Tag Archives: water

Mayor proposes his water bill fix ordinance

This sure got a lot of late momentum. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner is adding water bill reform to his to-do list as he approaches the end of his eight years in office. Turner announced at a Monday news conference nine … Continue reading

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Prop A gets its first customers

First there was this: Council Members Carolyn Evans-Shabazz (District D) and Mary Nan Huffman (District G) joined Council Member Amy Peck (District A) to submit notice to the City’s Agenda Office to place an item on the City Council Agenda. … Continue reading

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Drought 2023

It’s bad. Any questions? A lingering drought affecting more than 80% of Texas is causing wildfires, hurting agriculture and drying up water supplies throughout the state. This year’s drought comes less than a year after Texas experienced one of its … Continue reading

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Drought Contingency Plan Stage Two

From the inbox: The City of Houston will enter Stage Two of the City’s Drought Contingency Plan, effective August 27, 2023. The Drought Contingency Plan calls for Stage Two mandatory water conservation measures when the significant drop in annual rainfall … Continue reading

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EPA asked to investigate TCEQ’s water permitting process

Need to keep an eye on this. The Environmental Protection Agency says an informal investigation is underway after more than two dozen environmental advocacy groups submitted a petition against the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The petition alleges that state … Continue reading

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Houston to spend more fixing water pipes

Seems like a good idea. The city is poised to at least double its annual spending on water line repairs, citing two years of pipe breaks and leaks driven in part by ongoing drought conditions. Houston lost nearly 20 billion … Continue reading

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The boil notice

Yeah, it’s a pain. And now schools are closed again, which my daughter appreciates but probably most grownups do not. Also a thing many grownups did not appreciate was how long it took for the boil notices to go out. … Continue reading

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The Corpus Christi desalination plant fight

This ought to be interesting. Texas regulators issued an environmental permit Thursday for the Port of Corpus Christi to build what could become the state’s first seawater desalination plant — but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may refuse to accept … Continue reading

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Yes, it’s been an especially hot summer

Record-breaking, in fact. Average high temperatures in Houston so far this summer have outpaced previous historically hot summers on record, according to the National Weather Service. In the months of May, June and July, temperatures in the city averaged 95.1 … Continue reading

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The West Texas earthquake problem

We’re number one! Earthquakes were never anything people in West Texas thought much about. Years would pass in between tremors that anybody felt. Even after the shale revolution arrived in force a decade ago and oil crews started drilling frantically in the region’s … Continue reading

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In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re in a drought

And by “we”, I mean most of the state. About 80% of Texas is currently experiencing some level of drought conditions, ranging from “moderate” to “exceptional.” The drought, which caused wildfires across the state earlier this year and prompted burn bans, is now … Continue reading

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City passes its budget

Not too much drama. Houston’s $5.7 billion budget for the next fiscal year includes a big jump in revenue from water bills, raises for all city employees and the largest unspent reserves in years. City Council voted 15-2 to adopt … Continue reading

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“The Dead Sea of West Texas”

Not a vacation spot. About twenty-five miles north of Fort Stockton sits what looks, at first blush, like an oasis amid the West Texas desert. When I recently visited what might be Texas’s newest sizable body of water, its color … Continue reading

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Houston’s preparations for the next freeze

We learned from the experience, which I hope will serve us well for the next time. The grid’s near collapse last February had drastic consequences for local governments, none more acute than the challenge water systems confronted in trying to … Continue reading

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A broader look at the Houston project to track COVID in wastewater

The DMN tells me things I did not know about my current favorite public works project. The [Houston] health department is conducting the wastewater surveillance for COVID-19 in partnership with researchers at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine. Wastewater … Continue reading

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Yes, omicron was found in the wastewater

In case you missed it. Houston has detected the omicron variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 in eight of its wastewater treatment facilities, confirming the new strain is spreading in the city. A Harris County resident was the first … Continue reading

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Our wastewater treatment plant is ready for omicron

One small bit of reassurance in these uncertain times. The Houston Health Department is testing the city’s wastewater for the new COVID variant, omicron, which experts say could soon be found in the U.S. The department tests the city’s wastewater weekly for COVID strains. … Continue reading

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Climate change is bad for Texas

In case you were wondering. Climate change has made the Texas heat worse, with less relief as nighttime temperatures warm, a report from the state’s climatologist published Thursday found. Climate data also show that the state is experiencing extreme rainfall … Continue reading

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Yes, the wastewater is also pointing to a COVID surge

In case you were wondering. There is more COVID-19 in the city’s wastewater system now than at any time in the pandemic, city officials said Wednesday, the latest warning that the virus is spreading at an unprecedented rate. Dr. David … Continue reading

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City victory in water rights lawsuit upheld

Some good news. A split Texas appeals court ruled Wednesday that a state law that would have stripped Houston of its interest in an unbuilt water reservoir was unconstitutionally retroactive, siding with a lower court that protected the city’s interests. … Continue reading

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The COVID wastewater tracking project has been a big success

This has been one of the best things to come out of this interminable and miserable COVID experience. Lauren Stadler’s environmental engineering students always pose the same question at the beginning of a semester: “What happens to water in the … Continue reading

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How our water systems failed during the freeze

Good analysis of something that has received far less attention than the blackouts that resulted during the freeze. Which is interesting because the blackouts were the main cause of the water outages and resulting boil notices. And the fix here … Continue reading

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Consent decree to fix sewers finalized

All done. A federal judge on Wednesday signed off on a deal between Houston and federal regulators that will require the city to spend an estimated $2 billion over the next 15 years to upgrade its troubled sanitary sewer system. … Continue reading

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On informing the public during an emergency

Another thing the state didn’t do well. As millions of Texans fought to survive brutal winter weather without power and water, Gov. Greg Abbott told residents Wednesday to search for emergency warming shelters on Google and to call 311 for … Continue reading

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HISD schools closed Monday and Tuesday

More effects of the storm. Houston ISD plans to remain closed Monday and Tuesday, then hold online-only classes for the last three days of next week, as the district manages the fallout from water and power issues caused by freezing … Continue reading

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We also have to worry about water

Hopefully not for too much longer. On Friday, as the ice melted and lights flickered back on in homes and businesses across the state, Texans were melting snow into their toilet tanks and mopping up water from busted pipes. The … Continue reading

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The “public service” part of being a public servant

It’s not that hard, though obviously some people make it look easier than others. New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [flew] to Houston [Friday] with more than $2 million to help Texas recover from a week of catastrophic blackouts and water … Continue reading

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Winter storm/blackout/boil water situation, Day 439

I may be a bit off in my counting of the days, but it’s close enough. Between my house and my in-laws’ house, I have had power for maybe 14 hours total since Monday morning, with a bit more time … Continue reading

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Finally, a bit of good COVID news

Naturally, it comes from the wastewater. Researchers who study sewage to monitor the pandemic are detecting less virus in Houston than they have in months, a positive signal that could indicate a forthcoming drop in new COVID-19 cases, doctors said. … Continue reading

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Still waiting on that sewer consent decree

Should be ready soon, once the federal court signs off on it. Help finally could be on the way in the form of an agreement between the city of Houston and the Environmental Protection Agency aimed at upgrading the city’s … Continue reading

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We really can track COVID-19 through wastewater

This is terrific news. Researchers with the city, Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine were able to sniff out a potential second outbreak of COVID-19 at a homeless shelter in downtown Houston earlier this year by looking down its … Continue reading

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When Houston is more like Austin

In a climate sense. Which is to say, drier because of climate change. A new study predicts that Texas’ climate is going to get drastically drier because of climate change. The journal Earth’s Future recently published the study looking at … Continue reading

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The reopening metric we should be heeding

From Twitter: This graph is amazing. It shows that measuring #SARSCoV2 levels in municipal sewage almost perfectly predicts forthcoming #COVID19 cases with a full week’s notice (R=0.994). It’s one of several discoveries in this new study from @Yale: https://medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.19.20105999v1.full.pdf. C-19 … Continue reading

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From the “Shit happens” department

I apologize, I couldn’t help myself. City health officials and Rice University scientists have begun testing Houston wastewater samples for COVID-19, a process they hope will reveal the true spread of the new coronavirus as clinical testing continues to lag. … Continue reading

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