Holy Cow, post: 397531, member: 50 wrote: Presidio has about 4400 people ...
Meanwhile the total population of Presidio County is only 7800.
Yes, that is exactly the reason why the Big Bend is the draw that it is. The landscape is exceptionally beautiful and has, until now, been largely unspoiled. But hey, if a Mexican billionaire needs to clear a 125 ft. wide right-of-way across it in order to try to improve his standing as only the second wealthiest person on the planet, why should anyone in Texas tell him "no"?
Naturally, the school districts in these West Texas counties have large budget surpluses already. Those excess funds get transferred to the urban blight areas like Dallas where the other billionaire pipeliner has his offices.
Holy Cow, post: 397531, member: 50 wrote: 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.
Are you making a moooo-t point for argument sake?
Mooooooooooooot points are my specialty.
Kent McMillan, post: 397523, member: 3 wrote: 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).
That looks like perfect, absolutely perfect country for wind mills, id imagine the wind really blows there. The great thing about huge wind farms (besides the noise and raptor killing that helps the grouse) is the night time light show, how they blink in unison, the roads will help the less able experience the country, it would perfect!!!!!
Holy Cow, post: 397536, member: 50 wrote: Mooooooooooooot points are my specialty.
Better than an udderly ridiculous point.
No, Moe. The windmills are all being built in the panhandle of Oklahoma. 130 more are underway at the moment for one company. Primarily in the east end of Cimarron County and west end of Texas County. When you subtract the county seat town of Boise City in Cimarron County from the county population stats there are only 1200 people left to occupy about 1840 square miles or 0.66 people per square mile. The area involved is known as being the dead center of the Dust Bowl in the 1930's. The classic photo used to demonstrate nature's assault on rural life was taken there. The stubby little things in the foreground are fence posts.
MightyMoe, post: 397538, member: 700 wrote: That looks like perfect, absolutely perfect country for wind mills, id imagine the wind really blows there. The great thing about huge wind farms (besides the noise and raptor killing that helps the grouse) is the night time light show, how they blink in unison, the roads will help the less able experience the country, it would perfect!!!!!
Actually, there are plenty of wind farms in Texas, particularly on the tops of mesas along the I-10 corridor. Fortunately, the Big Bend is distinctly unsuited to wind farms, so the Mexican billionaire's pipeline is the problem. The parts of sunny West Texas where transmission line infrastructure is in place will also be ripe for solar farms. The future is obviously in renewable sources, which is why it is so insane to destroy the Big Bend in order to burn more hydrocarbons.
Holy Cow, post: 397543, member: 50 wrote: No, Moe. The windmills are all being built in the panhandle of Oklahoma. 130 more are underway at the moment for one company. Primarily in the east end of Cimarron County and west end of Texas County. When you subtract the county seat town of Boise City in Cimarron County from the county population stats there are only 1200 people left to occupy about 1840 square miles or 0.66 people per square mile. The area involved is known as being the dead center of the Dust Bowl in the 1930's. The classic photo used to demonstrate nature's assault on rural life was taken there. The stubby little things in the foreground are fence posts.
The globally warmest years of the last few centuries, no one really knows why but the drought index covered more of the usa than at any other time. Could happen again, hopefully the windmills wont get covered.
Kent McMillan, post: 397430, member: 3 wrote: I don't think that any intelligent person will be unaware of the unsustainable boom economy that the oil and gas bidness has been and will continue to be. As for wanting to work as some billionaire's yard man or pool boy, be my guest.
https://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2015/08/20/in-the-land-of-the-oil-bust-the-repo-business-booms/
Actually, that's so far from the truth that it's laughable. I can see how someone who is a hired hand to the billionaires might think that, though.
Except for those activities that destroy the sustainable base of the Big Bend economy, that's true. Destructive, extractive industries are just the next bust waiting to happen, but the damage they do doesn't just pack up and leave with the gypsy work force typical of the oil & gas economy. That pipeline to Mexico can promote fracking activities in the Big Bend and the multiplication of gathering lines as well as eventually become the means for cheaper Mexican natural gas to be piped back into Texas.
It should be obvious from recent history that the oil and gas booms aren't sustainable. Now, the repo business is the next boom.
Gonna hafta disagree w/you on that Kent. I'm not Kelcey Warrens Pool Boy, we do work for ETC though. I've been invited to his ranch in Cherokee, wonderful place. We make our living surveying in the All Bidness, and make pretty damned good money doing it.
Greg Shoults RPLS, post: 397927, member: 531 wrote: Gonna hafta disagree w/you on that Kent. I'm not Kelcey Warrens Pool Boy, we do work for ETC though. I've been invited to his ranch in Cherokee, wonderful place. We make our living surveying in the All Bidness, and make pretty damned good money doing it.
The point, though, is that a surveyor becomes the equivalent of a yard man or pool boy to some Mexican or Texan billionaire in the ole bidness the moment that he identifies his own fortunes to be dependent upon said billionaire. The argument was advanced that destroying the Big Bend landscape with pipeline scars, and drill sites would be okay because it would create some jobs, but forgetting that jobs in the ole bidness are gypsy caravans that pull up stakes and disappear practically overnight.
Kent McMillan, post: 397478, member: 3 wrote: 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.
I'm having a bit of trouble with the actual damage angle. I've worked on NG pipelines (compressor station sites) and seen many thousands of miles of petroleum pipelines adjacent to major road corridors (not odd how near a road is a great place to route pipelines) and live near many gasoline and jet fuel lines. Once construction is completed the pipeline's presence fades into the landscape, except for airplane recon postmile placards, "do not dig here " signs, and a few above ground valve stations or whatever. Pretty innocuous, don't you think?
It's pick your poison. The fugacity of petroleum raw materials means they'll be transported wherever the market and refining capacity for them exists. That 700,000 gallons/day of oil is going to get to SouthEastern region (and Mexico apparently, international borders don't matter), by pipeline, truck, or barge. That translates to 70 trucks a day times route time every day, maybe 210 trucks on the road at any time. Or 23 railroad DT-111s on the rails 24/7 for maybe 75 tank cars moving every day. Both consume much more fuel than pipeline transport, which only has to maintain pressure and is the clear winner concerning global warming emissions cost for transport. Barging is out of the question, no oceanic access.
And I'm skeptical Big Bend is somehow a super magical place; my sister camped and hiked there last Fall and said it was nice, but nothing compared to the other places she's visited in CONUS and overseas. Lots of those other places are crisscrossed with pipelines and the eco damage is nearly nil, compared to vast solar and wind operations covering the deserts and ridges and their concomitant high tension power line corridors which lose 6% in transmission losses nationally. And traditional electric plants can perform near 24/7, solar and wind are dark at night or when the wind is calm, so peaker plants (natural gas, nuclear and/or coal) will sill be needed.
I'm thinking the Big Bend pipeline is rational.
Ruh-roh...somebody is disagreeing with the noted internet debater extraordinaire Kent "The Fencepost" McMillan. This post could turn into another long winded affair like Handling inaccuracy and the positions of existing monuments ...only time will tell. 😉
Kent McMillan, post: 397947, member: 3 wrote: [ . . ] destroying the Big Bend landscape with pipeline scars, and drill sites would be okay because it would create some jobs [ . . .]
Whut? There's no plans for new drill sites in Texas for this pipeline unless you can show me different. And a drill site is 1-4 acres which is cleaned up into a wellhead of 1/2 acre after completion and causes minimal damage in the long term.
Mike Marks, post: 397948, member: 1108 wrote: I'm having a bit of trouble with the actual damage angle. I've worked on NG pipelines (compressor station sites) and seen many thousands of miles of petroleum pipelines adjacent to major road corridors (not odd how near a road is a great place to route pipelines) and live near many gasoline and jet fuel lines. Once construction is completed the pipeline's presence fades into the landscape, except for airplane recon postmile placards, "do not dig here " signs, and a few above ground valve stations or whatever. Pretty innocuous, don't you think?
i'm going to make the educated guess thate you aren't familiar with the sort of scars that building pipelines leave in rocky terrain. Any trip along I-10 will provide examples. They are permanent in the sense of remaining easily visible for decades. In a landscape where everything is in the open, there's no hiding the mess that has been made in order for some Texas billionaire to get richer shipping natural gas to Mexico or some market beyond.
The fugacity of petroleum raw materials means they'll be transported wherever the market and refining capacity for them exists.
Not really. That pipeline was only feasible because hundreds of landowners were compelled to give up property rights so that some Mexican billionaire could build a pipeline that serves no public purpose. It's sole reason for existence is to make a couple of billionaires richer.
and I'm skeptical Big Bend is somehow a super magical place.
If you have no appreciation of the Big Bend, it's probably safe to say that you'd rather the whole state were bulldozed to help make a handful of billionaires even richer as long as you're in line for some of the crumbs they may scatter for the birds. The reality is that the Big Bend is an important economic asset of Texas that is being ruined in a way that amounts to a diversion of a public good to some Mexican billionaire's wallet.
My understanding is that this is a part of a pipeline system that will transport product from Canada to Mexico and not have any part of being delivered to the USA.
No one wants any sort of transport facility to divide and cut thru their part of heaven.
This new route is being fought hard on both fronts because of this.
What happened in NE Texas could not be held back, mostly because the previous easements held an expansion ryder to increase size as their needs grow.
I would imagine that would be the case with this new facility.
