Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumTexas Frets When Drought Arrives; The Rest Of The Time, It's All About More Growth, More Money
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In many ways the story of Texas over the last century is the states devout allegiance to the principle that mankind has dominion over nature. The pandemic shut down that idea in 2020. Fast rising Covid-19 case numbers and deaths made public health and safety the primary concern. Hays County counted almost 4,300 confirmed infections and 28 deaths as July ended. The climate disruption occurring in Texas, along with booming population and economic growth, also is writing a much different story of vulnerability to natures bullying and to governments uncertain capacity to adjust.
This article is the first of a five-part series on the consequences of the mismatch between runaway development and tightening constraints on the supply and quality of fresh water in Texas. Along with this report, the Water, Texas project provides close examinations of other crucial aspects of the states resource challenges: energy development risks to the Big Bend region, water innovations in three major Texas cities, how the new border wall intrudes on the ever present civic conversation about water supply and growth in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, and the influence of water and drought on the Texas economy. Water, Texas is funded by the Cynthia & George Mitchell Foundation. Its intent is to inform citizens and policymakers, and help influence investments and new practices to assure a drying Texas has adequate supplies of clean fresh water.
Its not that Texas has ignored the desperation that accompanies drought. A terrible long drought in the early 1950s spurred the Legislature to establish the Texas Water Development Board to essentially do what it can to relieve the stress of deep droughts. The agency serves as instigator, funder, researcher, collaborator, idea center, and data gatherer for all the cities and towns, universities, groundwater conservation districts, permitting agencies, and conservation groups involved in securing sufficient water. The Water Development Boards State Water Plan, issued every five years, is regarded as the chief playbook for determining what needs to be done over the next 50 years. It offers direction on how much must be spent in Texas to safeguard its freshwater reserves; it also encourages conservation and new practices that will make it easier to live through droughts.
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Two generations ago about 40,000 people made their homes in Hays County, an epic, rural, rolling masterpiece of space and sky close to Austin and San Antonio. Authorities in Hays counted 14,000 homes supplied with water from the Trinity Aquifer, a giant freshwater reserve that lay below. In wet years and in dry ones, water was readily available. The clear waters of Jacobs Well bubbled up so steadily that diving from that limestone cliff into the deep blue eye was a rite of passage for Hill Country teens. Forty years later Hays County has grown to 222,000 residents and 75,000 housing units. The Trinity Aquifer is tapped out. Since 2003, a pipeline from Lake Travis, a reservoir near Austin, has provided developers sufficient water to continue building big subdivisions. But a study by the Hill Country Alliance and the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University in San Marcos found that the piped water encouraged more water well drilling into the aquifer. In one area, they found that pumping jumped from just over 3 million gallons annually to 90 million gallons.
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https://www.circleofblue.org/2020/water-energy/when-it-rains-texas-forgets-drought-and-worsening-water-scarcity/
gab13by13
(20,864 posts)maybe Texas has water problems because of karma? Texas oil and gas drillers led by Dick Cheney exempting them from the Clean air and water act and exempting them from many other regulations spread out across America contaminating other state's water supplies. Drillers from Texas fracked wells right on our watershed in Pa. and we couldn't stop them, I know because I was one of many who tried.
If I were nasty I would say let them drink oil.
Mickju
(1,794 posts)I was born in Dallas in 1944. Our tap water was salty at times in the 50s because they were having to pipe water from the Red River. It was also miserably hot!