Tag Archives: Harris County

‘I Am Disturbed’: Locals Alarmed Over Plan to Inject Toxic Ohio Wastewater Underground in Texas

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“It’s foolish to put it on the roadway,” said one Houston-area resident. “We have accidents on a regular basis. Do they really want to have another contamination zone?”

By Kenny Stancil.  Published 2-24-2023 by Common Dreams.

Photo: Jamie Brown/Twitter

Residents and officials in Harris County, Texas have expressed alarm since learning that contaminated water used to extinguish a fiery train crash in East Palestine, Ohio has been transported more than 1,300 miles to a Houston suburb for disposal.

Houston’s Coalition for Environment, Equity, and Resilience tweeted Thursday: “We are disturbed to learn that toxic wastewater from East Palestine, Ohio will be brought to Harris County for ‘disposal.’ Our county should not be a dumping ground for industry.” Continue reading →

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Half of Mail-In Ballot Requests Rejected in Key Texas County

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Democracy defenders contend that Texas’ newly enacted restrictions on mail-in ballots are part of a nationwide pattern of Republican efforts to disenfranchise minority voters.

By Brett Wilkins.  Published 1-14-2022 by Common Dreams

Voting rights advocates responded with alarm to reports this week that around half of the mail-in voting applications in Texas’ fifth-largest county have been rejected as a result of a recently enacted voter suppression law that experts say is part of a nationwide Republican effort to restrict access to the polls.

According to The Texas Tribune, election officials in Travis County—home of the state capital, Austin—said they have rejected around half of the 700 requested vote-by-mail applications they’ve received so far ahead of the March primaries. The officials say they are complying with S.B. 1, a controversial law signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott last September. Continue reading →

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We mapped how food gets from farms to your home

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Where has your produce been? CoolR/Shutterstock.com

Megan Konar, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

My team at the University of Illinois just developed the first high-resolution map of the U.S. food supply chain.

Our map is a comprehensive snapshot of all food flows between counties in the U.S. – grains, fruits and vegetables, animal feed, and processed food items.

To build the map, we brought together information from eight databases, including the Freight Analysis Framework from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which tracks where items are shipped around the country, and Port Trade data from the U.S. Census Bureau, which shows the international ports through which goods are traded. Continue reading →

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