{"id":5199,"date":"2012-01-27T10:12:45","date_gmt":"2012-01-27T16:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=5199"},"modified":"2012-02-09T16:32:25","modified_gmt":"2012-02-09T22:32:25","slug":"more-than-a-rain-dance-one-lawmakers-plan-for-a-thirsty-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/01\/27\/more-than-a-rain-dance-one-lawmakers-plan-for-a-thirsty-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"More Than a Rain Dance: One Lawmaker’s Plan for a Thirsty State"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Photo courtesy of Rep. Larson<\/p>

Texas State Representative Lyle Larson has big plans for a thirsty state.<\/p><\/div>\n

Texas residents know from first-hand experience that you can\u2019t control Mother Nature. Despite endless months of hopeful optimism, they\u2019ve had little to no luck coaxing the skies<\/a> to give us the extended rains we so desperately need. Even recent deluges have hardly put a dent in lake and river levels<\/a>. With one town on the verge of completely running out of water<\/a>, citizens of the Lone Star state can\u2019t be blamed for expressing pessimism<\/a> about their chances for a wet spring.<\/p>\n

But what about making the most of the water we already have?<\/p>\n

Lyle Larson<\/a>, Texas State Representative for San Antonio, has a plan that involves much more than a rain dance. <\/a>Called the Emergency Water Act, the proposal contains a set of guidelines for state-wide desalination<\/a>, cloud-seeding<\/a>, and aquifer storage. Modeled after tactics adopted in the past by equally rain-strapped governments in Australia, India, and Argentina, the plan aims to offset the drought by immediately revamping the state\u2019s water infrastructure.<\/p>\n

I sat down recently to ask Rep. Larson about the inspiration behind the Emergency Water Act and his vision for an economically-developed, technologically-innovative, and above all, wetter, Texas.<\/p>\n

Q: <\/span>Could you explain what this plan is about and what motivated it?<\/p>\n

A: <\/span>The Emergency Water Plan involved looking at what Texas can do if we experience the drought of 2011 in 2012. All the climatologists are indicating that 2012 will be as dry or dryer than 2011.<\/p>\n

The Emergency Plan basically controls our own destiny by building desalination plants in close proximity to the population centers. I\u2019d like to create public partnerships with the ground water districts, the public utilities, and the river basins to help foster the development of projects as well as public-private partnerships; people like Dow Chemicals that basically are the foremost experts on desalination. Start building plants with them [that] will provide seed capital for the state of Texas. Not to do anything I think is irresponsible for everybody that\u2019s in Austin. We need to step up and start being proactive in developing these resources. If not, then effectively we\u2019re going to have a difficult time recruiting jobs to Texas.<\/p>\n

If you look at \u201ccloud-seeding\u201d and the availability of water from the storms that do come across the state of Texas over the last 14 years, the data says that we got between 20 and 30 percent more rainfall out of the clouds when we do seed them. So we can bring more water to the canvas of the state of Texas, which will do a number of things.<\/p>\n

It will replenish rivers and lakes and also help on the recharge on your groundwater. And it will hopefully abate some of the wildfires because you\u2019re going to have more moisture in the ground.<\/p>\n

Right now, one-sixth of the landmass in the state of Texas is using cloud-seeding. I think that we need to expand that program and that\u2019s something that we can literally do overnight.<\/p>\n

The last program that I\u2019d like to implement is an aquifer storage and recovery process. We got about 700,000 feet [of water] that\u2019s flowing out of the Sabine and Neches to the coast that basically nobody is asking for and it\u2019s unpermitted. We can take that water and start storing it in aquifers… and hold it for as long as you want it.<\/p>\n

Related<\/h4>
Posts<\/h5>