Terrence Henry reports on energy and the environment for StateImpact Texas. His radio, print and television work has appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, NPR, The Texas Tribune, The History Channel and other outlets.
He has previously worked at The Washington Post and The Atlantic. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations from Brigham Young University.
In a unanimous vote today, the Board of Directors at the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) approved an emergency plan that could cut off water for most rice farmers downstream in order to protect supplies for the City of Austin. The plan is identical to the one that last year resulted in rice farmers being cut off for the first time in history.
The Highland Lakes of Buchanan and Travis, vital reservoirs for Central Texas, have suffered from record low inflows in recent years, beginning in 2006. They’re currently only 41 percent full. If they don’t rise to the level of 42 percent full by midnight March 1, water will not go downstream to most rice farmers this year.
Ronald Gertson, a rice farmer in Wharton County, testified that another year without water could be catastrophic for rice farmers.
A Texas flag tattered by Hurricane Ike flies over a home September 13, 2008 in Texas City, Texas. Climate science says that stronger hurricanes will result from global warming, with Texas at risk.
As any climate scientist will tell you, the world is changing. More greenhouse gases mean a warmer and warmer planet. Texas just ended what could be its warmest year in history, with an established trend of warming over the last few decades. So what will climate change mean for Texas?
“One thing we know just from basic theory is that as the climate warms, and as you put more greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, the intensity of hurricanes should go up,” MIT Professor of Atmospheric Science Kerry Emanuel says. Emanuel’s work looks at how warming affects hurricanes, which have a long history of bringing destruction to Texas. His work has found a very high correlation between hurricane power and the temperature of the tropical oceans where hurricanes form. That level of energy actually dropped from the 1950s to the 1980s, then began going up quite rapidly.  It’s more than doubled since then, Emmanuel notes, following the sea surface temperature.
“From the modeling studies that we’ve done, we expect to see an increase in hurricane risk in Texas,” Emmanuel says. That doesn’t necessarily mean more storms, but it does mean a larger number of the stronger ones. And bigger storm surges will have greater impact because of rising sea levels across the entire Texas coast. Continue Reading →
2012 could end up being the warmest year in Texas since record-keeping began.
It’s time for our look back at the year in Texas weather for 2012. Although it was a time of improved precipitation for the state, Texas was still struggling to recover from its driest one-year period ever in 2011, and “improved” just wasn’t enough to bring the state back from drought in 2012. It was also an abnormally warm year, perhaps the warmest ever in Texas, and one filled with natural disasters that did billions of dollars in damage.
Likely Warmest Year Ever
Anyone that lived through the summer of 2011 in Texas will likely be surprised to hear that 2012 was actually warmer. Overall, it could be the warmest year in state history. Continue Reading →
As the 83rd Texas Legislature convenes next week, there’s considerable pressure on lawmakers to do something about the state’s water woes, whether it be funding water infrastructure, increased conservation or even desalination. The state’s population is booming, with over 100,000 people moving to Texas in 2011 alone. And as new forecasts out this week show, our extended dry spell could continue this year, exacerbated by a dry winter that was initially forecast to bring some relief.
The latest seasonal drought outlook from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows that for much of Texas and the rest of the Southwest, the drought is likely to “persist or intensify” over the next three months. Currently, 97 percent of the state is in drought conditions, with Texas’ water supply reservoirs only 65 percent full overall. And a late December briefing by NOAA on the climate notes that drought continues in over 61 percent of the country.
“During the upcoming three months, a much drier pattern is expected across the southwestern quadrant of the nation, limiting the prospects for further drought improvements during the wet season in California and Nevada,” NOAA says in its drought outlook. Continue Reading →
Under serious pressure by state legislators, the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) has announced a new proposal that could result in more water for Austin and less for rice farmers this year.
The LCRA had initially planned to send water from the Highland Lakes downstream this Spring if the two main reservoirs, Lakes Buchanan and Travis, were 39 percent full. But after vocal, continuous opposition from state senators Troy Fraser and Kirk Watson, the LCRA appears to have reversed course. Now they’re considering a revised plan that’s essentially the same emergency plan that was in place in 2012. That resulted in most rice farmers downstream being cut off from water for the first time in history. Continue Reading →
Thick oil is seen washed ashore from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on July 1, 2010 in Gulfport, Mississippi.
Less than two months after BP announced a record settlement over criminal charges for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the company that owned the rig has announced a civil and criminal settlement for a total of $1.4 billion.
While BP leased the Deepwater Horizon rig and owned rights to the Macondo well, a crew from Transocean Deepwater Inc. owned the rig and operated it. In a statement today, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says that “members of [the Transocean] crew onboard the Deepwater Horizon, acting at the direction of BP’s “Well Site Leaders” or “company men,” were negligent in failing fully to investigate clear indications that the Macondo well was not secure and that oil and gas were flowing into the well.”
The blowout on April 20, 2010 killed 11 workers, nine of them Transocean employees, and resulted in a 3-month oil spill that sent 206 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. It was the largest oil spill in U.S. history.
The Texas state legislature meets next week for another session, and there’s a sense that this time around, serious measures will be taken to fund water projects. Texas is, after all, an ever-growing state in the midst of an extended dry spell.
Hopes that the lege will act to fund water projects are high in West Texas towns like Spur, where Texas Tribune reporters Alana Rocha and Justin Dehn visited recently. But even if lawmakers do act, some in Spur aren’t convinced it will be enough to make a real difference for small Texas towns like theirs. You can watch their video report above.
A wind turbine rises above field in Burgenland near the Austrian-Slovakian border
Just a week after Texas hit another record for wind power generation, the wind industry and the green energy sector are breathing a huge sigh of relief today after Congress extended a tax credit that was set to expire.
The Renewable Electricity Production Tax Credit (PTC) has been around since 1992, and gives producers of wind, geothermal and some biomass projects a credit for each kilowatt hour of energy they make during their first ten years of operation. The one-year extension of the credit is expected to cost $12.1 billion over ten years.
As Politico reports, the extension of the credit actually improves it for the wind industry, as it “changes the language to allow any project that has begun construction by [the end of the year] to qualify for the PTC, rather than just projects operational by the deadline.” This makes the credit more effective this year, as it typically takes between 18 to 24 months to develop a new wind farm, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Continue Reading →
As we wrap up our first full year here at StateImpact Texas, we thought it’d be fun to take a look back at your favorite stories from the year. The list is a hodgepodge of articles, dealing with some of the big issues of energy and the environment in the state this year: fracking, the Keystone XL pipeline, energy innovation, and, yes, Bigfoot. And so without further ado, here’s the 2012 StateImpact Texas Top Five, in reverse order.
Photo by Flickr user thewhitestdogalive/Creative Commons
Yes, it's legal to hunt and kill Bigfoot in Texas.
One cryptid enthusiast was curious what Texas law had to say about whether or not it would be lawful to kill Bigfoot in the state. And the answer he got from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department will surprise you.
Engineers on the drilling platform of the Cuadrilla shale fracking facility on October 7, 2012 in Preston, England.
What’s in the water? Or, to be precise, what’s in the mix of water, sand and chemicals that oil and gas drillers are sending deep underground in the drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking?”
The answer? We still really don’t know. While Texas passed a law last December that new wells using fracking to drill have to disclose the ingredients of the 4-6 million gallons on average of fluid they send underground, there’s a loophole: trade secret exemptions.
Because each company’s exact mix is proprietary, drilling companies argued during the rule making that fully disclosing the amount of each chemical in its fracking fluid would help the competition. Drillers argue that only 5 percent of the fluid on average consists of chemicals.
But extrapolate 5 percent of 5 million gallons, as the Dallas Morning News did in an analysis earlier this year, and you get as many as 55,000 pounds of chemicals. What’s more, drilling companies may be exempting far more information than they agreed to under the new rule. Continue Reading →
About StateImpact
StateImpact seeks to inform and engage local communities with broadcast and online news focused on how state government decisions affect your lives. Learn More »
