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Kiah Collier

Multistate polygamy task force proposed

Last updated Monday, August 22, 2011 - 1:40pm

SAN ANGELO, Texas -- On June 11, 2008, top cops from Arizona, Nevada and Utah walked out of a meeting in Las Vegas excited about the prospect of banding together with federal authorities for a multistate effort to fight crimes related to polygamy.

The task force still hasn't materialized.

Federal authorities apparently remain cool to the idea, but state officials in Texas, Nevada and Utah remain hopeful. They see a glaring need for a coordinated state-federal effort to investigate allegations ranging from tax evasion to the sexual assault of underage "celestial" brides in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Crime, Polygamy, Task force, Warren Jeffs, FLDS Church, National Read more Comments

Ex-FLDS spokesman says church should accept blame for Jeffs' abuse

Kiah Collier Standard Times

Last updated Wednesday, August 10, 2011 - 2:15pm

SAN ANGELO, Texas -- The former spokesman for the FLDS polygamist sect said the church should accept some blame for sexual and other abuses that allegedly occurred at their west Texas ranch.

Ex-spokesman Willie Jessop, who has faced a steady level of scrutiny for claiming he was unaware of the sexual abuse, said the church should accept some culpability and that he would return to the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas, only on certain conditions.

Polygamy, Prison, Warren Jeffs, FLDS Church, National Read more Comments

$A fence surrounds a water pit being used by an oil and gas company while conducting hydraulic fracturing operations. The water is being pumped directly out of an aquifer. (SHNS photo by Patrick Dove / San Angelo Standard-Times)$

Fracking gives Texas another oil boom, but at huge water cost

Kiah Collier, Scripps Howard News Service Scripps Howard News Service

Last updated Wednesday, June 29, 2011 - 3:19pm

CROCKETT COUNTY, Texas -- Plastic-lined pits holding millions of gallons of blue-green water are tucked away in fields chock-full of withering mesquite trees.

After the driest eight-month period in Texas' recorded history, this barren ranch land has become inhospitable to even the most drought-resistant vegetation.

So where, amid the severe dry spell, did all this pristine water come from?

The query probably would not have been raised in non-drought times in this oil-friendly community.

But as West Texas' reservoirs run dry, cities are scouring the region for their next water supply, and farmers are becoming more desperate for rainfall, oil companies here and elsewhere are pumping out millions of gallons of freshwater from underground aquifers.

Business, Environment, Fracking, Natural gas, Oil industry, Water Read more Comments