Lone Star Sierran - May 2016

May 27, 2016

May 2016 Edition

Director's Message

Kind of hard to not take water* for granted when it keeps falling out of the sky like it has been lately. I intend to enjoy both the emerald greenery and fireflies while they last, recognizing that the cause of both will not continue indefinitely. As difficult as it is to think about drought while it's raining, this is exactly when we should be thinking about and preparing for it. This is a good place to plug the Texas Water Conservation Scorecard - a first of it's kind, cool clear assessment of the efforts of 300 water utilities across the state. Besides the interactive website being flat out awesome, the Scorecard provides a road map to getting where we need to be using conservation to serve future needs without resorting to expensive, unnecessary Rube Goldberg schemes for piping water long distances. San Antonio Water System's (SAWS) Vista Ridge pipeline purports to be about future drought management, but it is really more a scheme to siphon money from the pockets of low and moderate-income ratepayers to industries that won't commit to conservation and to subsidize resident water buffaloes with sprawling yards and wasteful irrigation systems. Check it out, see how well your city performed.

*Chosen admittedly less for relevance than my love of Marty Robbins.

Cheers,

Reggie James, Director

Lone Star Chapter

Water You Waiting For? Check Out the Texas Water Conservation Scorecard!

Regular readers of the Lone Star Sierran are no doubt familiar with the Texas Living Waters Project. Last week, we released the first-of-its-kind Texas Water Conservation Scorecard - an interactive website ranking the water conservation efforts of more than 300 water utilities in Texas. Based on publicly available information, the Scorecard revealed a wide disparity of effort and information on what is being done to conserve the Lone Star state's most precious resource: water. Did you know that more than 40% of the water utilities in the Scorecard reported a water loss of more than 11%? Or that only 13% of water utilities reached or went beyond per capita water use targets? Find out how your utility stacks up, and take action through this great interactive website!

Welcome Drew O'Bryan to the Lone Star Chapter Team!

This month, the Lone Star Chapter welcomed its newest staff member to the team. Drew O'Bryan is our new Clean Energy Coordinator and will work closely with Conservation Director Cyrus Reed on several initiatives to strengthen clean energy programs and policies in the Lone Star state. Drew has a Master's degree in Energy Systems Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with concentrations in environmental economics and solar energy. While at the University of Illinois, Drew helped to lead student efforts for coal divestment and environmental advocacy and worked to expand the school's climate action plan and energy goals. He also aided in the City of Urbana's solarize group-buy initiative as a graduate student and served as an Executive Committee member of the national Sierra Student Coalition, providing support for the coalition's Seize the Grid campaign.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Sales Tax Holiday

There are many great things about Memorial Day weekend. One of them happens to be a sales tax holiday on energy and water-saving appliances. That's right. This weekend, all across Texas, you won't have to pay state or local sales tax on a variety of Energy Star appliances and WaterSense products, which will also save you money on your electric and water bills. But you should be aware of a change this year. As a result of language in a bill passed last legislative session - language that came from some lobbyists and trade groups - and the interpretation of that language by the Comptroller's Office, there is an overly broad inclusion of products that qualify for this short-term sales tax exemption. The sales tax exemption is going to apply to "plants, trees and grasses" - as in all plants, trees and grasses, including water intensive St. Augustine turf, and other vegetation that requires a heck of a lot of water.

Carman - Texas Ozone Season Reveals Unsafe Air in Large Cities

Ground level ozone continues to be the worst air pollution challenge facing Texas. The good news is that cities are making progress to clean up ozone air pollution in all areas in Texas, finally complying with the older 1-hour standard adopted in 1979 and the outdated 8-hour standard set in 1997. Now for the bad news. Texas cities have some of the highest ozone (better known as smog) levels in the nation - not far behind the Los Angeles basin, - and 2016 is proving to be no different. Houston, San Antonio, and Port Arthur have already seen ozone this spring that exceeds the EPA's standard.

McGuire/Reed - San Antonio's Top 100 Water Users, Vista Ridge, and Melbourne, Australia

San Antonio just made it through one of the worst droughts in Texas history. Climate change means we'll have more of them, and they'll be unpredictably longer and more intense. Is San Antonio prepared? Nope. And SAWS is leading us the wrong direction. San Antonio Express-News reporter Brendan Gibbons' recent front-page article about summer season water consumption between 2011 and 2015 gives clues about why. Drought preparedness requires real conservation - not just emergency drought response measures. San Antonio needs to make an ongoing commitment to keep all the water we have and guard our aquifers and their recharge zones. How well did San Antonians do?

Regional Roundup

Briefs from across the Lone Star state.

What does good investigative reporting get you? A door slammed in your face. El Paso Times reporter Marty Schladen recently uncovered a huge problem of oil spills related to flooding across Texas, using publicly available aerial images. The state's response? Remove those photos from public view!
The Houston Press continues to do great work, this time highlighting the efforts of an eight year old to recycle roughly one-fifth of the city's recycling tonnage.
We are still trying to get over the San Antonio Spurs loss in the playoffs, but what we can't get over is how many city elites use so much water!
Let's end on a high note. Texas is by far the best state for hiking. Whether you want to hike steep mountains or flat, swampy grasslands, you can find plenty of beautiful places to explore here.