Photo courtesy of Texas A&M University/Forest Service
A Texas A&M Aggie plants a Loblolly Pine seedling in Bastrop State Park after the 2011 wildfires. New legislation could expand the supply of native Texas seeds.
In the mid-1500s, Comanche Indians roamed what would eventually become Central Texas, Karankawa Indians fished where Galveston would one day sit and hardly an invasive or exotic plant existed in the state. But since then, many of Texas’ native plants have taken a beating.
Legislation introduced by a Texas lawmaker could help reseed Texas with the hardy native plants and grasses of that bygone era, and return the landscape along Texas’ highways and construction sites to a native state.
“I would describe this agenda as one [of] trying to protect our natural heritage,” Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, who has filed two native seed bills, tells StateImpact Texas.
The problem right now, Villarreal says, is that road construction projects and energy exploration leave a muddy mess in their wake. That torn-up land must be reseeded, but that is oftentimes done with non-native species. Continue Reading →
The drought has affected cattle herds across Texas and the Midwest. Texas lawmakers are considering funding a water plan that could protect the state's water supplies.
“Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting,” said John Cook, Mayor of El Paso, echoing Mark Twain at the House Natural Resources Committee meeting that began early this morning.
Mark Twain may have changed his tune, though, if he saw the Capitol meeting room tightly packed with mayors from Texas’ largest cities, lawmakers and water authority officials, all unified in their support of using billions of state dollars to finance water projects across the state.
Whiskey is for drinking, and water is for funding, Twain might have said. (If in fact he ever said the original quote, which is doubtful.)
A footprint in the soft mud of the Rio Grande in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
State lawmakers and agency heads discussed Mexico’s lack of water contribution to the Rio Grande River, the state of the State Water Plan and invasive species at the House Natural Resources committee meeting at the Capitol yesterday.
It’s not the first time Mexico has run up this type of water deficit on the Rio Grande. Between 1992 and 2005, Mexico neglected to put more than 1.5 million acre feet of water into the river. That’s nearly twice the amount of water in Central Texas’ two largest reservoirs, Lakes Travis and Buchanan, combined. Mexico did eventually pay back that debt in water, however.
Without Mexico’s contribution to the Rio Grande, water supplies are running short here in Texas. Continue Reading →
A fisherman walks from his fishing spot at the Tonkawa Falls area 10 January 2004 in Crawford, Texas. A new bill would require lakes with mercury contamination to post warning signs to fishermen.
“Right now there aren’t any signs at lakes with mercury contamination,” said Lucia Mendez, assistant committee clerk for the House Committee on Culture, Tourism and Recreation. She assisted in writing the bill.
Rep. Ryan Guillen, D-Rio Grande City, has filed a bill that will require, when financially possible, state agencies with authority over water bodies holding contaminated fish to post signage that warns fisherman of possible mercury contamination in fish and shellfish. Continue Reading →
State Senator John Carona has filed legislation that would prevent money from being diverted from the System Benefit Fund. That fund's original purpose was to help low income and senior citizens to pay their electric bills.
If the $850 million in the System Benefit Fund still sits idle come 2014, it won’t be for a lack of trying to fix it.
State Senator John Carona (R-Dallas) filed two bills recently related to the massive, unused benefit fund. One of those bills would realign the fund with its originally intended purpose, to help low income and senior citizens pay their utility bills.
It has been years since the fund has helped pay utility bills and educate ratepayers, as StateImpact Texas reported in November. Today, it sits and collects money through a small fee collected from electric customers in deregulated areas. Its main function has become serving as a crutch to help lawmakers balance the budget.
Texas lawmakers are looking beyond just reservoirs to find water for a thirsty, growing state.
John Nielson-Gammon, Texas’ State Climatologist, offered a grim forecast to kick off a joint House and Senate Natural Resources Committee meeting today at the Capitol.
“There’s still a good chance this will end up being the drought of record for most of the state,” he said.
Several officials from state agencies involved with Texas’ water testified at the meeting, and almost all of them found common ground in their concern for conservation and the development of new technologies, such as reuse, to increase the state’s water reserves.
Photo by George Konig/Keystone Features/Getty Images
We've come a long way from the days when DDT was sprayed on children to kill lice, as in this photo from Germany in 1945.
We’ve come a long way since the days when kids played in clouds of DDT, gas stations sold leaded gasoline, and smoking near youngsters was commonplace.
America has made great strides since the 1970s in reducing toxins in the environment that cause health issues in children, according to a new edition of the EPA report, “America’s Children and The Environment.”
The EPA is obliged, by executive order, to examine toxins’ effects on children. Children are also particularly vulnerable to toxins as they eat, drink and breath more than adults in relation to body size, and children’s bodies are still developing.
The EPA was not available to comment on the report, but Elena Craft, a toxicologist with the Environmental Defense Fund in Austin, tells StateImpact Texas that the report has reason for both optimism and concern.  “When we make concerted efforts to reduce pollution, we do see health benefits,” she said.
But while certain health hazards for children are on the decline, other less understood problems are on the uptick.
A drilling crew takes a break atop Spindletop Hill in Beaumont, Texas where the first Texas oil gusher was discovered January 10, 1901. Texas is seeing an oil boom again today.
Texas oil producers opened up the throttle on oil production in 2012. The state hasn’t seen such a banner year in oil output for nearly two decades, according to new numbers reported in Fuel Fix.
November 2012 production of crude oil was up about 73 percent compared to the same time in 2011, according to the latest statistics released this week by the Railroad Commission of Texas. Texas accounts for 48 percent of all “active land rigs” on the country, according to the Commission.
At the same time, many areas of natural gas production during the same time period were flat or slightly down. Take a look at the numbers:
How the coal will be handled marks a change in U.S. energy consumption.
The coal excavated from the mine will be transported across the border into Mexico and burned in coal-fired plants about twenty miles from the U.S. border outside Piedras Negras. The export of the coal is due, in part, to stricter emissions standards imposed by the EPA and cheap natural gas that have made many coal power plants uneconomical to operate. Continue Reading →
A parched Brazos River wends its way through Knox County.
Even if the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) doesn’t send water downstream to rice farmers this year, the Colorado River will still flow. Without that constant flow, the river would dry up, destroying and inland ecosystems and the brackish estuary near the coast.
But how much water should be sent downriver to maintain the ecosystem? That’s the job of the rarely-mentioned Environmental Flows Advisory Group, which met yesterday at the Capitol to hear testimony from the representatives of science advisory groups and business and residential interests.
Most of the testimony heard involved talk of the perpetual lack of funds for the labor intensive studies of how much water a river needs.
“We have an obligation through federal mandate to make sure that we are taking care of the environmental needs of the bays and estuaries,” says Rep. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, Co-Presiding Officer of the group. “It’s a balancing act, making sure that we are also supplying water to the people upstream.”
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