NEW PLANS COULD THREATEN BIG THICKET NATIONAL PRESERVE
by Sarah Morgan

The National Park Service released a Draft Oil/Gas Management Plan/Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Big Thicket National Preserve on December 13, the Sierra Club reported.

According to Sierra Club, the plan is supposed to protect the Big Thicket from oil and gas exploration, drilling, and production, but the newly drafted plan is recommending more drilling.

In the past three years, the National Park Service has processed or approved 19 oil/gas wells in or next to Big Thicket. Park Service approval allows private companies to drill in/or under Big Thicket to retrieve oil and gas, threatening the park in several ways, according to the Sierra Club. Drilling and development, including the construction of seismic lines, roads, drill pads, and pipelines, fragment or damage wildlife habitat and forested ecosystems. Drilling entails the use of toxic chemicals, which can seep into ground or surface water and wetland ecosystems and can contaminate soil via releases, spills, and leaks. Other threats include air pollution from diesel trucks, flares, compressors, storage tanks, and other equipment.

Sierra Club is asking that concerned parties write letters to Linda Dansby, EIS Project Manager, Office of Minerals/Oil and Gas Support, Intermountain Region, 1100 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87504-0728, before January 31, 2004, and request that the Park Service extend the public comment period, support and request environmental analysis for alternatives, and withdraw and revise the plans. For more information call Brandt Mannchen at (713) 664-5962.

WHEN NATURE’S WRATH IS HISTORY’S REMINDER
by Dennis Smith, Op-Ed Contributor
New York Times, 12/28/04

Scientists, like art teachers who have not mastered anatomy or drawing, often assume that what they do not know is not important. And, when it comes to earth science, what they do not know is the pattern of geologic time, particularly what has happened beneath the ground in the 4.5 billion years that we assume the earth has existed. What have been the consequences of large waves and water movements to whatever life existed on its surface?

We have a tsunami warning system in the Pacific Ocean because, in recent history, we’ve experienced tsunamis there. We don’t have a similar system in the Indian Ocean. This has something to do with the technologies developing nations can afford, of course, but it also has to do with the fact that our experience with the giant waves in this region is less immediate. Yet the single worst explosion in our known geologic history - an eruption of a 20-by-60-mile caldera some 71,000 years ago - occurred on Sumatra, just 100 miles from the epicenter of Sunday’s earthquake.

The earlier eruption left a 10,000 square-mile sheet of volcanic rock, more than a thousand feet thick, and so filled the sky with ash that it probably created our last ice age.

Americans believe that earthquakes are a West Coast problem. But the largest earthquake ever in the United States that we know of, probably at least as large as the one that destroyed most of San Francisco in 1906, occurred in the area of the Mississippi Valley in 1811. Boats were thrown over in the river and people drowned. Whole islands simply disappeared. This earthquake, and its aftershocks a year later, were so destructive that Congress passed the first federal relief act in 1815 to support the farmers whose previously healthy and farmable land was turned to swamp, sand, and mud.

The greatest cliché in geology is the question, Can it happen again? Sure. Will it happen again? Well, nature is never overdue, and we simply don’t know. The earth has had many configurations of land, water, and living inhabitants over the ages, and if we think of an earth-changing event as being overdue, we are failing to understand geologic time. It is mind-boggling to think that only 200 million years ago the earth was one gigantic continent, and one can only imagine the explosions that broke it into today’s continents. The plates beneath these continents continue to creep, and they don’t need an earthquake to move them along.

Our observation and reporting periods cover far too brief a period of time to allow us to see any pattern. What’s more, there are physical realities in our world that we are not paying attention to.

I hope for the future in the same way I hope when I step on to an airplane. I hope the people in control are of sound mind and body, and that they know what they are doing. Yet I know that simply wishing this is not enough. Terrible events in the future are inevitable. But I also know that we will continue to be unprepared for them if we don’t look more deeply into the past. By this, I don’t mean a fire last year or a volcanic eruption a century ago. I mean another past, in geologic time, that we simply don’t know enough about. Thinking about that explosion on Sumatra 71,000 years ago is a good place to start.

Dennis Smith, a retired New York City firefighter, is the author of the forthcoming "San Francisco Is Burning," a history of the 1906 earthquake.

For the full article, visit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/28/opinion/28smith.html?.

EPA GIVES GLO GRANT FOR SOLAR-POWERED WATER TREATMENT
by Sarah Morgan

The Environmental Protection Agency has awarded the Texas General Land Office a $381,000 grant for a municipal water treatment plant near the Mexican border that is powered by solar energy. The project will be monitored by the North American Development Bank to see if similar sustainable systems could be feasible in other areas.

The 60-kilowatt solar power grid is seen as the most cost-effective way to power public infrastructure, said GLO commissioner Jerry Patterson. "It could improve water treatment in the border region without the pollution associated with conventional power sources," Patterson said in a press release.

A site will be chosen by the end of January and construction and installation is slated to begin in the second half of 2005. The EPA has the last word on the site and the facility’s design.

For more information, visit:
http://www.glo.state.tx.us/news/news2004/docs/12-16-04-EPA-Grant-Solar-Wast ewater.pdf.

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ARTIST BOAT ARTS & ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATOR

Artist Boat is seeking a motivated and creative arts and environmental educator to deliver an Eco-Art Residency to an elementary school in Houston. This educator will deliver Artist Boat hands-on arts and environmental education curriculum to K-5th grade students. Position involves developing and enhancing Artist Boat curricula to be age-level appropriate, utilizing an outdoor classroom on the campus as the cornerstone of the teaching environment, and integrating art and science. This educator will serve as a professional lecturer/educator on campus, demonstrating to teachers and the community the benefits of multidisciplinary and inquiry-based learning.

The successful candidate will have a bachelor’s degree in science or fine arts, and additional experience in either discipline is desirable. This temporary position is full time, lasting from January 10, 2005, through May 27, 2005, with potential for advancement and continued employment at the end of the term. The position will require 7 hours of teaching, 4 days per week, and 12 hours of prep time per week, for a total of 40 hours per week. The pay is $480 a week. On a weekly basis, the art and environmental educator will report to and work directly with Artist Boat executive director Karla Klay to ensure hands-on and creative delivery of the Eco-Art Residency.

Please send a cover letter, resume, and references to Karla Klay via mail to: Artist Boat, A Partner in Education, 4919 Austin Place, Galveston, TX 77551, or e-mail kklay@artistboat.org by January 1, 2005. For more information about Artist Boat, visit http://www.artistboat.org.

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