Whacko weather so far this year

Ol' Heatwave's been around for a while but has seldom seen such weather as 2011.

In watching Laredo's inimitable Richard "Heatwave" Behrler, I was somewhat amazed to see that 2011 has been a record-setting year in regards to the weather. Frankly, I'm thinking of buying an old Farmer's almanac just to see what kind of summer to expect considering that our recent weather seems to have a split personality. Consider these facts that Ol' Heatwave told us about tonight:

February 3rd, 2011 -  That day's high of 30 degrees was the lowest high ever in February.
March ,2011           -  This was the warmest March in the last 86 years.
April, 2011              -  This April was the warmest April ever in Laredo
May 2, 2011           -   The temperature dropped to 41 degrees, the lowest temperature in May since 1900.

All in all, it looks like 2011 is turning out to be an exceptional year weather-wise. With this type of swings in temperatures, this could be a cooler than usual Summer but the consensus out on the streets of Laredo are that it's going to be a real scorcher. That water park that never materialized is sure sounding better and better.

No money to staff 13.8 Million dollar Haynes Recreationn Center?

I know the picture's kinda blurry, kind of like the City's thinking.

East Laredo has been anticipating the opening of the brand spanking new Haynes Recreation Center just off Clark boulevard in East Laredo.  The problem is that whenever it does open, there's going to be trouble in getting the money to staff it. City Manager Carlos Villiarreal was quoted in today's Laredo Morning Times as saying “I’m looking at money we don’t have".

 I'm sure that whatever grant the city is using to build it's latest behemoth rec center is very specific about what the money may be used for and apparently it doesn't include staffing. So, why built such a monumental structure in the first place if you're going to be complaining about not having money to hire people to run it?  No les occurrio hasta horita? (Did they not think of it until now)?

Not to worry, Villarreal followed his "no money" comment by saying that he would find a way to "add specialty personnel to the recreation center and add a police substation to the East Laredo facility". Whoa, how did we go from no money to adding a police sub station? Well, I guess we can't expect city hall to actually make sense when they tell us things.  At least, in this particular case, we can feel good that we're  getting something useful like a rec center/police sub-station and not just another multi-million dollar baseball field.

Unregulated status of fracking makes it impossible to know how much it's depleting our acquifers

Carrizo -Wilcox Acquifer

From The Denton Record-Chronicle
By Peggy Heinkel Wolfe

In the Eagle Ford Shale region, Mike Mahoney, director of the Evergreen Underground Water Conservation District, said energy operators — like others living, working and ranching in that region — have little access to surface water.

About 95 percent of the people in the Evergreen district, which covers about 2.4 million acres in four counties, depend on fresh water from two aquifers, the Carrizo and the Karnes, said Mike Mahoney, director of the Evergreen Underground Water Conservation District.  Because most Texas aquifers are slow to replenish once drawn down, water suppliers sometimes liken surface water to a checking account and groundwater to a savings account.

The Carrizo is deep and has few users, Mahoney said. The Karnes is shallow, he said, with some operators drilling water wells at the same level that would compete with domestic and agricultural users. With more than 130 new natural gas wells in the Eagle Ford Shale, Mahoney estimates that more than 2,000 acre-feet of groundwater have been pumped from aquifers to drill and frack the wells.“That’s far more than what the current ‘exempt use’ is,” he said.

In other words, the amount of groundwater used to drill and frack gas wells has outpaced what individual home and ranch owners in that region draw for drinking water and personal use, such as watering their gardens, fruit trees or family livestock.

Oil and gas operators are not required to report their water consumption, so while the agency has looked at the issue, no one really knows — whether in the Barnett Shale, the Eagle Ford Shale or anywhere else in the state — how much water the industry is drawing from aquifers and lakes.

Push Bush: Cuellar among a few Dems pushing to name federal buildings after Bushes

Bush: Hey Henry, you're getting more & more "cachetone"

WASHINGTON — Legislation that the House approved Monday would rename the courthouse and federal building in Midland the George H.W.Bush  and George W. Bush (Dubya) United States Courthouse and George Mahon Federal Building.

The bill, by Midland Republican Rep. Mike Conaway, would tack the names of Midland’s father-son presidents onto the existing George Mahon Federal Building, at 200 E. Wall Street.
 “The community I call home could not be prouder of our two most famous residents,” Conaway said as he offered the measure.

Mahon, a 22-term Democrat who served as chairman of the Appropriations Committee for the last 16 years of his congressional career, died in 1985.

Conaway’s bill had 25 co-sponsors — every other Texas Republican in the House, plus House Democrats Henry Cuellar of Laredo, Ruben Hinojosa of Mercedes and Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston.
The bill now heads to the Senate.

Texas RR Commission to become Texas Oil & Gas Commission. Their priority is to prohibit regulation of Fracking in Texas

We'll do whatever it takes to keep Eagle Ford Shale in Texas

From The Lone Star Report

The House approved the Texas Railroad (er... Texas Oil and Gas?) Commission Sunset bill following a discussion that lasted about three hours this afternoon.

Of the amendments offered to SB 655, most were by House Democrats and were soundly defeated. Among them was a plan to set up three districts for the commission -- one mostly Panhandle and North Texas, another for East Texas  and the Coastal Bend, and another West Texas, Rio Grande Valley, South Texas. Much of Central Texas was split between the districts.

Another defeated amendment would have let cities determine where natural gas pipelines would be allowed.
Another dealt specifically with the Barnett Shale in North Texas: It attempted to require the licensing of Registered Landmen -- the natural gas field employees who arrange for mineral and surface rights acquisition. The amendment would have allowed the Commission to set up curricula to train Landmen.

"Most resistance [to agency training of Landmen] have come from highly Republican areas," said Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Fort Worth).  "... We need an agency that can discipline these people when they step out of line."
Many Republicans claimed that tighter restrictions on gas fields -- particularly the booming Eagle Ford Shale in the Coastal Bend region -- would send business to neighboring states.

Rangel: the minute they start humping the ground, we'll tag them

Um, well you know just, umm pretty much just don't hump the ground and stuff.

No, it's not your dogs you have to worry about. Although the way district II councilman talked about the new "beer run" ordinance, you'd think he was talking about ol' Fido.  Rangel appeared on Pro8news and mentioned that bikinis are OK but if the (beer run) girls start wearing nothing but paint or humping the ground, then, the LPD will move in and "tag" them. Wait, it gets tougher! After repeated violations, they might, jut might issue a citation to the owner- Gasp!

CAA & pitiful weatherization work: How bad is it??

 "Someone left this at the door with a note saying they'll bill the county".

We all knew that sooner or later, Webb county was going to be in the (bad) news again. Sure enough, they made the front page of the Laredo Morning Times today thanks to the CAA, the gift that insists on keeping on giving.

 According to the story by reporter Andrew Kreighbaum, Webb attorney Ana Maria Cavazos is quoted as saying “Little if any of it will be recommended for reimbursement" referring to the over $400,000 that the county reportedly owes five Laredo weatherization contractors: Laredo Accurate Inspections, Zertuche Construction, Marion Services LLC, Border Insulation and AA Builders. Cavazos added "How these homes got weatherized is beyond me".  She also explained 34 of the 80 files reviewed by the state lacked even an application for weatherization assistance.

Another reason that the Texas Department of Housing & Community affairs is expected to recommend against reimbursing the local contractors is because of the poor quality of work they found. Just how bad was it? Well, apparently the homes they inspected displayed such shoddy workmanship that TDHCA just threw their hands up and frankly gave up on the inspections altogether. What else did they expect? I mean, come on this is Webb County CAA we're talking about.

So now the options are: 1) abide by the state's recommendations, not pay the contractors and perhaps get sued for non-payment. Or, 2)Pay for the shoddy work, not get reimbursed by the state for failing to follow TDHCA's recommendation and pay the contractors with taxpayer money which has not even been budgeted.  Given the inferior and deplorable qualitry of work these contractors did, I think the county should do what the state is advising and not pay.  If they sue, how can they win after having done such a laughable job of weatherizing? OK, Danny Valdez and commissioners, let's see if you can step up and do the right thing.