Times Exposé Needs Our Attention

I hope that you have been reading the El Paso Times stories, especially yesterday's, about oil spills/runoff from oil industry platforms during the recent, devastating flooding in central Texas. It's not just oil but the fracking fluids which is probably worse. The Times followed up with an editorial to their first story. Times reporter, Marty Schladen, has done some great investigative journalism. It has been recognized nationally in pieces such as this one in Esquire.

It is egregious enough to have oil platforms spill toxic oil and fracking fluids into Texas rivers. What is even more appalling is that the Texas Department of Public Safety ordered the pictures of the spills to be taken off of the University of Texas web site once Schladen and the Times exposed what was happening. The TDPS said that the pictures had not been vetted for privacy. Yeah, sure. Don't expect the mis-named Texas Railroad Commission which regulates the oil industry to come to the rescue. 

Schladen reported what Lon Burnham, who ran unsuccessfully to become a member of the TRC, said about what's behind the censorship:

"He said that since the members of the Railroad Commission receive most of their campaign contributions from energy producers, they have little incentive to punish polluters — or even find that they’re polluting.


“'They don’t enforce,'” Burnham said. “'They don’t fine. But they do whine about needing more money from the Legislature.'”

I hope that the Times will do a follow-up about the Torchlight Energy Resources fracking platforms just across the city limits of El Paso in Hudspeth County during our monsoon season. No, the run-off of fracking fluids won't run into any rivers. However, they will spread a destructive sheen across the biocrust of the Otero Mesa/Diablo Plateau and seep into the ground. I say this especially noting that drilling there has been encouraging.

"The 50 foot pine tree will remain in the Plaza"

Click on image to enlarge.

Those were the words from an official City of El Paso press release dated yesterday.

Read Diana Washington Valdez's story, San Jacinto Plaza reopening delayed until May, in this morning's El Paso Times. Yesterday afternoon she called me for a comment. That is when I learned about the press release. I chose to wait to do a post about the story until this morning after the Times had published. It was her story and so many of us are so glad that she has stayed on top of it (along with many other "stories" from City Hall.)

No doubt elpasonaturally's online petition helped to save the tree. (It is now clear that the City had no intention of saving the tree in the first place and was going to use "damage" as an excuse.) 

What really saved the tree was the fact that elpasonaturally and then the Times brought to light that the tree was on the "chopping block". (Sadly, the pun is intended.) This resulted in the City Manager, Tommy Gonzalez, decrying the fact that the story had come to public attention followed by a concerted effort to cya the entire affair.

Of course, there is more than just the saving of El Pasoan's beloved Holiday Christmas tree. elpasonaturally learned and posted that the Plaza's California palms had not been salvaged but disposed in a landfill. More revelations about the failure by the Department of Engineering to follow city guidelines and policies keep coming to light. Clicking on the link to the "Policy and Standards Manual for the Care of Trees and Shrubs in the City of El Paso" on the new City web site still results in a 404 Error. If you want to read the manual or download a copy, go HERE. Otherwise it will probably be deleted from memory. So much for the strategic goal to "Promote Transparent and Consistent Communication Among All Members of the Community".

By the way, the public didn't even participate in developing those strategic goals. Or does "all members of the community" refer just to a tight-knit City Hall group?

Opposition to Fracking Grows

Click to enlarge. Map from NewsOK

Reno, Texas has taken steps to ban fracking by "limiting disposal well activity to operators who can prove the injections won't cause earthquakes," reports Emily Schmall of the Associated Press. The oil and gas industry pumps waste water from fracking deep underground supposedly to prevent contamination of the water table. 

Schmall's updated article was republished in various places online and in major newspapers such as the Washington Times and the Minneapolis Star Tribune. In its issue today (Monday, December 1, 2014) the El Paso Times buried the article on page 4 of Borderland. I have yet to find a link to it on the El Paso Times online. (On its front page, the El Paso Times major headline was "Fans Remember Icon 'Chespirito'". The front page had nothing about opposition to and dangers of fracking across the country now that the threat of fracking is just a few miles beyond Hueco Tanks.)

Reno, a town between Paris, Texas and Texarkana has experienced hundreds of earthquakes just in the past year. A Magnitude 4.2 earthquake rattled Medford, Oklahoma yesterday following on the heels of two other earthquakes in the region - some felt in neighboring Kansas. The cause? Fracking.  Read or listen to an NPR interview about Oklahoma quakes and fracking.

No wonder Reno and communities across the country are fighting fracking including conservative Denton, Texas.

And thanks to the El Paso, Times front page story by Diana Washington Valdez yesterday (Sunday, November 30, 2014) and Robbie Gray's El Paso Inc. story on the first page of the "Your Money" section, signers of our online petition jumped overnight from 138 supporters to 551 and during this morning to 658! (Sorry no EP Times link yet to Valdez's Sunday story but one to her Saturday story.) Both Valdez and Gray mentioned elpasonaturally's Change.org petition.

Growing opposition to fracking is certainly a silver lining as are falling oil prices worldwide. Just don't ever expect the Texas Railroad Commission, the Texas Land Office or the University of Texas to ever be enviromentally moral and responsible - at least while the current oligarchy rules the Lone Star State.

The News about Impact Fees Just Gets Better!

I made a mistake in my February 24th post on impact fees. I didn't do my arithmetic. It turns out that the increase is much less than I reported. This means the increase will be only a tiny portion of a monthly mortgage payment. Tiny!

It also means that the El Paso Times can't be trusted when it comes to reporting the seriousness of something. You will see below why this tiny increase hardly deserves the headline: "Sharp increase is possible if City Council approves ordinance". Take the Times with a grain of salt. They also love using the verbs "would" and "could" in their major headlines. Anxieties not realities are their forte.

Here's a chart that will make it clear that the current brouhaha over an impact fee increase is a tempest in a teapot:

You can enlarge the image of the chart by clicking on it. You can also hit Ctrl along with the key with the plus sign and enlarge this entire page.

First, remember that the developers (and in the end the homeowner) pays just 75% of the impact fee. Even though you and I don't use or require the additional capital improvements at the Bustamante and the Jonathan Rogers Treatment Plants, etc., we still pay 25% of those fees. (I'm going on a shopping spree at Union Fashion. I'll pay 75% but you need to kick in the remaining 25%. That's how it works with impact fees.)

So the total amount that the developer paid for 2009 impact fees for east side development was $1,617 or 75% of $2,156. (See chart.) 

The 2014 Impact Fee Calculation for the east side is $3,835. That's the total that I mentioned yesterday as did the El Paso Times. The real increase is this: 75% of that $3,835 is $2,876.25. Subtract the 2009 total of $1,617 and you come up with the increase on the east side of just $1,259.25! 

The current rate on a 30 year loan is 4.25%. That additional $1,259.25 means an increase of a lowly $6.20/month on a 30 year loan. 

$6.20!

Hardly worth the words "Sharp increase is possible if City Council approves ordinance".

It is worth all of the thousands of dollars of ad revenue from home builders in the El Paso Times every month. 

Please plan to be at the next City Council meeting on March 4. City Hall is located at 300 N. Campbell. (Map)

The issue is about fairness. The increase is just a modest $6.20/month on a house payment for a new home built on the east side. Less elsewhere. (Actually it will be much more because you can be sure that the builders will jack up the price of a home to make some more money above and beyond the impact fee.) The increase pays for the capital improvements necessary to support new development. Nobody is arguing here against development - just who should pay. 

Fairness - that's what it is all about. If not, then please pay for my new swimming pool and wardrobe. Thanks.

Man-made Climate Change Should Be Seen as Established Scientific Fact

Recently, a letter to the editor by Mr. Terry Sunday in the El Paso Times caught my attention. What also caught my attention were follow-up letters disputing the fact that climate change is man-made. We like our fossil fuels. We like to burn them. Much of the unsustainable policies and lifestyles negatively affecting us here in El Paso is caused by the 1950s urban planning models based on automobiles and freeways - planning driven (pun intended) by the oil, coal and natural gas industries. The environmental destruction by Ted Houghton's TxDOT, the active resistance to mass transit and bicycling by them, is the result of an allegiance with and loyalty to the huge industries of oil, gas and corporate agriculture. Right-wing ideologues and fundamentalist religious zealots aid, abet and are putty in the hands of the large corporate interests who are the plutocrats in charge of policy in our states and nation today. 

Terry is an aerospace engineer with degrees from the Florida Institute of Technology and the University of Pittsburgh. He worked for Lockheed Martin and Vought Aircraft. Here is his rejoinder to climate-change deniers which elpasonaturally believes to be quite valuable even if the El Paso Times prefers (seemingly) to cater too often to religious zealots. Please read his piece carefully and thoroughly. Don't just scan it. I've tacked on a thought-provoking video at the end of the post. Here's Mr. Terry Sunday:


It's no fun predicting things if there's absolutely no chance of being wrong.

I recently learned that the Los Angeles Times has a new editorial policy that they will NOT print letters from people who deny the reality of human-caused global climate change. Here's the L.A. Times editorial, written by Paul Thornton and published on October 8, 2013:


A piece this weekend debunking the claim that Congress and the president are exempted from Obamacare has drawn a harsh reaction from some readers and conservative bloggers. But their umbrage wasn't with the piece's explanation of why letters making this claim do not get published.

Rather, they were upset by the statement that letters "[saying] there's no sign humans have caused climate change" do not get printed. Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters blogged about it over the weekend:

"It's one thing for a news outlet to advance the as yet unproven theory of anthropogenic global warming; it's quite another to admit that you won't publish views that oppose it. As amazing as it may seem, that's exactly what the Los Angeles Times did Saturday in an article by editorial writer Jon Healey...So letters to the editor 'that say there's no sign humans have caused climate change ... do not get printed.' That's quite a statement coming from an editorial writer not named Al Gore."

Point of order: Jon Healey didn't write that intro, and neither did Al Gore; as The Times' letters editor, I did. It ran without a byline because it was intended to be a straightforward editor's note introducing the piece; my apologies if that caused any confusion. Healey was responsible for everything beneath the boldface subhead, "Editorial writer Jon Healey explains why this claim in the debate over the healthcare law is off-base."

As for letters on climate change, we do get plenty from those who deny global warming. And to say they "deny" it might be an understatement: Many say climate change is a hoax, a scheme by liberals to curtail personal freedom.

Before going into some detail about why these letters don't make it into our pages, I'll concede that, aside from my easily passing the Advanced Placement biology exam in high school, my science credentials are lacking. I'm no expert when it comes to our planet's complex climate processes or any scientific field. Consequently, when deciding which letters should run among hundreds on such weighty matters as climate change, I must rely on the experts-in other words, those scientists with advanced degrees who undertake tedious research and rigorous peer review.

And those scientists have provided ample evidence that human activity is indeed linked to climate change. Just last month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change-a body made up of the world's top climate scientists-said it was 95% certain that we fossil-fuel-burning humans are driving global warming. The debate right now isn't whether this evidence exists (clearly, it does) but what this evidence means for us.

Simply put, I do my best to keep errors of fact off the letters page; when one does run, a correction is published. Saying "there's no sign humans have caused climate change" is not stating an opinion, it's asserting a factual inaccuracy.


"Hmmm," I thought after I read that editorial, "I wonder if the El Paso Times would be brave enough to adopt a similar editorial policy. I'm gonna write a Letter to the Editor about it and see what happens." Here's the letter, which ran in the El Paso Times on February 1, 2014:


As surely as day follows night, right-wing ideologues and fundamentalist religious zealots will cite the recent cold spells that brought bone-chilling temperatures to much of the U.S. as proof that global warming is not real. Many of these deniers, burying their heads firmly in the sand, will continue to trumpet their bizarre fantasy that anthropogenic climate change is a nefarious liberal hoax designed to expand government and curtail personal freedoms. Sadly, many Americans lack the scientific knowledge to recognize these claims for the lies they are, so they accept them at face value: "Gee, it was really cold this winter, so that can only mean all the scientists who say the earth is warming up are wrong."

We would be well advised to heed the warnings of the overwhelming majority of the world's top climate scientists, who are 95% certain that human activities are changing the earth's climate. We would be equally well advised to ignore the rantings of misguided, ignorant or willfully deceptive deniers. The stakes could not be higher. The future of life on our planet depends on whether we can curtail our releases of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Late last year, the L.A. Times courageously decided to stop publishing factually false letters to the editor that deny the reality of human-caused climate change. Perhaps the El Paso Times should follow suit.


Okay, so maybe I laid it on a little thick with the "right-wing ideologues and fundamentalist religious zealots" stuff. Still, though, those particular subsets of American society ARE the ones that most adamantly refuse to accept the fact that human activities affect the earth's climate. "God created humans to have dominion over the earth and all its species," right?

The ignorance, wanton disregard of facts and utter lack of knowledge of how the scientific method works that some members of these groups demonstrate is simply appalling. If they can't accept the truth due to their close-minded ideological or religious biases, then they should forfeit the right to be taken seriously in discussing matters of public interest.

No responsible newspaper editor would print letters asserting that the earth is flat, or that gravity is "just a theory," or that the airliner contrails that often form above El Paso are really a secret plot by the New World Order to poison us. Why, then, should letters to the editor disputing the settled science of anthropogenic climate change not be similarly rejected out of hand?

As I expected, my original letter spawned a flurry of responses from, you guessed it, climate-change deniers. Imagine that! Three letters followed within a week or so after mine. The only one that warrants comment is the one from Donald Morrill, Jr., that ran on February 6. I won't quote the whole thing, but here's the operative paragraph:


NASA's satellite date from 2000 through 2011 paints a different picture as well. NASA's data revealed that the Earth's atmosphere is allowing much more heat to be released into space than the global-warming "consensus" computer models predicted, according to the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing.


Wow, so an article in a "peer-reviewed science journal" refutes global warming, eh? Sounds like a pretty strong argument that the earth's top climate scientists are wrong, eh? But here's "the rest of the story," in the form of another Letter to the Editor that I wrote but have not yet sent in for publication:


As expected, my letter predicting that this winter's cold weather would bring out climate change deniers proved accurate. Several letters followed from deniers who tried unsuccessfully to refute the fact-not opinion-that the evidence of human-caused climate change is so strong that it is no longer debated in the scientific community. Those deniers merely showed their ideological, political or religion-based biases.

For example, letter writer Donald Morrill, Jr., claimed that a paper in "a peer reviewed science journal" disproves global warming. However, Mr. Morrill did NOT mention that the editor of that journal, Wolfgang Wagner, resigned his position solely because he published the very paper Mr. Morrill cites. Dr. Wagner later said the paper was "fundamentally flawed" and "should not have been published." The "peers" who reviewed it had no expertise in climate science, and thus wrongly endorsed a paper containing methodological errors and false claims. Mr. Morrill didn't mention that, either. Nor did he note that one of the authors of that paper has ties to a right-wing, evangelical Christian, anti-climate-change organization. 

Dr. Wagner took the honorable course of resigning because of his error. Is it possible that Mr. Morrill will also choose the honorable course and admit that he deliberately made a statement that he knew was misleading in order to justify his rejection of human-caused climate change?

I sincerely doubt it.


In fairness, the El Paso Times published a couple of recent letters that support the reality of anthropogenic climate change. I've seen no indication, however, that the Editorial Board is considering adopting a policy of not printing letters from deniers, which I still think is the proper course of action. I've sent Editor Bob Moore links to the relevant factual information, and he said he would review it, but as far as I know there's been no action as yet.

And that's where it stands as of today. - Terry Sunday
______________________________________________


And here's a provocative editorial video from Dennis Trainor, Jr.'s Acronym TV:

No CRRMA Meeting on Wednesday

The Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority will not meet this Wednesday, January 8, in spite of the fact that they publicly advertise a schedule of their regular meeting dates. (Their web site flashes in red that they meet the second Wednesday of each month at 9 a.m. on the 1st Floor of City Hall.) 

The word is out that they may meet on Wednesday, January 22nd, or wait until their next "regularly" scheduled meeting date which is February 12th. elpasonaturally will keep an eye on this and let you know in plenty of time so that you can attend and speak out regarding their use of a predatory lender to collect toll tags paid in cash by those without credit cards - the perfect victims for predatory lenders.

By law, the CRRMA must give 72 hours of advanced notice prior to a meeting.

The Huffington Post may be listening to elpasonaturally because they devoted a story about the El Paso situation. I posted a link to it on Facebook, but go HERE to read it.

Tomorrow, at its regularly scheduled meeting, the El Paso City Council will review a delayed ordinance which would "regulate" payday predators such as the business contracted to do the work for the CRRMA. The current Council delayed the beginning that ordinance would take effect to January 16th. The ordinance had been introduced by progressive, Susie, Byrd, during her last term on Council. The current and more reactionary, recidivist Council (and atavistic judging from their behavior) may decide to rescind the ordinance. They can and hopefully will allow it to take effect on the 16th. The El Paso Times story is HERE. Read yesterday's editorial board piece urging Council to affirm the payday loan rules already passed. Also read today's excellent guest editorial by Larry Garcia. Garcia well chronicles the advantage taken of families in financial crisis. 

So, while we wait for the CRRMA to meet again, we can do better than reading their canned responses to the public. Let's enjoy instead a dramatic reading of the immortal poem, The Spider and the Fly:

Times and Inc. Take PSB to Task

If you didn't see David Crowder's article in this weekend's Inc., you need to read it. PSB gag rule has everyone talking sums up the situation with the gag rule - the PSB Communications policy. There is no doubt that the policy was invoked by the current PSB Chair Richard Shoephoerster, abetted by Robert Andron, the legal counsel for PSB/EPWU, to get back at PSB member Bonart for bringing to light the deficiencies in the UTEP Centennial Water Plan.