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ZAPATA RISING
HERITAGE
Tejanos soon to get monument
Reunion could be largest ever By JJ VELASQUEZ THE ZAPATA TIMES
In 2013, Zapata looks to set the Guinness World Record for the largest family reunion. That’s the goal of Zapata Rising, an organization that is planning a threeday event to commemorate the anniversary of the flood that displaced families living in what used to be Zapata and its surrounding communities. A town hall meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Zapata
County Courthouse to introduce the concept to the broader community and lay out the timeline of the project. Organizers set a tentative date for the event in August of next year. They plan to solidify that date Tuesday. The reunion will be a cause for memorializing the events, not celebrating them, said Jose Garcia, who is one of the chief organizers of the project. “There’s a lot of sadness
See REUNION PAGE 7A
FRACKING
No oversight on gas lines: audit By GARANCE BURKE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo by Cuate Santos | Laredo Morning Times
Renato Ramirez, president of IBC Bank Zapata, is an advocate for the Tejano Monument that will be unveiled Thursday at the State Capitol in Austin.
Austin’s the site for unveiling masterpiece By JJ VELASQUEZ THE ZAPATA TIMES
Just about every day for the past 45 years, Armando Hinojosa has been kneading and pawing at sculpting clay, his fingers molding the material with finesse. More than a decade ago, Hinojosa began work on a piece for all of Texas to feast its eyes upon, one that tells of the origins of his Tejano heritage. Hinojosa’s 11-year project culminates Thursday at the state capitol, where
thousands will gather for the unveiling of the Tejano Monument. When asked about the length of time it took for the project to be completed, those involved say they expected it to be shorter. “I didn’t know whether I was going to be alive or not,” joked the 69-year-old Hinojosa. “Thank God we made it.”
The monument Through
the
monu-
ment — which features a longhorn, a bloomer-donning conquistador, a vaquero on horseback and a mother and child — people associated with the project hope to tell the story of the early settlers of Texas, the Spaniards and the Tejano community which they spawned. The effort started in 2001, when McAllen resident Cayetano Barrera noticed few monuments at the capitol honoring the legacy of Tejanos. Hinojosa said he got on board because he agreed
with Barrera that Hispanic people needed to be acknowledged for their contributions to Texas’s cattle ranching business and popular culture. The mystique that surrounds the cowboy, for instance, owes some of its origins to the Spanish vaquero, he said, pointing to words like rodeo and lariat that came from Spanish words. Negative perceptions of Hispanics have floated around throughout the
See MONUMENT PAGE 7A
SAN FRANCISCO — Government auditors say federal officials know nothing about thousands of miles of pipelines that carry natural gas released through the drilling method known as fracking, and need to step up oversight to make sure they are running safely. Amid the gas-drilling boom, private companies have put in hundreds of small gathering pipelines in recent years to collect new fuel supplies released through the highpressure drilling technique. Nationwide, about 240,000 miles of gathering pipelines ferry the gas and oil to processing facilities and larger pipelines in the major energyproducing states. Many of these pipelines course through densely populated areas, including neighborhoods in Fort Worth. The Government Accountability Office said in its report issued Thursday that most of those miles are not regulated by the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which means they are not regularly inspected for leaks or corrosion. In some states, officials don’t know where the lines are. Emily Krafjack, who lives in the gas-rich Marcellus Shale formation in
Pennsylvania, said many local residents have no idea that the pipelines near their homes are not overseen by federal regulators. Gathering lines that run in the rural northeastern corner of the state receive no federal oversight if there are fewer than 10 homes within 220 yards of the pipeline. “Who would ever think that they could run something like this next to your home and it wouldn’t have any regulations attached to it?” said Krafjack, a former community liaison for Wyoming County, Pa., on gas issues. Nationwide, there are about 200,000 miles of gas gathering lines and up to 40,000 miles of hazardous liquid gathering lines in rural and urban areas alike, ranging in diameter from about 2 to 12 inches. But only about 24,000 of those miles are regulated, according to the report. The industry is not required to report pipelinerelated fatality, injury or property damage information about the unregulated lines. PHMSA only collects information about accidents on the small subset of gathering lines that the agency regulates, but that data was not immediately available Thursday. The pipeline agency is considering collecting
See FRACKING PAGE 7A