Tag Archives: Water
No Resolution in Sight For Ranchers and Farmers Fighting Over San Saba River
The prolonged battle has highlighted a major flaw in Texas water management: State policies mostly don’t recognize the connection between surface water and groundwater.
Why is a 40-mile stretch of the San Saba river running dry during the summers? That was the central question at a Texas House Natural Resources Committee hearin...Read More
Austin’s on the Wrong Side of the 100th Meridian
The invisible line that divides the arid western part of the country from the wetter eastern half is on the move, and that has important implications for the Texas capital.
Meet Robert Lee. Not the Confederate general, the town. Robert Lee, Texas is a ranching community of 1,025 that lost its only source of water to the second-wors...Read More
Despite Trump, Water Agency Fosters Cross-Border Cooperation Between U.S. and Mexico
A binational agency is working to transcend the immigration, trade and border wall battle between the two countries.
In early March, Ed Drusina and Roberto Fernando Salmón Castelo sat at the back of an almost empty auditorium with plates of food, talking amiably and strugglin...Read More
Rural Texans Supported Trump, but They’ve Yet to Reap the Rewards
The president has taken a small step toward funding infrastructure projects in the nation’s small towns, but rural Texans aren’t beneficiaries.
Voters in parts of the country’s deep red regions are finally starting to reap slight rewards for sending Donald Trump to the White House, but those benefits ...Read More
How the Fate of Texas’ Endangered Mussels Could Affect Water Usage Statewide
The designation could have significant consequences for people, farmers and companies along the Rio Grande and holds clues for how listing other rare mussels would change water use in Texas.
The Texas hornshell, a freshwater mussel found in crevices and boulder outcroppings of the Rio Grande, isn’t much to look at. While it can be easily mistaken ...Read More
Almost 25,000 Texans Are Drinking Tap Water With High Levels of Radium
A new report finds that 38 utilities in Texas are supplying water with radium levels above the legal limit.
Water in the small Central Texas town of Brady has the highest radium levels in the state — almost double the legal limit set by the EPA, according to a new r...Read More
Costs for Rural Towns Surge after Hurricane Harvey Hits Water Systems
In Patton Village, some residents went weeks without access to clean drinking water, and now their sewer system is running on a “Band-aid.”
Patton Village had just started using its new $10 million wastewater treatment system when Hurricane Harvey wrecked it last month. Floodwaters fried the pumps...Read More
With Trump’s Infrastructure Plan, Rural Texas Could be Left in Disrepair
The president’s proposed budget cuts billions in federal aid for residents of the state’s sparsely populated areas.
Arnie Amaro, the city administrator of La Villa, knows Hidalgo County’s sprawl will eventually reach his town. In the last decade, the border county’s popul...Read More
Introducing the Texas Observer’s Rural Reporting Project
Texas has the biggest rural population in the nation, yet many journalists treat much of the state as flyover country.
Trump’s election taught the nation many painful lessons. Among them: the traditional divide between town and country has become a chasm. People in blue, urban...Read More