Aquifer Recharge Field Trip

Very Important Water Town Hall Meeting

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H2O4 Texas Statewide Water Tour Event - Wednesday, October 26, 2016

9:00 a.m. -- Region E Town Hall Meeting

(Open to public, everyone is welcome.  No RSVP required.)

Greater El Paso Chamber of Commerce, 10 Civic Center, El Paso, Texas  79901

 

9:00 a.m.       Welcome to El Paso and Region E – Members of the Legislature & Local Officials

 

9:15 a.m.       Goals of the H2O4TEXAS Statewide Tour – Heather Harward, Executive Director, H2O4TEXAS Coalition

 

9:30 a.m.       Why the State Water Plan matters to Texas’ economy – Justin Yancy, President, Texas Business Leadership Council

 

9:40 a.m.       El Paso, Energy and Water – Mary Kipp, Chief Executive Officer, El Paso Electric Co.

 

9:45 a.m.       Overview of water planning in Texas and the State Water Plan interactive map – Director Peter Lake, Board Member, Texas Water Development Board

 

10:15 a.m.     Highlights from the Region E Water Plan – Jesus “Chuy” Reyes, Chair, Region E Water Planning Group

 

10:30 a.m.     Water Supplies, Drought Cycles and the Rio Grande – John Balliew, President and Chief Executive Officer, El Paso Water

 

10:45 a.m.     Takeaways and future of the H2O4TEXAS Statewide Tour – Heather Harward, Executive Director, H2O4TEXAS Coalition

Visit Keystone Heritage Park on Saturday

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For more information visit Celebration of Our Mountains.

Deus ex Machina?

Chuy Reyes our hero? Read the story that begins: "The federal government has intervened in the legal fight over a project to pipe natural gas into Mexico through eastern El Paso County."

http://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/local/el-paso/2016/10/17/feds-fight-pipeline-plan-go-under-border-fence/92314930/

Keystone Heritage Park, Saturday, October 22, 9am to 1pm

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For more information: http://www.celebmtns.org/2016-events/2016/spend-the-day-at-keystone-heritage-park

Fly in the Ointment

"Moi" next to El Paso Electric CEO, Mary Kipp

Back on September 15th I had the great honor to be invited to the celebration of El Paso Electric's new Montana Power Station. What a beauty - a work of masterful engineering and design. It made me proud to be an El Pasoan. This new and efficient power plant will emit 50 to 60 percent less carbon dioxide than coal burning generators. El Paso Electric had already severed its ties with coal. Bravo.

However, there may be a fly in the ointment. To be exact, there may be several.

I should preface my remarks. Technology - "clean" technology - is not without its tradeoffs. There are always consequences. There is nothing 100% clean. The production of solar panels is not without environmental consequences. Is a modern, efficient natural gas powered station good? Yes, for now. Ultimately to reduce carbon emissions, we will still need to switch to renewables.

Take a look at the infographic from the Union of Concerned Scientists:

You will have to click on the image to read it. You can also read the analysis at The Climate Risks of Natural Gas.

Switching to natural gas does reduce carbon emissions. However, if you take into account the increasing demand for electricity (and as I type this I am aware of the demand that I am making for energy), we are back to almost the same problem as we have had with coal. True, natural gas doesn't put nasty things "such as lead, mercury, nickel, tin, cadmium, antimony, and arsenic, as well as radio isotopes of thorium and strontium." Yum. (See Environmental Impacts of Coal.) It does, as far as I know, add some nitrous oxides to the atmosphere. 

Besides the bugs mentioned by the Concerned Scientists (I hope that occasionally they get out and have some fun), there is another fly: fracking. Fracking is reviving the Texas oil business. The cheap gas produced from fracking is great for the electric power industry. It makes good business sense to buy and use natural gas.

I asked EPEC's PR guy, Eddie Gutierrez, where they get their natural gas. His answer: "We purchase gas from a number of different suppliers through a competitive bid process so the actual suppliers will vary over time. We probably have at least 15 different suppliers, including Apache, Sequent, Shell, EDF, Freepoint, UET.  Gas that we purchase from these suppliers primarily originates in or around the Permian Basin and once purchased, we will ship to our plants using rights that we have on the Kinder Morgan (old El Paso natural gas pipeline) and Oneok pipelines."

So then I asked him what he thought about fracking and its environmental impact. He would get back to me, he said. He had to discuss it with the attorneys. To date, no response.

I asked the question because I doubt if much natural gas any longer comes from non-fracked wells. Besides, something tells me that you just can't call your distributor and tell her that you want all non-fracked natural gas. In buying and selling and distributing and burning, I don't think such distinctions are made; and, if they were, they would be terribly expensive - unsustainably expensive.

Still, the question remains and not just for EPEC - for the entire industry moving more and more to natural gas. Do they, will they take into consideration the environmental damage caused by fracking? EPEC says that they are a solar leader. Let's hope that they have a long range goal of 100% renewable energy.

To be sure I need to revisit the Montana Station. I didn't have the opportunity to take the tour after the ceremony. I'm sure that I can learn more.

The Friday Video: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Strawberry

Food waste has been a theme in this week's elpasonaturally posts. Check out this video. [If you get epnaturally by email, please go to elpasonaturally.blogspot.com to view the video. Other formats will display it.]

See also:

endhunger.org

savethefood.com

El Paso True Food

Food Lifeline Grocery Rescue

Water Harvesting Workshop, Sunday, October 9th, 701 Rim Road

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Native Americans and Conservationists Collaborate to Return Vital Flow to the Rio Grande

Native Americans and Conservationists Collaborate to Return Vital Flow to the Rio Grande: The first time I saw the channel of the Rio Grande completely dry, I was stunned. Here was the second largest river in the Southwest, which flows through three U.S. states and Mexico, and instead o…

Food Waste Prevention and Recovery

The remarkable presentation below was given by Nicole Ferrini, the Director of the Office of Resilience and Sustainability of the City of El Paso, at yesterday's City Council meeting. It is the result of a collaboration between El Paso Food and the ORS. 

El Paso Food is an initiative of a group of remarkable young people who want to solve the issue of food waste in El Paso. If you have ever wondered what grocers do with produce, for instance, that isn't bought but is still edible, your suspicions are correct: they throw the food away - food that could be used in homeless shelters and food banks. This remarkable group saw the problem and took the initiative. They see government as a tool and a resource, not as the initiator or the source of authorization. They represent grassroots democracy at its best.

The food waste or save the food movement has been growing recently in the United States. Read Craig Hanson is World Resources Institute for instance. Forbes addresses the issue from a business point of view. Of course, there are always the policy wonks with all of the stats.

Food Waste Prevention and Recovery by jimhtolbert434 on Scribd

See also;

Paso del Norte Institute for Healthy Living

El Paso True Food

La Semilla Food Center

Stargazing this Friday at TecH2O

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EP Times Pays Attention to Elpasonaturally

Bill Addington

There have been many instances in the past when the El Paso Times finds a story from an elpasonaturally post. Yesterday's front page story Oil, Gas Plans Spark Protest by Marty Schladen is the newest example. Last week I posted Pay Attention: What's Happening in North Dakota is Happening Just South of El Paso. 

It's easy to see why so much attention is directed toward the protest in North Dakota. It is taking on epic proportions as a Native American act of independance with particiapation from tribes from as faraway as the Pacific Northwest. Big Bend too gets attention because it's Big Bend. El Paso activists continue to focus on N. Dakota. Only Bill Addington through his Facebook posts has shone a light on the pipeline going to San Elizario as well.