Articles by Joe Carroll

Houston to Sell $1.1 Billion Bonds for Firefighter Settlement

Houston plans to sell more than $1 billion in bonds to settle a firefighters’ pay dispute and the city’s chief financial officer is warning it will swell the annual budget shortfall by as much as 75%. The fourth-largest US city …

Texas Wildfire Conditions Seen Worsening After Brief Respite

Dry, windy weather that’s been fanning the worst Texas wildfire in almost two decades will return later this week after a brief respite of rain and snow. Fires raging across the Texas Panhandle have scorched homes and ranches, menaced an …

Freeze Slams Texas; Power Could Be Out for Days

The deep freeze that has forced the shutdown of U.S. refineries, oil wells and meat plants, disrupted shipments of soybeans and corn, and is still leaving more than 3 million customers without electricity could continue to keep parts of Texas …

Houston Skies May Darken Again as Tank Farm Disaster-Site Teardown Begins

The company behind the four-day chemical blaze that cast a black plume over Houston earlier this year is preparing to destroy one of the tanks at the facility, raising the risk that the site could see “flash” fires. Intercontinental Terminals …

Houston Ship Channel Reopens After Collision Pollutes Air, Water

The Houston Ship Channel reopened to limited traffic on Sunday after a vessel collision dumped almost 400,000 gallons of a gasoline ingredient and choked suburbs of the U.S. city with noxious fumes. A U.S. Coast Guard-led response team has begun …

Houston-Area Chemical Disaster Zone Remains No-Go Zone 2 Weeks After Blaze

Two weeks after a chemical storage complex near Houston erupted in flames and menaced tens of thousands of people with dangerous fumes, the site remains too hazardous for investigators to approach. Intercontinental Terminal Co. is still trying to drain millions …

Shipping Resumes in Houston Channel Closed After Chemical Tank Fire

The U.S. Gulf Coast’s most important industrial waterway partially reopened on Monday after it was polluted with cancer-causing benzene and toxic runoff from the region’s worst chemical disaster in more than a decade. A two-mile (3.2-kilometer) stretch of the Houston …

Houston Channel Still Closed as Chemical Fire Cleanup Continues; Texas Sues ITC

Vessels will be allowed to enter a tributary to the Houston Ship Channel this morning, a workaround allowing some shipping in the area as the main route into the region remains closed as a result of a cloud of cancer-causing …

Exxon Not Liable for Alligators in Mississippi Dump, Court Rules

Exxon Mobil Corp. isn’t responsible for alligators overrunning a rural dump site it owns in Mississippi, the state supreme court ruled, because the global oil explorer can’t control wild animals. The family that felt menaced by the scaly reptiles infesting …