News
City Council News Briefs
Council votes to form citizen commission for water treatment plant
Suspected human smuggler arrested near Loving, 2nd suspect arrested
A Young County sheriff ’s deputy arrested a 31-year-old Honduran man and detained seven other people near Loving in a blow to a suspected human smuggling operation that has been funneling illegal immigrants through the county to the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, Chief Deputy John Orr said.
Historic courthouse doors get shine
Young County Commissioners approved a shineup of the historic courthouse’s six large brass doors as the first step in a possible cleaning of the building’s stone, which is molding in places. The doors, darkened to a dark patina by years of weathering, will be stripped to their former coppery brightness through a process known as soda blasting. The commissioners voted to pay $12,000 to Soda Blasting of West Texas to perform the refurbishment. Soda blasting uses specially formulated granules of baking soda and compressed air to clean and restore historic buildings and monuments, the company’s website said. It is FDA-approved, non-toxic, water-soluble, and contains no free silica, the company said. The commissioners also discussed having the company assess the cost of blasting the 1932 Style Moderne courthouse’s limestone and concrete exterior but took no action at their July 11 meeting.
17 new wildfires break out at month’s end
Texas firefighters battled 17 new wildfires that burned about 817 acres on July 30 alone, and carried on suppression efforts on several existing wildfires, Texas A&M Forest Service said. Scattered showers and thunderstorms across the panhandle and sea breeze activity over the weekend made a short-term improvement in vegetation dryness in those areas. The potential for larger wildfires remained in the eastern and western Hill Country, Cross Timbers region, and eastern Rolling Plains, the forest service said. Live fuel samples in those regions are at critical levels, meaning that elevated fire weather conditions could make “tree torching” or the transition of fire from the ground to the canopy of trees likely, the forest service said. Persistent temperatures above 100 degrees in the first week of August will continue to draw moisture from live vegetation, the forest service said. The upper-level ridge of high pressure that is responsible for the hot and dry conditions impacting much of Texas over the past several weeks is forecast to move back over early in August. There are currently 224 counties with burn bans.