HAWKS CELEBRATE 2014
SATURDAY JUNE 21, 2014
FREE
ZAPATA HAS A SUCCESSFUL ATHLETIC CAMPAIGN, 1B
DELIVERED EVERY SATURDAY
TO 4,000 HOMES
A HEARST PUBLICATION
ON THE WEB: THEZAPATATIMES.COM
IMMIGRATION
PUBLIC EDUCATION
For the families
State battles education case judge
US to open immigrant family detention centers By ALICIA A. CALDWELL ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo by Eric Gay/pool | AP
A toddler sits on the floor with other detainees at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility Wednesday, in Brownsville. CBP provided media tours Wednesday of two locations that have been central to processing the more than 47,000 unaccompanied children who have entered the country illegally since Oct. 1.
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Friday it will open new detention facilities to house immigrant families caught crossing the border illegally, amid a surge from Central America. Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the administration was actively looking for additional space to house immigrant families, primarily mothers with young children, caught crossing the Mexican border illegally. He did not say how many people the new family detention centers would house or where they will be located.
See FAMLIES
PAGE 9A
OCELOT
WILDLIFE SURVIVAL PLAN By MATTHEW TRESAUGUE HOUSTON CHRONICLE
RAYMONDVILLE — Geographically, El Tecolote Ranch sits in the middle of nowhere — more than five miles from the nearest paved road. It is an hour’s drive north of Brownsville and about four hours south of San Antonio. It is a place found by landmarks, not by maps. Yet the large swath of long grasses, mesquite trees and night-blooming cacti is at the center of an ambitious effort to bring a wild cat back from the brink of extinction. The federal government
See SURVIVAL
PAGE 9A
Photo by Marie D. De Jesus/Houston Chronicle | AP
Colleague mulls removing judge overseeing finance case By WILL WEISSERT ASSOCIATED PRESS
AUSTIN — The judge overseeing Texas’ long-running school finance trial should be removed due to favoritism so blatant that he used outside emails to coach attorneys for school districts suing the state, Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office argued during an often tense hearing Friday. The state wants District Judge John Dietz to recuse himself because of perceived bias, but he has refused — sending the matter to fellow District Judge David Peeples of San Antonio. Attorneys for more than 600 school districts that have sued Texas due to lack of funding argue that Dietz has done nothing wrong DIETZ and say ousting him will further delay a case that has dragged on for 18-plus months, with funding for more than 5 million public school children hanging in the balance. The trial grew out of the Legislature’s cuts of $5.4 billion to public education in 2011, prompting the districts to claim that funding was inadequate and unfairly distributed between rich and poor areas. After Dietz ruled last February that the school finance system violated the state constitution, lawmakers restored around $3.4 billion in funding. The judge briefly reopened the case in January to hear new evidence and had planned to issue a final ruling on the matter this spring. The effort to remove him has delayed that process indefinitely. If Dietz is removed, the case may have to start over. Peeples heard about five hours of arguments Friday and planned to rule early next week. But Peeples, who traveled to Dietz’s Austin courtroom to consider recusal, made it clear Friday, “The recusal judge doesn’t have any business second-guessing or maybe even changing the rulings Judge Dietz made on the main case.” Dietz, who oversaw a similar school finance trial in 2004, wasn’t present, and no
A sign alerts drivers to the presence of ocelots located at El Tecolote Ranch, an hour north of Raymondville. The federal government recently spent $3 million to purchase land for the benefit of the ocelot.
See SCHOOLS
PAGE 9A
NATURAL RESOURCES
Methane inquiry closes, but questions linger By JIM MALEWITZ AND NEENA SATIJA THE TEXAS TRIBUNE
WEATHERFORD — Steve Lipsky has nearly everything he needs on his 14-acre estate along the Brazos River, west of Fort Worth. The estate includes a guesthouse, a resort-style swimming pool and a seven-bathroom, 15,000-square-foot home where he lives with his wife and three children. But the Wisconsin trans-
plant, who makes a living bundling mortgages, lacks one item that most people take for granted: a reliable supply of clean drinking water. “All I want to say is, I don’t want to live here anymore,” said Lipsky, who pays $1,000 a month to truck in water from Weatherford, which he filters and stores. So much methane has migrated into water wells in his neighborhood in the last three years,
Lipsky said, that he and at least one neighbor can light their flowing water ablaze. It is a phenomenon they blame on nearby drilling activity in the gas-rich Barnett Shale, which lies thousands of feet below the Trinity aquifer. But in a report released last month, the Railroad Commission of Texas, which regulates oil and gas, rejected that argument and effectively shut the door on its investigation. The move came as
independent geoscientists remained divided about the cause of the rapid increase of methane in the neighborhood’s water, with some fearing that the Railroad Commission was too quick to dismiss potential evidence of groundwater contamination from oil and gas drilling. “I can’t understand,” said Rob Jackson, a geoscientist at Stanford University who has studied the effects of drilling activity on
groundwater contamination. If the water quality deteriorated in neighborhoods, Jackson said, “wouldn’t that suggest to you that you might want to keep monitoring what’s happening in that situation?” Three other scientists asked to review the report said more testing was needed to rule out drilling as a factor.
See METHANE PAGE 10A