In 1995, a Midlothian tire disposal company that collected, stored and shipped used tires for the near-by cement plants to burn in their kilns caught fire itself and burned for almost a month. It was located right across the street from the TXI plant. Black, toxic smoke wafted between high rise office buildings in Downtown Dallas for days. At the time, the fire was particularly and painfully ironic for Downwinders at Risk supporters who had been trying to tell people why burning tires in cement plants is a bad idea, as well as how Dallas air could be affected by pollution from the cement plants despite the state saying they were too far away. Now, here in plain sight from Reunion Tower, columns of carbon black smoke thousands of feet high originating less than 2000 feet from TXI gave lie to the official assurances that the cement plant was too distant to affect DFW air quality, or that miniatures versions of this fire was supposed to be effective "recycling" of tire wastes. Oh yeah, the name of the tire disposal company? "Safe Tire."  Read More

Call us Old School, but we just don't get corporate-sponsored Populism. William Jennings Bryant. "Fighting Bob" La Folette. Fiorella Laguardia. Teddy Roosevelt. The Koch Brothers? And the pitfalls of such a strategy were never more fully displayed than when a handful of Tea Party members right out of a Daily Show skit decided they would crash last Thursday's national EPA hearing on gas pollution in Arlington.  Read More

One of the most disturbing and unforgettable images conjured up by the recent TCEQ  inspection report on the Exide lead smelter in downtown Frisco is the revelation that for a number of years it was routine for the town's streets to be paved with highly contaminated lead slag waste from the facility.   Read More