallow fire that has forced thousands to evacuate and flee their homes.

(Photo: Reuters/Joshua Lott)Arizona Department of Trasportation workers prepare to close off a section of U.S. Highway 60 due to the Wallow Wildfire in Springerville, Arizona June 8, 2011. A wildfire believed sparked by inattentive campers blazed unchecked for an 11th day in eastern Arizona on Wednesday, leaving at least 600 square miles of pine forest blackened and menacing several mountain towns near the New Mexico border.

The fire has now become the second largest ever seen in Arizona, and is threatening electricity supplies as far away as Texas.

The fire, which during Wednesday night was being reported as covering 607-square miles, is expected to reach power lines by early Friday. It is feared that if lines are damaged, hundreds of thousands in New Mexico and Texas would face rolling blackouts.

For the early part of this week driving winds have Read more…

Categories: Arizona, New Mexico, Texas Tags: , , , , ,

DOJ letter to Texas: ‘TSA would likely be required to cancel any flight …’

May 25, 2011 Comments off

lonestarreport

The U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter to House and Texas Senate leaders Tuesday — reportedly in person — threatening a shut-down of airports if HB 1937 is passed.

The letter claims Rep. David Simpson’s (R-Longview) anti-TSA-groping bill is against federal law and the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. We include the text of the DOJ’s letter, as well as a portion of Simpson’s reply, below.
May 24, 2011

[On U.S. Department of Justice, Western District of Texas, stationery. Addressed to Speaker Joe Straus, Dewhurst, the House Clerk and the Senate Secretary]

Dear Leaders,

I write with regard to HB 1937, which I understand will imminently be presented to the Texas Senate for a vote.

This office, as well as the Southern, Northern, and Eastern District of Texas United States Attorneys, would like to advise you of the significant leagal and practical problems that will be created if the bill becomes law. As you are no doubt aware, the bill makes it a crime for a federal transportation official (“TSO”) to perform the security screening that he or she is authorized and required by federal law to perform. The proposed legislation would make it unlawful for a federal agent such as a TSO to perform certain specified searches for the purpose of granting access to a publicly accessible building or form of transportation. That provision would thus criminalize searches Read more…

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Texas cameras to track school lunches

May 12, 2011 Comments off

guardian

FOOD ANALYSIS

Dr Roger Echon of the Social and Health Research Centre displays the digital food analysis equipment which will track chlidren’s eating habits at WW White elementary school in Texas. Photograph: Tom Reel/AP

The next time children in some elementary schools in the state of Texas try to sneak extra french fries on to their tray in the cafeteria queue, the eye in the sky will be watching them.

Using a $2m (£1.3m) grant from the US department of agriculture, the schools in San Antonio are installing sophisticated cameras in the cafeteria that read barcodes embedded in the food trays.

“We’re going to snap a picture of the food tray at the cashier and we will know what has been served,” said Dr Roberto Trevino of the Social and Health Research Centre in San Antonio, which is implementing the pilot programme at five schools with high rates of childhood obesity and children living in poverty.

“When the child goes back to the disposal window, we’re going to measure the leftover.”

The goal is to cut childhood obesity by providing parents and school nutrition specialists with information on what types of Read more…

Categories: Big Brother, Texas Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Texas Drought worst since 1895

May 2, 2011 7 comments

timesrecordnews

The drought in Texas, during March, was the worst since 1895.

That is about the time my parents were born 120 years ago.

I never thought it could be worse than the drought of the 1950s, but it is. Drive out into grazing country where mesquite aren’t too thick and all you can see is dry, cracked soil with an occasional fire ant or a gopher mound in the sandier soil.

Comparing the current drought with the seven-year drought in the 1950s, old-timers say the current drought sapped the soil of moisture faster than it did in the 1950s.

It just stopped raining last July, and pasture after pasture was hit by wildfires.

Right now, there is no potential to produce hay, harvest wheat or plant cotton or grain sorghum this May. Unless there is a week of rain fairly soon there is no hope for agriculture this year.

The Texas Ag Extension Service says that, despite a few recent showers in some areas, the cotton growing in Texas and Oklahoma is still in a drought. Any crop planted in southern Texas earlier in the year that got up out of the ground is now being sand blasted by hot, dry winds.

Wildfires have burned at least 1.5 million acres in the state since Jan. 1.

In addition to grazing losses, ranchers are facing rangeland stock water tanks that are dry or nearly dry. Streams are not flowing and lakes and big tanks are turning to deep mud.

Categories: Droughts, Texas Tags: , , , , ,

Texas Wildfires Threaten Wheat Crop, Drive Food Prices Higher

April 22, 2011 Comments off

care2.com

Texas Wildfires Threaten Wheat Crop, Drive Food Prices Higher
This month, raging wildfires in Texas have killed two firefighters, burned over a million acres of land and threatened thousands of homes. Three years of record droughts throughout the state have left fields full of dry and dead vegetation, making fighting the spread of wildfire flames extremely difficult.

As firefighters from around the country and the National Guard continue to battle the many blazes scattered across the state, with no immediate end to the crisis in sight, the future looks bleak for Texas farmers. Many farmers’ fields were already damaged by drought, and now some crops have been further harmed by smoke or entirely destroyed by flame.

Some agricultural experts are now predicting that Texas will lose two thirds of this year’s wheat crop to drought and Read more…

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Fires and Drought Trouble Texas and Other US Plains States

April 12, 2011 Comments off

voanews

A volunteer firefighter fights a fire which began outside Marfa, Texas, and was carried by winds to nearby Fort Davis, April 9, 2011

Photo: Alberto Tomas Halpern

A volunteer firefighter fights a fire which began outside Marfa, Texas, and was carried by winds to nearby Fort Davis, April 9, 2011

Drought conditions and high winds have fueled destructive wildfires in northern Mexico and the southern U.S. plains states, especially Texas, where dozens of homes have burned in recent days.  The dry weather is also having an impact on agriculture that is likely to cause some food prices to rise.

Fast-moving wildfires scorched around 32,000 hectares of land in the west Texas ranch country around Fort Davis on Saturday and Sunday, killing cattle and horses, and leaving pastures charred and smoky.  The fires reached populated areas near Fort Read more…

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Japan quake set Texas aquifer in motion

March 22, 2011 Comments off

star-telegram

When the earth shook during the March 11 earthquake off Japan, it had enough force to move water deep inside the Edwards Aquifer in Central Texas.

Within 15 minutes of the magnitude-9.0 earthquake, the Edward Aquifer Authority’s J-17 monitoring well in Bexar County started to vibrate, with the water level fluctuating about a foot.

“It moved up and down for almost two hours,” said Roland Ruiz, a spokesman for the water authority. “We thought it was certainly interesting that a quake that far away would register in the aquifer.”

It isn’t the first time vibrations from earthquakes have shown up in the aquifer. Last year’s 8.8 quake in Chile and 7.0 temblor in Haiti were also detected.

The Dec. 26, 2004, earthquake off Sumatra, Indonesia, caused the largest fluctuation in the aquifer when the water level moved about 2.6 feet. That 9.1 quake triggered a tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people.

The Edwards Aquifer Authority provides water to 1.7 million people in South Central Texas, including San Antonio.

“It just seems to be a natural ripple effect felt halfway around the world,” said Ruiz, who added that the “sloshing around” inside the aquifer did not create any problems.

Bill Hanna, 817-390-7698

Categories: Strange Events, Texas Tags: , , , , , , ,

Texas Second Day of Power Outages May Be Avoided

February 3, 2011 Comments off

A second day of controlled power outages by some utilities might not be needed in Texas in response to huge electric demand following a winter storm.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas early Thursday said “immediate concerns for the possibility of rotating outages this morning are reduced.”   But ERCOT said the agency would continue to monitor the state’s electric grid for additional unexpected losses of generation, a day after the problem led to mandated outages across the ERCOT system.

Wednesday night, ERCOT said in a statement that electricity demand hit record highs and to be aware of the possibility of more rolling outages.   See their original statement below.

Residents and businesses across Texas and in Brown County experienced rolling blackouts Wednesday due to the bitterly cold weather, and those blackouts could continue into Read more…

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