Rebekah F. Ward

Texas water and soil are now filled with PFAS. Learn what they are, and how to avoid them.

After a year of sweeping new EPA regulations for “forever chemicals,” it remains unclear how PFAS pollution will be dealt with under the Trump administration.

The oil and gas industry on the Louisiana Gulf Coast is bracing for Hurricane Francine’s landfall with shutdowns and evacuations.

Rice researchers’ glacier graveyard brings an American climate eulogy to Iceland

Cities across the country are increasingly ditching firework displays on the Fourth of July and switching to elaborate drone light shows, bowing to fire risks, environmental concerns and pressure to be on the leading edge of the next big thing. In the Houston area, a slate of thundering pyrotechnics shows underscore how the region is bucking that trend and that for now, fireworks remain king. At Cy-Fair stand Pooter’s Fireworks, its sibling owners were skeptical that clouds of notebook-sized dr…

Texas shrimpers face grueling work during monthlong boat stints in the Gulf of Mexico, and their limited health care access onshore adds to the industry’s striking fatality rate, a team of UTHealth researchers found. “For example, research shows that self-medication is an issue among commercial fishermen,” said Shannon Guillot-Wright, an environmental and occupational specialist at UTHealth Houston who led the research. Her team’s study was published last week in the American Journal of Public H…

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality was formed in 1993 to regulate Texas’ air quality, water quality and waste management. Often referred to as the TCEQ, the agency combines state natural resource programs under one umbrella. Its mission statement promises to weigh economic and environmental costs by protecting “public health and natural resources consistent with sustainable economic development.” What does the TCEQ do? Every Texas businesses or entity with the potential to seriously…

County officials expect “very significant” property damage and debris from a severe thunderstorm that ploughed through Harris County Thursday evening, killing at least four people and leaving hundreds of thousands without power. LIVE UPDATES: At least 4 dead from severe thunderstorm that hit Houston In a press statement on the ongoing storm recovery late Thursday, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said the county’s precincts and engineering department would work overnight to clear roadway debris…

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has extended for three months the time two companies responsible for cleaning up dangerous toxins in the San Jacinto River have to submit a revised mitigation strategy. The extension comes after a yearslong stalemate over their proposed method culminated in the agency threatening to take over the process in January. MAP: Do you live near a contaminated Superfund site? Search our map of Houston-area hotspots. The EPA said in an April 18 letter that the re…

Two national nonprofits sued the head of the Environmental Protection Agency last week after the agency failed to hold Texas and other states accountable for poisonous sulfur dioxide pollution that violated federal limits. The Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club, two environmental groups, brought the lawsuit in federal court in California against EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. Instead of seeking a financial settlement, they asked the court to decide if Regan was violating th…