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Photo courtesy of RRC
Barry Smitherman, Chairman of the Railroad Commission of Texas
It would be a stretch to say it was a nail-biter, but two races for the Railroad Commission are headed for a runoff on July 31.
To take a primary in Texas, you must get fifty percent plus one vote, and in the Republican Primary races for two seats on the Railroad Commission, no candidate made those numbers. (The Railroad Commission of Texas is the state agency that regulates oil and gas drilling and pipelines in the state. It has nothing to do with Railroads.)
Incumbent commissioner Barry Smitherman took 44 percent of the vote in his primary race, with roughly 28 percent going to his challenger, Greg Parker. Whoever wins that runoff in July (which will likely be Smitherman) will not have a Democratic challenger this November in the general election.
The race for the open seat on the commission will be a runoff between Christi Craddick and Warren Chisum. Craddick got roughly 36 percent of the vote, while Chisum won around 27 percent. Whoever wins that runoff will face Democratic challenger Dale Henry this fall.
Alas, Houston Attorney Roland Sledge got less than ten percent of the vote, behind four others in the race, meaning we won’t have any more ads like these: Continue Reading
Photo courtesy of Texas A&M University
Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon, Texas State Climatologist
Climate change has entered the discussion on water availability once again. âThe same amount of water wonât go as far as it used to,â says John Nielsen-Gammon, the Texas State Climatologist at Texas A&M University. Nielsen-Gammon shed some light on the relationship between climate change and water availability at the 2012 Texas Water Summit held by the University of Texas at Austinâs Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science last week.
Nielsen-Gammon and a team of researchers have built climate change models using data derived from the short term climate fluctuations known as La Niña. âWe can use short-term issues as a window to understanding what we have to deal with in the long-term,â he says.
While a La Niña year may be predicted several months in advance, long-term climate fluctuation is a tougher nut to crack. Many factors feed long-term climate change, Nielsen-Gammon said, including variations in solar intensity, large volcanic events, greenhouse gases, the orbit of the earth, particulate matter, land cover, variations in oceanic conditions, and atmospheric chaos. Unfortunately, the bulk of these variables are, on average, quite difficult to predict.
But hereâs where attention directed toward short-term climate variation pays off. Continue Reading
Photo by Hunter Martin/Getty Images
Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon has come under fire for using his company's wells to finance over a billion dollars in personal loans.
If you’ve been hearing a lot about Chesapeake Energy Corporation and its CEO Aubrey McClendon as of late, you might have some questions. What is this company? Who is McClendon and whatâs the deal with his wine and antique map collection?
To tackle some of those questions and more, StateImpact reporters in Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Texas teamed up to create a reading guide to Chesapeake Energyâs recent financial woes.
Itâs a drilling company, the second-largest natural gas extractor in the country.
Chesapeake is an energy producer that focuses on unconventional onshore oil and natural gas plays in the U.S. The company’s roots are in natural gas: Chesapeake is the nationâs second-largest natural gas extractor. However, near-record low prices for natural gas have forced the company to shift focus to oil and production of other valuable liquids. Continue Reading
One Texas oil and gas billionaire is getting special recognition for what he has done to help a little bird.
The Sand County Foundation and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department picked the Cook’s Branch Conservancy for the 2012 Leopold Conservation Award, the state’s highest honor for habitat management and wildlife conservation on private land. The conservancy is part of the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation.
Watch a video about the restoration.
What’s a carbon sink? It’s a process where the earth soaks up atmospheric carbon, which there is more and more of in the world. Those “sinks” take the form of forests and oceans, and a new study we reported on last week says that, contrary to previous research, the earthâs ability to soak up carbon has âincreased roughly in line with rising emissions.â So herewith is a slideshow of some of those carbon sinks that are helping to eat up some of the carbon in the atmosphere.
Photo courtesy of TAMEST
Todd Votteler
The drought of 2011 may have been the canary in the coal mine of water security for Texas. That was the consensus of a panel of specialists at the 2012 Texas Water Summit hosted by the University of Texas at Austinâs Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science on Monday.
Graph by NRS Engineers
Texas is now at the same reservoir capacity levels it was during the drought of record in the 1950s.
While the recent drought was no honeymoon, the drought of record in the 1950s stands as a stark reminder of what could come to pass, said Todd Votteler, the Executive Manager of Science, Intergovernmental Relations, and Policy at the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority. (You can read his presentation here.). Unlike the experience of the past year, the drought of record was the culmination of six to nine very dry years, he said. Emerging from the 1950s, authorities went to great lengths to increase the stateâs surface water resources.
Unfortunately, this resource cushion has been all but depleted by the most recent drought experience and a growing population, Votteler said, leaving Texas at the same reservoir storage capacity per capita of 1953, the year that marked the beginning of the drought of record.
So where does the state go from here? Continue Reading
One question that comes up when looking at the Texas drought is, are there any examples of other droughts the state could look to? Texas isn’t alone dealing with the issues of water and drought, and one of the most recent examples of a large population dealing with drought comes from Australia. (You can see a slideshow of the Australian drought above.)
âAustralia is the biggest drama that has recently played out in the world of water,â said Ralph Eberts, the Executive Vice President of Black & Veatch Water, at the Texas Water Summit at the University of Texas Monday. Australia is just now emerging from a severe decade-long drought. At the peak South East Queensland hung on with less than fifteen percent of its water supplies remaining. Aussie wildlife and agriculture took a considerable blow. And failed rice and grain crops threatened to unhinge the global food supply.
A parallel can be drawn between Australiaâs drought experience and that of Texas. Australia, like Texas, was caught in a bind with no warning. The drought experience across Australia varied considerably, with different regions undergoing various levels of stress. Texas has witnessed this variability with West Texas drawing the shorter straw.
But the duration of the Australian drought led to markedly different results. Continue Reading
Photo by Jillian Schantz-Patrick/StateImpact Texas / StateImpact Texas
Janna George of Fertile Ground Organic Gardens takes the grass lawn out of a backyard where hardier native species will be planted.
Landscape worker Janna George sweats in the midday sun as she thrusts her shovel into the ground. Sheâs trying to get up all the grass in the backyard of a South Austin home. As anyone who’s dug into the Central Texas ground and come out with a rock-dented shovel knows, there’s little dirt to dig into. So for the needs of her job, she says, she has to salvage as much precious soil as possible.
Why save the dirt but take away the grass? It’s because the company she works for, Fertile Ground Organic Gardens, designs landscapes to be more compatible with the Texas climate. They follow an ethic of conservation, viewing grass lawns as a unnecessarily thirsty option for our semiarid climate.
Consider the findings of one Texas survey: about 2/3 of residents’ water use in the summer goes to watering their yards. Is the desire to have a nice yard in opposition to conserving our volatile water sources? For co-owner of Fertile Ground, Alexa Villalobos, achieving the two is not only possible; itâs ideal. Continue Reading
Photo courtesy of UT
David Maidment says new data tools can help us better prepare for drought
Tracking the changes in water availability across the state using a variety of tools is an integral component of predicting and responding to drought. Thatâs what David R. Maidment of the Center of Research in Water Resources at UT had to say at the Texas Water Summit held Monday. As a member of the innovative Drought Technology Steering Committee at UT, Maidment presented a set of data that showed the impact of the drought.
Letâs just say that the picture Maidmentâs painted wasn’t comforting. âItâs possible to quantify a very important impact of the drought on our state – the loss of vegetation,â said Maidment. A satellite image of the state taken before the drought revealed a lush green landscape. Seconds later, the newest satellite image of Texas was revealed – bone dry, yellowed, accented with the thin, wispy trails of remaining vegetation.
Researchers have increasingly turned to satellite imaging to gain a better handle on the situation. GRACE satellites, which measure the alterations in the force of gravity relative to water volume fluctuations, have indicated that over 100 cubic kilometers of water statewide was lost due to the 2011 drought. This figure amounts to the disappearance of approximately seventy Lake Travisâ. Shallow groundwater reserves faired no better – over nine cubic kilometers were lost. Continue Reading
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