Not surprised if this thread ends up getting deleted because of how politically charged the subject is. While it remains, my 2 thoughts on the Trans-Pecos Pipeline include natural gas being available to the residents of Presidio for the first time and the potential to reduce Mexico's dependence on coal fired power plants which contribute to the air pollution problem in the Big Bend.
Mike Marks, post: 397460, member: 1108 wrote: But, somehow between 2009 and today the right hands were greased, the casino is open, there's a single traffic light at the intersection......
We've got a little more cooperation between the State and tribal governments around here. The Citizen Potowatomi Nation wanted to build a casino adjacent to an interstate at a rural intersection. A major overhaul of the ramps and crossover viaduct would be required. The State said they would put it on their "5 year" program. That wasn't fast enough for the CPN. The State drew the plans and the Potowatomis wrote a fat check. It was built within 9 months. There's money to be made with those casinos..
TXSurveyor, post: 397439, member: 6719 wrote: Buring a pipeline across the desert is not destroying the environment.
I guess I'd think that, too, if I wasn't aware of what the actual damage that pipelines do is. I realize that there are plenty of folks who have absolutely no understanding of the value of the Big Bend, but the reality is that it is much easier to destroy such a place and its long-term value than to just pretend that all that matters is the next paycheck. It's completely irresponsible, of course, but a sense of responsibility has pretty much always been optional in the ole bidness.
Andy Nold, post: 397462, member: 7 wrote: Not surprised if this thread ends up getting deleted because of how politically charged the subject is. While it remains, my 2 thoughts on the Trans-Pecos Pipeline include natural gas being available to the residents of Presidio for the first time and the potential to reduce Mexico's dependence on coal fired power plants which contribute to the air pollution problem in the Big Bend.
Basically, the trade-off is destroying the Big Bend landscape in order to provide natural gas to the residents of Presidio to do what? Heat their houses? Presidio has to be the single locality in Texas with the fewest number of Degree Days in the Heating Season of any city in Texas. The obvious fact is that the 42-inch natural gas pipeline is being built to sell gas to Mexico, collect gas from future gas wells in the Big Bend, and, probably eventually, sell Mexican natural gas in Texas. The permanent damage done by the pipeline hardly is balanced by a Presidio resident being able to cook with NG instead of electricity or propane.
As for the coal-fired plants supposed conversion to natural gas: I don't believe that there are any plans whatsoever to decommission either Carbon I or Carbon II in Northern Mexico. That is most likely a PR head fake to fool anyone weighing the enormous environmental damage to the Big Bend resulting from the pipe line construction and operation.
The electric plants were converted to coal because it is more efficient than natural gas.
Property filtered, coal plants are not that harmful to the environment and the collected soot is used to make concrete and other filler type situations.
There are more hazardous plants that run 24/7 and nobody is complaining against them.
Is is safer to frack or to mine coal?
This pipeline has been protested along every section that cross the United States from most every property owner, community and group possible.
They have waited out administrations for more favorable times to get it built.
The gas is in storage now waiting for the pipeline to be built.
Americans may never have the opportunity to use any of this gas.
It will probably be put on ships and sent overseas.
Several pipelines were built across NETexas in the last decade and they literally tore thru the neighborhood as fast as possible and many leaks had to be sealed.
In Louisiana and Texas many portions floated and rose up from the swamps and had to be fixed.
:bomb:
A Harris, post: 397486, member: 81 wrote: This pipeline has been protested along every section that cross the United States from most every property owner, community and group possible.
Just to keep the pipelines correctly identified, the Trans-Pecos Pipeline that runs through the Big Bend starts at Fort Stockton and runs Southwesterly for about 143 miles to Presidio along a route evidently chosen to minimize the company's construction cost while maximizing its blight upon the landscape.
Pipelines are simply underground transport facilities and are connected by some means or another.
True that this is only one segment that is connected to a vast system.
There has been speculation that the system will eventually connect to Venezuela.
This event compares to that of the building of rails across sacred grounds over a century ago.
A Harris, post: 397490, member: 81 wrote: This event compares to that of the building of rails across sacred grounds over a century ago.
With the highly significant exceptions that 100 years ago corporations were actually regulated in Texas and in the US. In 1916, the Valuation Act of 1913 was in effect and railroad companies were required to submit extensive data to the Interstate Commerce Commission to justify various rates charged as reasonable and not contrary to the public interest. (Incidentally, this is why all of the railroad valuation maps exist in the records of the ICC in the National Archives.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valuation_Act
The other highly significant exception in Texas is that there was not a streamlined process for designating a route and just taking a right-of-way by eminent domain. A railroad company that could not come to an agreement with a landowner as to the value of the easement to be acquired, had to litigate the question and that included a jury trial before local residents.
In the case of railroads, this fact may not be well known, but the 19th-century railroad companies were required to designate the routes along which they would operate a railroad in their corporate charters. In other words, the public good was regarded as served by a railroad connecting, say, the Texas cities of Dallas and Cleburne and various powers were vested in a certain railroad company to build that connection, but I don't believe any of them were authorized to exercise eminent domain powers anywhere in the State that they thought it might be advantageous to their corporate interests.
The main transfer of public good of the day consisted of grants of lands by the State of Texas to railroad companies as an incentive to foster the construction of rail lines. However, those subsidies were regulated very well indeed, with some companies who abused the rules being sued to by the State to relinquish lands to which they were not under the law entitled, forcing some into bankruptcy. The Galveston Harrisburg & San Antonio and the Texas & Pacific are excellent examples of this.
Kent McMillan, post: 397488, member: 3 wrote: Just to keep the pipelines correctly identified, the Trans-Pecos Pipeline that runs through the Big Bend starts at Fort Stockton and runs Southwesterly for about 143 miles to Presidio along a route evidently chosen to minimize the company's construction cost while maximizing its blight upon the landscape.
Kent I can appreciate uninhabited and pristine natural areas on our planet and generally agree any construction in those areas should be minimized. And I have also been to the Big Bend area. Compared to inroads or railroads I would think a buried pipeline wouldn't disturb such a "fragile" ecosystem. I'm thinking the initial scar would eventually heal for the most part. And save an occasional super surface gauging station or valve assembly the pipeline would pretty much be hidden from an untrained eye.
While such a desolate area does have its beauty, I wouldn't think a pipeline could "blight" an area that already has its share of "blight". Saving a catastrophic structural failure what permanent damage could be inflicted by the pipeline?
paden cash, post: 397500, member: 20 wrote: Kent I can appreciate uninhabited and pristine natural areas on our planet and generally agree any construction in those areas should be minimized. And I have also been to the Big Bend area. Compared to inroads or railroads I would think a buried pipeline wouldn't disturb such a "fragile" ecosystem. I'm thinking the initial scar would eventually heal for the most part. And save an occasional super surface gauging station or valve assembly the pipeline would pretty much be hidden from an untrained eye.
While such a desolate area does have its beauty, I wouldn't think a pipeline could "blight" an area that already has its share of "blight". Saving a catastrophic structural failure what permanent damage could be inflicted by the pipeline?
The actual situation is that the Big Bend is largely untouched wild desert. The pipeline scars in the arid Trans-Pecos won't heal anytime in the next fifty years. They are a blight on the landscape in that they will persist for more than 100 years in many places where the native vegetation and shallow topsoil have been stripped off and replaced with broken rock and other bits of inorganic matter that won't support much of anything, sort of a "thanks for your money" note from a couple of billionaires in Mexico and Dallas.
While it is true that you could run a shredder over the Chihuahuan Desert and expect that, with the root systems intact and soil undisturbed, in maybe five or ten years the shredded swath wouldn't be readily apparent, pipeline construction is much more destructive.
When you factor in second-order effects of the construction of gathering lines and bulldozing of drill sites in a uniquely valuable wilderness area, what you get is a first-order disaster whereby the public good is transfered to a couple of billionaires with some surveyors apparently satisfied that it's good enough that the Motel 6 will be booked up for a few months by interstate gypsy pipeline crews.
For those who are interested, here's an article about one of the pipeline billionaires. Note how he greased the skids and note that as a result we live in an age when you have the usual ethically-challenged folks in the ole & gas bidness running the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission. In any rational universe, that would be impossible, but this is Texas.
Andy Nold, post: 397462, member: 7 wrote: While it remains, my 2 thoughts on the Trans-Pecos Pipeline include natural gas being available to the residents of Presidio for the first time and the potential to reduce Mexico's dependence on coal fired power plants which contribute to the air pollution problem in the Big Bend.
Actually, if the pipeline company is claiming to provide natural gas service to the residents of Presidio, Texas, they must not have told the engineers who planned the route. The pipeline route as depicted on their own website misses the City of Presidio by miles. Even if they had run the 42-inch high pressure (about 1200 p.s.i., I assume) natural gas pipeline through Presidio, there are absolutely zero gas mains in place to connect any tap to. So, the claim that this is for the folks in Presidio is obvious malarkey.
Here's a map compiled from USGS 1 x 2 quadrangle maps and the pipeline route map as posted on the Trans-Pecos website. The magenta line is the pipeline route. The distance from the City of Presidio to the nearest point on the pipeline is about twelve miles. I guess some sort of communal gas tap will be set up twelve miles Northwest of Presidio so that residents can drive out on one of the few cold Winter nights to experience the real thrill of natural gas (before, of course, it disappears under the Rio Grande into Mexico).
Presidio has about 4400 people and neighboring Ojinaga, Mexico has about 22600 for a total of about 27000 in that immediate area.
Meanwhile the total population of Presidio County is only 7800. Subtracting Presidio and the county seat town of Marfa leaves a grand total of roughly 1400 elsewhere throughout the county. That's about 0.4 people per square mile. The total land area is 3856 square miles but the only schools in the county are in Marfa and Presidio, which are 60 miles apart. Marfa schools enroll 340 students in K-12 while Presidio schools enroll 1400 kids.
