The headline on this story is about Texans’ increasing interest in recycling water. That sounds nice, doesn’t it? But there’s another way of describing it that maybe isn’t so appealing. Experts say recycled wastewater will play a key role in satisfying the thirst of a rapidly growing population. While reuse now provides 2 percent of [...]
Posts Tagged ‘irrigation’
Who gets to use the water?
There’s a lot more demand for an increasingly limited supply. More than miles separate the rice farms of the Texas coast and the Highland Lakes, where the outward march of Austin is marked by each new house, strip mall and marina. They are divided by how to share the water of the Colorado River, pitting [...]
Conservation is still the best water plan
The state of Texas needs to do better at it. As Texas recovers from the severe drought of the last two years, water experts say that conservation is the easiest way to ensure that the state will have enough of water for future growth. Fixing leaks is one method that took on added importance since [...]
Recycling water
The Trib continues its look at the present and future of water use in Texas with a story about reclaiming wastewater. “Reclaimed water,” the term for cleaned-up wastewater that gets reused, currently provides a little less than 3 percent of Texas’ water supply, often for purposes like irrigating golf courses. The figure is projected to [...]
The state of water in Texas
The Statesman has a long story about the state of water in Texas and its outlook for the future. Short summary: We’re going to need more than what we’re capable of getting now, and it’s going to cost a lot of money to bridge the shortfall. “For most of our recent history, we just treated [...]
It’s hard out here on a Christmas tree
Another victim of the drought: Texas’ Christmas tree farms. [T]he Texas Christmas Tree Growers Association estimates that less than half the owners of the state’s 100 Christmas tree farms had watering systems. Those with the foresight to irrigate saved their trees, but their crop still did not grow as fast or as tall as usual. [...]
No grass, no problems
Texas is in the midst of one its worst droughts ever, yet one of the more arid cities in the state is seeing no noticeable drop in its reservoirs. How is that possible? Simple: They got rid of lawns years ago. For decades this city in far West Texas defied the look of most desert [...]
“Sprayed Away”
A couple of months ago, I blogged about a report on water conservation from the National Wildlife Federation and the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club. Last week, they came out with a new report, on outdoor water usage and how the demands of summertime increase water consumption in 18 Texas cities, mostly due [...]