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Energy and Environment Reporting for Texas

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Background

Drought, wildfires, and extreme weather — is this the new normal for Texas?

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January 11, 2012

At Hearing on Drought, Signs of Optimism and Concern

The Texas Senate Business and Commerce committee heard testimony from state agencies, scientists, environmental groups and others Tuesday about how an extended drought might affect the state’s power grid. There was talk of cloud seeding, demand response, and even input from the ambassador to Australia on how to best generate power during a drought. The meeting […]

January 10, 2012

The Rain in Texas is Mostly… Well, Everywhere

We’ve posted so many maps of the drought over the past few months here at StateImpact Texas. The drought across the state, the drought compared to the rest of the world, even the drought as seen from space. So we’re happy today to share a map of a different color. Here’s the rainfall in Texas […]

January 9, 2012

The Drought Beyond the Border

While we’ve taken to calling it the Texas drought, it’s important to remember that the drought knows no borders. In Mexico, some 600,000 households “suffered property damage or crop losses due to an unusual combination of floods, drought and freezing weather in 2011,” according to the Associated Press. The agency spoke with Heriberto Felix Guerra, Mexico’s social […]

January 5, 2012

She Just Won’t Leave: La Niña, Drought, Will Stay Until Spring

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Government forecasters today reported that the drought will not be over before Spring. La Niña, the dry weather pattern that has been in part responsible for the drought this past year, is going to stick around a little longer, say scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration […]

January 4, 2012

Time is Running Out to Apply for Wildfire Relief

If you are one of the thousands of people in dozens of counties in Texas affected by the Labor Day wildfires last year, time is short to register for disaster relief assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The deadline is Friday. “We urge Texans who sustained any damage or property loss to register with […]

Texas Town Gets Water Reprieve

You might recall the town of Groesbeck, a small community of just over 4,300 residents east of Waco. Like many small towns in Texas this year, Groesbeck has been struggling with how to supply its residents with water in the midst of record-breaking heat and drought. The town gets all of its water from the […]

January 3, 2012

5 More Hours of Watering for San Antonio

If you’re a resident of San Antonio, you have a little more time to water your lawn starting tomorrow. The San Antonio Water System announced today that the city will be moving to Stage 1 watering restrictions. It had been in Stage 2 since May 31. The change doesn’t amount to much, as residents are still […]

December 30, 2011

The StateImpact Texas Top 5 of 2011

It’s been a relatively short 2011 for us, as StateImpact Texas only launched in November. But in that short time there’s been plenty to chew on while covering energy and the environment in Texas. Issues like the drought, climate change, pipelines and pollution (and some others, like burgers, shipping container coffeehouses, and the iPod of thermostats). Here […]

This is Your Lake. This is Drought. This is Your Lake on Drought.

The latest drought monitor from the National Drought Mitigation Center was released Thursday, and, while it showed much of Texas is slowly inching its way out of extreme drought, some other numbers give cause for concern. While rains have blessed much of the state this month, many lakes, reservoirs and aquifers are not refilling and show only […]

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