Hurricane Ike’s Lousy Aim
Director Phil Bedient comments on a report released today by Rice University’s Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters Center (SSPEED): “‘Ike was a Category 2 hurricane, and it...
View ArticleThe Lunchtime Racket at Brady’s Landing
Visiting the Houston Ship Channel on a promotional “toxic tour” of sites where the air will likely be invigorated once nearby refineries get chugging on the Canadian tar sands headed for Houston...
View ArticleHeadwaters of the Houston Shit Channel
A sewer collecting system on the northern banks of Buffalo Bayou near Lockwood donated more than 100,000 gallons of untreated waste to the waterway last night. City officials expect the problem to be...
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The Houston Ship Channel: Where There’s Beef
Having perhaps worked its way through the 100,000 gallons of raw sewage dumped into Buffalo Bayou shortly before New Year’s, the Houston Ship Channel received an additional contribution late...
View ArticleComment of the Day: The Slice of Houston Where Nobody’s Home
“I did NRFU (Non Response Followup) surveys for the census in the wedge between 45 and the Ship Channel and this doesn’t suprise me at all. LOTS of people don’t answer the door. Lots more told me of...
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Goodbye, Uncle Ben: East Side Silos Are Coming Down
The new owner of Texas Rice’s old Fidelity St. property has already begun demolishing the grain silos on the site, which are just visible from the East Freeway. A reader sends Swamplot this photo...
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Smelt on the Banks of the Houston Ship Channel
Included in USA Today‘s national list of “ghost factories” — forgotten lead smelting sites that have left behind toxic particles in the nearby soil — is the Lead Products Co. site at 709 N. Velasco...
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Along the Shores of Buffalo Bayou
Catie Dixon comes up with a few gems in her interview with the team marketing the 136-acre campus HQ at 4100 Clinton Dr. in the southern portion of the Fifth Ward just east of Downtown that Halliburton...
View ArticleComment of the Day: Up from the Ship Channel
“Many will think I’m crazy, but I don’t care . . . Buffalo Bayou (even on the east side of downtown) can be an aesthetically pleasing stream, and could be developed into something nice. Look at the...
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Battleship Texas Battles To Stay Afloat
“It was very eerie to see the stern deck of the ship so close to the water,” writes Swamplot reader J.W. Lodge IV, who visited the leaking Battleship Texas by boat yesterday, and who notes that a news...
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New Mystery Owner of 136 Acres in the Fifth Ward
Missing from today’s announcement by KBR that the company has completed the sale of its Ship-Channel-front 136-acre former headquarters campus at 4100 Clinton Dr. in the Fifth Ward: any mention of the...
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How Houston’s Air Got Better
During the past decade, Houston’s notoriously polluted air has become — well, if not quite good, then not quite as bad, says NPR’s Richard Harris. (Pay no attention to what that ozone app may or may...
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New Family Farm Now Reclaiming East End Industrial Site Near Ship Channel
Two brothers who have opened a new agricultural venture in Houston’s East End are billing it as Houston’s “first private farm inside the 610 Loop.” Amid the gritty industrial wilds of N. Greenwood St....
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The Ship Channel’s Folk History on View
Houston Arts Alliance’s Stories of a Workforce: Celebrating the Centennial of the Houston Ship Channel, an exhibit running through January in the Houston Public Library’s Julia Ideson building,...
View ArticleA Loftier View of the Houston Ship Channel
Can’t stop celebrating the Houston Ship Channel’s recent centennial, but unable to make it to that exhibit downtown? Do industrially majestic helicopter shots of mighty tankers and container ships...
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Comment of the Day: Why Is Anyone Living That Close to a Refinery?
“Tax policy should probably discourage residential habitation in neighborhoods near the Houston Ship Channel and encourage people to move away from them. As such, giving existing residents or...
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This Morning’s LyondellBasell Refinery Fire Put Out 19 Hours after...
News choppers milling around the LyondellBasell refinery at 12000 Lawndale St. this morning, just west of the 610 bridge over the Ship Channel, caught some shots of billowing black smoke and flames at...
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San Jacinto Toxic Waste Studies Delayed by San Jacinto Flooding
Another effect of the Memorial Day weekend and early June floods: the EPA says it has had to pause some of its latest study efforts near the 1960s industrial waste pits in the San Jacinto river (shown...
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What’s So Special About the Pasadena Refinery That Released 3 More Tons of...
“We worry about this plant more than we worry about the others,” Air Alliance Houston director Adrian Shelley tells Dylan Baddour after last week’s release of a 6,000-pound cocktail of toxic air...
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Where the Chemical Weapons Were Stored, Just Off Beltway 8
Included in ProPublica’s effort to identify and map every abandoned munitions facility in the U.S. — especially those that might still harbor toxic waste, residue from chemical weapons, or explosives:...
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