Free Republic

AUSTIN, Texas - The nation's largest offshore wind farm will be built off the Padre Island seashore, a critical migratory bird flyway, Texas officials announced Thursday. Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson lauded what he said would be an 40,000-acre span of turbines about 400 feet tall able to generate energy to power 125,000 homes. "The wind rush is on," Patterson said. "We want to be number one. We want to attract the businesses that build the turbines, that build the blades. ... We want to be the leader in the United States, if not the world." Superior Renewable Energy Inc.,...

BNP Petroleum given rights to erect well on Padre Island National Seashore SAN ANTONIO (AP) - A Coastal Bend energy company can begin drilling what will become the eighth natural gas well on Padre Island National Seashore, federal officials say. The National Park Service hopes to minimize the effect on visitors and the environment by limiting to 20 the number of total round trips that trucks from Corpus Christi-based BNP Petroleum can travel on the otherwise undeveloped barrier island, Darrell Echols, chief of science and resources management division at the national park, said Thursday. A national environmental group blamed President...

Claudette heads for South Texas 07/14/2003Associated Press SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas - Campers packed up to go inland. Surfers headed out to ride the waves. All forecasters could do was simply keep watch on Tropical Storm Claudette as it lumbered toward Texas. The state coast from Port O'Connor, about 70 miles northeast of Corpus Christi, to Brownsville and south along the Mexican coast to Rio San Fernando was under a hurricane watch early Monday. Landfall was projected in Willacy County, north of Brownsville, by late Tuesday afternoon. Early Monday, the center of Claudette was about 310 miles east-southeast of...

The Sierra Club filed a lawsuit Thursday to stop oil and natural gas drilling on the Padre Island National Seashore. The complaint against the U.S. Department of the Interior, filed in federal district court, seeks to halt heavy truck traffic that the environmental group alleges will threaten the endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle, which nests on the seashore. In addition to naming Interior Secretary Gale Norton as a defendant, the Sierra Club also named the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The suit involves a natural gas well projected managed by BNP Petroleum, a Corpus Christi...

Second death attributed to Spring Break violence 03/18/2002 Associated Press SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas - A 20-year-old man was fatally stabbed over the weekend, the second death reported in a rash of Spring Break violence in South Texas. Jesus Espinoza of Alamo was pronounced dead at Brownsville Medical Center at 8:10 p.m. Sunday. Police said two San Antonio men had been arrested connection with the killing so far, and other suspects and witnesses were being sought. On Friday, 18-year-old Jerry Martinez of Aransas Pass died at the wheel of his car on Mustang Island in Port Aransas when a...