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RIO BRAVO
CRUDE OIL
Texas takes aim House members propose end to export ban By JIM MALEWITZ TEXAS TRIBUNE Photo by Jennifer Whitney | Texas Tribune
Francisco Peña asks the residents of an adult day care center if they feel comfortable drinking the tap water.
Plan for clean water crashes Ineptitude and alleged fraud destroy hopes for residents
With a glut of crude oil filling up pipelines and storage tanks and pushing down U.S. oil prices, Texas lawmakers are calling on Washington to lift its 40year-old ban on crude exports. “Congress should update our national trade policy to benefit Texas producers and consumers,” state Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, said Monday at a joint hearing of the House Energy Resources Committee, which he chairs, and the chamber’s International Trade and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee. More than 100 Texas
American companies may export refined petroleum products such as gasoline or diesel, but most crude here is stuck at home.
House members have signed on to a proposed resolution that calls the ban a “relic from an era of scarcity and flawed price control policies” that should be lifted. All three Texas railroad commissioners voiced support for the legislation, saying that finding more buyers for U.S. crude would prompt drilling, pouring
more cash into the state treasury. “If we want to sustain the ‘Texas miracle’ and lead the way to energy security, we have to compete in the international market,” Commissioner David Porter told lawmakers. American companies may export refined petroleum products such as gaso-
line or diesel, but most crude here is stuck at home. That’s because of a policy dating back to the mid-1970s. The U.S. produced far less oil then, and the 1973 Arab oil embargo caused global oil prices to skyrocket. In 1975, President Gerald Ford signed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, which banned crude oil exports with few exceptions – an effort to keep oil here and protect against price shocks. Since then, the U.S. — led by Texas — has become the world’s top oil producer, largely due to technological advances like hydraulic fracturing allowing oper-
See EXPORT PAGE 11A
By NEENA SATIJA AND ALEXA URA
ZAPATA COUNTY FAIR
TEXAS TRIBUNE
RIO BRAVO — It cost $12 million, and was expected to change the lives of hundreds of poor, mostly Hispanic families living in two hard-luck border towns. The Rio Bravo Water Treatment Plant opened in 2006 as a state-of-the-art technological wonder, designed to distill 2.4 million gallons of water per day — clean, safe, drinkable water. But nearly a decade later, the 8,000 residents of Rio Bravo and neighboring El Cenizo mostly still buy their drinking and cooking water from brightly colored kiosks around town. Elderly patrons at the senior care center run by Rio Bravo’s mayor drink bottled water and use the caps as lotería markers. “Who here would be willing to drink some tap water?” Dr. Francisco Peña asked the folks at the care center last fall, before he was elected mayor. “Who is willing to drink water that comes from your public water treatment plant?” From a crowd of 30 people, there was silence. The Rio Bravo plant has been fraught with problems since it opened. The sophisticated system often doesn’t work, or operators don’t know how to work it. State inspectors have repeatedly cited the plant for pumping foul water out to its customers. Eight current and former employees have been indicted for falsifying water quality records sent to the state. And the locals still cannot trust what comes out of their faucets. “We had to start using filtered water because we didn’t want to lose clients,” says Fausta Montoya, an employee at the Los Pasteles Bakery in Rio Bravo, which spends more than $150 a month on bottled water at Family Dollar. Notorious developer Cecil McDonald charged as little as $50 down for property in Rio Bravo and El Cenizo in the 1980s. When his real estate investment firm went bankrupt, the two colonias were
TRAIL RIDE LUNCHEON
Photo by Victor Strife | The Zapata Times
Laura Moncivais, Vanessa Cantu, Christina Gonzalez, Carissa Gonzalez, Eric Gonzalez, and Andrew Sanchez at the Zapata County Fairgrounds Pavilion during the ZCF Trail Ride Luncheon.
See WATER PAGE 11A
LAREDO POLICE
Man shoots girls, 6 and 16, dies in shootout By CÉSAR G. RODRIGUEZ THE ZAPATA TIMES
Two girls were shot and killed by a man Monday afternoon in a hostage situation in West Central Laredo, police said. The man, in his 60s, later died in a shootout with LPD. Police said the two girls, ages 6 and 16, were shot inside a residence in the 1800 block of Convent Avenue, located about a block south of Martin High. The male suspect then went outside the home brandishing a revolver and leading to a deadly encounter with police, LPD said. Police did not release the names of the man and two girls, pending the notification of next of kin. The relationship between the suspect and the girls was not immediately clear as of late Monday.At 3:30 p.m., officers responded to a report of shots fired at a
Photo by Danny Zaragoza | The Zapata Times
Laredo Police and SWAT team members group outside of a house in the 1800 block of Convent Avenue in Laredo on Monday afternoon after an armed hostage situation ended with three people dead.
home on Convent. Initial reports indicated that a man had taken people hostage, according to LPD
Chief Ray Garner. Investigator Joe E. Baeza, LPD spokesman, said the suspect went
outside the home and opened fire on the officers who had first arrived at the scene. On a second oc-
casion, he shot at a SWAT armored vehicle. No injuries were reported. At about 5 p.m., the suspect had his third and final encounter with police. “He came out on the porch brandishing a revolver and (it) looks like he did point it toward our officers and our officers returned fire. He’s deceased,” Garner said in a news conference moments after the shootout. “At this time, we don’t know why this went down like it did. One hostage rescued Garner added that one hostage was rescued from the home. Though the hostage, a man believed to be in his 80s, was not injured, he was taken to the hospital as a precautionary measure. LPD detectives took over the case.
See LAREDO PAGE 11A