Tag Archives: conservation

El Paso’s wastewater recycling plant

Posted on March 24, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Dealing with our state’s water needs will require lots of different types of solutions. By 2028, El Pasoans will begin receiving water from a $295 million advanced water purification plant that will convert treated wastewater into drinking water, the first … Continue reading →

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Three water stories

Posted on January 27, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

This lawmaker wants to fix Texas’ water shortage with desalination and billion-dollar pipelines The state lawmaker expected to carry out Gov. Greg Abbott’s “transformative” water reforms this year wants to earmark billions of dollars to develop new sources and fix … Continue reading →

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The wild turkeys of East Texas

Posted on December 2, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Fascinating. Thanksgiving turkeys are abundant this time of year. But their wild brethren — the less plump variety strutting around the edge of forests — are less plentiful, especially in East Texas where researchers and state officials have spent decades … Continue reading →

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Cards Against Humanity against Elon Musk

Posted on September 26, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

We live in such strange times. The game company Cards Against Humanity is suing Elon Musk’s SpaceX for $15 million, accusing the corporation that launches rockets from Texas of illegally trespassing on South Texas land and destroying property. The lawsuit, … Continue reading →

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Bringing back black bears

Posted on April 29, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Cool. It’s difficult to visualize these days, what with the light pollution, overdevelopment and sprawl that have come to define the greater Houston area, but the ground we now stand on was once the domain of 5’ 6” black bears. … Continue reading →

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Drought Contingency Plan Stage Two

Posted on August 25, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

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

Posted on June 27, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

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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The UH wildlife cameras

Posted on April 18, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

I love stories like this. A duck waddled between the trees of Glenwood Cemetery, not far from where four University of Houston students tied their camera to a trunk. If the bird came closer to the lens, the device would … Continue reading →

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Your thermostat may be plotting against you

Posted on July 21, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

Welcome to 2021. Amid [recent] sweltering temperatures in Houston, the agency that operates the state’s power grid asked residents to cut back on how much electricity they used to help it meet demand. That’s how some people apparently learned the hard way that their … Continue reading →

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When Houston is more like Austin

Posted on August 6, 2020 by Charles Kuffner

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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What the Texas State Aquarium is up to after Harvey

Posted on June 16, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

They’re doing what they need to do, which they should be doing. During Harvey, aquarium officials took in other birds and marine animals from the University of Texas-Austin Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas and the Aquarium at Rockport Harbor … Continue reading →

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Save the bats

Posted on November 5, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

In case you needed something else to worry about. Texas researchers have closely watched the state’s bat population for years, looking for signs of a disease that has killed millions of North American bats: the white, powder-like substance on their … Continue reading →

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Remember the Katy Prairie

Posted on August 31, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

From the four things we could have done differently to maybe mitigate some of the worst effects of Harvey: Preserve and restore as much prairie land as possible Much of northwest Houston used to be covered in prairie land, where … Continue reading →

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Border walls are bad for the environment

Posted on March 11, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

Not that anyone pushing for a border wall cares, but just so you know. There’s been a lot of debate about how effective the Bush-era barrier has been at keeping out illegal crossers and drug smugglers. Some data indicates the … Continue reading →

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Clean Power Plan can proceed for now

Posted on January 23, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

Good. A federal appeals court has denied a request from Texas and other states to block President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, leaving the controversial climate change rules in place as a legal challenge winds through the courts. The U.S. Court … Continue reading →

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The inevitable latest lawsuit against the EPA

Posted on October 26, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

As night follows the day. As promised, Texas is suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over President Obama’s plan to combat climate change, Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Friday, just after the new regulation had been finalized. The state is … Continue reading →

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Droughts will always be with us

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

Remember how wet and rainy it was earlier this year? It ain’t like that now, though we do have some rain coming later this week. After an uncharacteristically wet early-summer across Texas, the Lone Star state’s weather has turned dry … Continue reading →

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We still face water shortages

Posted on June 14, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

Yes, we’ve had a lot of rain lately. No, that hasn’t solved all our water problems. The recent rainfall that drenched much of Houston and the state was thought to put the drought and the state’s water supply concerns at … Continue reading →

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Texas plans to sue over EPA’s latest clean air plan

Posted on May 9, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

So what else is new? Attorney General Ken Paxton said Tuesday that he plans to sue the Obama administration over the proposed “Clean Power Plan,” its plan to combat climate change by slashing carbon emissions from power plants. “Texas has … Continue reading →

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Just a reminder, we still need to use less water

Posted on April 4, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

In particular, we need to water our lawns less. Even Texans with the greenest of lawns water them too much, many landscape experts say. And if everyone would turn on the sprinklers only twice a week — still probably more … Continue reading →

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Reusing wastewater

Posted on January 25, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

Get used to it. Reclaimed wastewater soon will irrigate the trim lawns and wooded parks of some Houston suburbs. Instead of being dumped into the bayous, some of it might even undergo more extensive treatment in order to flow from … Continue reading →

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It pays to go green

Posted on December 30, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

It’s a simple enough formula – reduce energy usage, save money. As Houston leaders push the counter-intuitive notion that the world’s energy capital can go green, and pledge ever-lower emissions goals for municipal operations, installing energy-efficient lighting and low-flow toilets … Continue reading →

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Mayors against climate change

Posted on October 8, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

From the Think Globally, Act Locally department. Mayor Annise Parker briefly took center stage Monday in the campaign against climate change by pledging to make America’s energy capital a laboratory for experimentation and action. Frustrated with the congressional response to … Continue reading →

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A home where the Texas State Bison Herd can roam

Posted on August 31, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Very cool. It was a little confusing at first, but the bison at Caprock Canyons State Park are settling into a pasture that’s 10 times what they were used to — basically the entire park. Park staff opened up 10,000 … Continue reading →

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Two environmental stories

Posted on August 23, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Some good news, and some bad news. The bad news: We have an oyster shortage. Add an oyster shortage in Texas Gulf Coast to the problems exacerbated by the state’s years-long drought. But Texas’ dry spell isn’t the only reason … Continue reading →

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Would you let Reliant turn off your air conditioning?

Posted on June 15, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

In the name of conservation, of course. “Our objective is to have more and more customers participate so we can make a material difference in an event when the state needs us to make a difference,” said Elizabeth Killinger, senior … Continue reading →

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On “potty water”

Posted on May 23, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

I have three things to say about this. Wastewater reuse in Wichita Falls has been in the works for years and would have happened with or without the drought. It was fast-tracked as the city deals with reservoirs that are … Continue reading →

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Maybe we don’t need that much more water

Posted on May 16, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

More conservation would mean less demand and less need going forward. Drought-prone Texas could make better use of its existing water supplies and avoid spending billions of dollars on new reservoirs, pipelines and other big-ticket projects with more realistic forecasts … Continue reading →

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Brazoria looks at desalinization

Posted on May 6, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Booming population growth plus greater upstream demands on their main water source equals thoughts of alternate water supplies. By the time the Brazos bisects Brazoria County on its way to the Gulf of Mexico, it’s all but tapped out, unable … Continue reading →

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We need to take better care of our water

Posted on December 28, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

We lose way too much of it because our infrastructure is old and in need of replacement. At a time when the Lone Star State is facing a grave water shortage and its population is expected to double by 2060, … Continue reading →

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What’s on the agenda for Mayor Parker in her third term

Posted on November 7, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Now that Mayor Parker has been safely re-elected, with a better-than-expected margin, what does she plan to do from here? A triumphant Parker on Tuesday lauded her “decisive” victory but quickly shifted her focus to the coming two years, listing … Continue reading →

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Mostly looking good for Prop 6

Posted on October 16, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

A good poll result for the water infrastructure Constitutional amendment. Texans support $2 billion in water infrastructure financing by a better than 2-to-1 margin, but nearly a quarter haven’t decided how they will vote on the issue this November, according … Continue reading →

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Don’t be surprised if we have brownouts

Posted on June 2, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

That’s the message I take from this. Temperatures in parts of Texas have started hitting the upper 90s, and they’re likely to stay above normal this summer, according to a forecast by federal climatologists. That means another difficult summer for the … Continue reading →

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Shark fins

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

I’m not sure why the practice of shark finning wasn’t illegal already. Texas lawmakers are considering a ban on the sale and possession of shark fins, a move that reflects a growing trend to protect the imperiled creatures at the … Continue reading →

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