KTBB News, Weather, Talk

LUBBOCK (AP) – A day care facility in a Texas county that’s part of the measles outbreak has multiple cases, including children too young to be fully vaccinated, public health officials say.

West Texas is in the middle of a still-growing measles outbreak with 505 cases reported on Tuesday. The state expanded the number of counties in the outbreak area this week to 10. The highly contagious virus began to spread in late January and health officials say it has spread to New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas and Mexico.

Three people who were unvaccinated have died from measles-related illnesses this year, including two elementary school-aged children in Texas. The second child died Thursday at a Lubbock hospital, and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attended the funeral in Seminole, the epicenter of the outbreak.

As of Friday, there were seven cases at a day care where one young child who was infectious gave it to two other children before it spread to other classrooms, Lubbock Public Health director Katherine Wells said.

“Measles is so contagious I won’t be surprised if it enters other facilities,” Wells said.

There are more than 200 children at the day care, Wells said, and most have had least one dose of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, which is first recommended between 12 and 15 months old and a second shot between 4 and 6 years old.

“We do have some children that have only received one dose that are now infected,” she said.

The public health department is recommending that any child with only one vaccine get their second dose early, and changed its recommendation for kids in Lubbock County to get the first vaccine dose at 6 months old instead of 1. A child who is unvaccinated and attends the day care must stay home for 21 days since their last exposure, Wells said.

Case count and hospitalization numbers in Texas have climbed steadily since the outbreak began, and spiked by 81 cases from March 28 to April 4.

On Tuesday, the state added another 24 cases to its count and two additional counties, Borden and Randall. One more person was hospitalized since Friday, with 57 total.

Gaines County, where the virus has been spreading through a close-knit Mennonite community, has the majority of cases, with 328 on Tuesday. Neighboring Terry County is second with 46, followed by Lubbock County with 36.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention met with Texas officials Monday to determine how many people it would send to West Texas to assist with the outbreak response, spokesman Jason McDonald said Monday. He expected a small team to arrive later this week, followed by a bigger group on the ground next week.

The CDC said its first team was in the region from early March to April 1, withdrawing on-the-ground support days before a second child died in the outbreak.

___

(AUSTIN) — Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar reminds business owners that April 15 is the deadline to file property tax renditions with their county appraisal districts. Different deadlines apply for certain regulated property.

A rendition is a report that lists a business’ good faith estimate of value for its taxable inventory, furniture and fixtures, machinery, equipment and other property owned or managed as of Jan. 1 each year. The appraisal district may use the information reported in the rendition to set property values.

A rendition allows property owners to record their opinion of their property’s value and ensures that the appraisal district notifies property owners before changing a recorded value. Exempt property, such as church property and equipment used for farming, is not subject to rendition.

Owners whose property was damaged by storm, flood or fire last year may file a special decreased value report, which indicates the property’s condition on Jan. 1, 2025. Filing the decreased value report could lower those owners’ final tax bills for 2025.

Rendition forms and decreased value report forms are available from county appraisal district offices statewide and may be downloaded at the Comptroller’s property tax forms webpage.

For more information about property renditions, deadlines, deadline extensions, penalties and rendition forms, taxpayers may contact the Comptroller’s Property Tax Assistance Division at 800-252-9121 (press 3) or visit the division online.

ODESSA — The Environmental Protection Agency has approved a Texas company’s application to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and inject it underground, becoming the first project in the state to be awarded such a permit.

Occidental Petroleum Corporation, a Houston-based oil firm, will start storing 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide in deep, non-permeable rock formations 4,400 feet underground as soon as this year. The facility will be located 20 miles southwest of Odessa.

“This is a significant milestone for the company as we are continuing to develop vital infrastructure that will help the United States achieve energy security,” Vicky Hollub, the company’s president and CEO, said in a statement. She said these permits will help energy companies “address their emissions or produce vital resources and fuels.”

Carbon dioxide is a byproduct of oil and gas production and the largest contributor to climate change. Oil and gas facilities leak or vent the greenhouse gas, which traps heat in the atmosphere and prevents it from cooling. Environmentalists and the oil and gas industry are divided over the environmental benefits of carbon capture.

While the industry has hedged its climate goals on the technology, environmental policy experts remain skeptical about whether it significantly reduces air pollution, saying the world should transition to other fuel sources to slow climate change. Some Texas scientists say the injection method has been tested and proven to work for years and now needs to be implemented.

Oxy will attempt to reduce the output of the gas through a technology called direct air capture, or DAC. It grabs the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and separates it from other particles in the air by incinerating them. The equipment then compresses the gas to a brine before transporting and storing it permanently underground.

According to the draft permit, which the EPA presented to the public for feedback last fall, Oxy will monitor the pressure and temperature of the well and downhole. It will measure every second on the surface and every ten seconds inside the well, providing a reading every ten minutes. Workers will account for corrosion and groundwater every three months. The company must alert the EPA 30 days before most tests or if there are any changes. It must also alert them of any malfunctions within 24 hours.

Virginia Palacios, executive director of Commission Shift, an oil and gas watchdog group, said Oxy’s permit application redacted certain details regarding the layers where the carbon dioxide would be stored, which only the EPA could review. She said that concealing this information gives residents no assurance that the gas will stay put, adding that the public should have been allowed to evaluate that information. The permit contains information showing the depth and construction of the injection well as well as the layers of rock.

More companies could follow Oxy’s lead, and win quicker approval if Texas regulators win the authority to grant such permits. The Texas Railroad Commission, the state agency regulating oil and gas companies, has applied to the EPA for the power to issue similar permits. The EPA is currently accepting public testimony. A public hearing for the public to issue feedback has not been set.

Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.

ODESSA — Texas’ renewable energy industry is booming.

Accounting for nearly 90% of new electrical generation, wind, solar and battery storage industries have established themselves as a reliable source of energy for the state’s grid — and positioned Texas as a national leader in the renewable energy arena.

Legislation by state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, will dramatically test its ability to maintain its momentum.

The legislation proposes sweeping administrative rules, imposes fees and requires the Texas Public Utility Commission to approve wind and solar projects before they can break ground. It is the second time Kolkhorst has attempted to tie a tight leash to renewables and deter what she and her allies describe as a visual blight in rural Texas towns and unchecked growth.

The bill passed its first legislative test last week when a Senate committee voted overwhelmingly to advance it to the full upper chamber. It must also have approval in the Texas House before it becomes law.

Renewable energy groups fiercely oppose her efforts and say the bill would limit energy production the state’s grid desperately needs to support Texas’ population growth. The Energy Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s main electrical grid operator, projects demand to double in the next decade. And they said it is antithetical to Gov. Greg Abbott’s “all of the above” approach to energy generation.

While there has been a noticeable shift around renewable energy at the Capitol, Kolkhorst and other lawmakers have not relented. Lawmakers have advanced other bills, including a proposal by state Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, which requires 50% of the grid’s energy to rely on power sources that can be turned on or off at will, meaning natural gas and coal. Renewable energy companies must help achieve this goal, or must otherwise purchase “natural gas credits” to comply.

“Any policy that hamstrings or puts red tape on energy development, any energy development, is not good for the grid,” said Daniel Giese, director of state affairs at the Solar Energy Industries Association. “It’s not good for consumers either.”

Kolkhorst did not respond to an interview request.

Her backers said lawmakers should strike a balance between enabling the industry’s growth and protecting landowners, wildlife and natural resources and preserving landscapes. They said not enough information has been gathered on the environmental impacts of the growing solar and wind industry’s infrastructure. Cara Gustafson, a spokesperson for Stewards for Conservation, a group formed last year to advocate for this issue, said it is not driven by an anti-renewable sentiment.

“We knew we were going to be painted as anti-renewable no matter what,” Gustafson said. “If we were anti-renewables, we would just say that.”

Kolkhorst’s bill would require any wind or solar equipment generating anything greater than 10 megawatts to seek a permit with the Public Utilities Commission, the state agency that regulates electric, telecommunications and some water and wastewater utilities. The application must contain a description of the facility, specify its type and a copy of information filed to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. It also directs the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to review environmental impacts.

Applying for a wind or solar facility would also trigger a public hearing with counties within 25 miles of the proposed project. The applicant must publish the details of the hearing at least twice in a newspaper. The utility commission must wait no less than 30 days before approving or rejecting the application, consider what the bill’s writers call “compliance history,” and accept input from nearby county judges.

Those who get the permit must ensure any equipment is at least 100 feet away from any property line and 200 feet away from any habitable structure. Wind projects must be kept at a distance of 3,000 feet from the nearest property. Property owners can waive these requirements.

The bill would additionally order any permitted facility to monitor, record, and report any environmental impacts and conduct wildlife assessments to submit them to Parks and Wildlife. Every permitted facility must also pay an environmental impact fee determined by the utilities commission, which would pay for a “clean-up” fund.

The proposed rules for the wind and solar companies stand in stark contrast to policies that govern oil and gas production. For instance, no statewide rule mandates oil and gas wells to be at certain distances from residential properties. Cities can pass ordinances to set them. County governments don’t need to hold hearings. The oil and gas industry is subject to certain air and water pollution rules regulated by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The Texas Railroad Commission oversees permitting, sets hearings and approves or denies an operator’s application.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Texas Railroad Commission, which issues permits for oil and gas drilling, said permitting “is designed to protect groundwater and the surrounding sub-surface environment to ensure residents aren’t affected by pollution.”

The spokesperson added the commission requires operators to build firewalls around oil tanks that are within the limits of any city, and where tanks are at least 500 feet from any highway or home or closer than 1,000 feet to any school or church. The railroad commission also considers whether the tank is hazardous.

Gustafson said the bill gives landowners more agency over the projects by establishing a uniform process for every project. She said environmental studies are necessary to protect natural resources.

The Parks and Wildlife Department, in a hearing last year, urged industry developers involved in wind, solar and storage projects to seek their input to “minimize the impact” on wildlife and natural resources. Laura Zebehazy, the agency’s ecological and environmental planning director, during the hearing said her team works with some, but not all, renewable energy projects.

Zebehazy, who said parks and wildlife input is voluntary, said the construction, operation, maintenance and decommissioning of the equipment can have negative environmental and wildlife consequences.

None of this is required currently under Texas law. Wind and solar companies work directly with landowners who agree to a lease and contract from which they benefit financially. The industry almost exclusively relies on its relationship with landowners, said Judd Messer, the Texas vice president of the Advanced Power Alliance, a group advocating for renewable energy policies in 11 states. He said the bill invites the state to regulate a landowner’s ability to manage their property freely, adding that no other energy-generating industry is subject to the same standards.

The renewable energy sector faces other pressing issues regarding its growth, said Messer. He said the industry is focused on dealing with the waste created by equipment that no longer generates electricity.

Messer said the bill “only inserts more government into a situation where private property rights and free enterprise ought to win the day.”

Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.