exTRA by the Trinity River Authority of Texas

The city of Howe explains why some residents may be experiencing discolored water

The Ellinger Sewer and Water Supply Corporation (ESWSC) broke ground last Friday on a $1,428,000 ground storage tank and water treatment facility. “It’s going to help Ellinger grow,” said Ellinger Mayor Matt Mikulenka.

Has the precipitation been enough to bring San Antonio out of the extreme drought it's been experiencing for months? The short answer: not quite. While most of Texas has been able to recover from the extreme or exceptional drought that plagued nearly half of the state as recently as mid-August, an 11-county pocket of severe drought that includes San Antonio, Austin and much of the Hill Country remains the biggest such moisture vacuum in the state.

The Office of the Texas State Climatologist and NOAA released the updated drought monitor on Thursday morning. After the past several weeks of rain, the drought conditions look much better across the Brazos Valley. At first glance, the drought monitor still looks to have some drought conditions remaining on the map.

Pearland is working to reach a settlement with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality after years of city sewage workers repeatedly violating state regulations, including asking a contractor to dump 150 gallons of bleach into Clear Creek – potentially causing an otherwise unexplained fish kill leads – and not reporting problems, as required by law.

At a Nov. 30 Houston City Council meeting, council members passed several agenda items relating to emergency water line repairs and inspections aimed at alleviating the strain on Houston’s aging underground infrastructure, and mitigating existing and future water leaks. The city approved approximately $17.3 million for water line repairs and $4.1 million for water line inspections.

The project consists of constructing a 4.75 million gallon-per-day wastewater treatment plant with the possibility of expanding in the future. The new Manadas Wastewater Treatment Plant is a vital part of a larger plan by the city to decommission and close the aging Zacate Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant.

From not having enough water to floods to boil notices, the Utilities Department director Arturo Garcia gave an update on the water to city council. He says they are having success with the water quality. Garcia says TCEQ has done inspections on the water in Laredo, as they are trying to achieve superior water quality in the city. He says he believes this can be possible by mid-2023.

City of Beaumont -The heavy rain over the past few days brought an unusual weather event totaling around 4-5” of rain that inundated the City’s sewer system. There hasn’t been a storm that simultaneously affected so many areas of the City sewer system at the same time in quite a while.

On the same day that 2 million residents in the nation’s fourth-most-populous city faced a boil-water notice that garnered national attention, a water system near this tiny East Texas town issued similar warnings to customers, marking the 68th boil-water notice issued this calendar year. And while Houstonians responded to the news by scrambling to stock up on bottled water, customers of the Consolidated Water Supply Corp. proceeded as usual.

Water may just be the new oil in Texas. As droughts become more frequent, cities continue to sprawl, and demand rises, the value of water is forecast to increase.

With more than a thousand miles of Pacific Ocean coastline, California appears to have access to a wellspring that other arid states lack. The technology to transform that unlimited sea supply into potable drinking water has existed for decades, through a process called desalination. Yet while two new desalination plants have received approvals in the past couple months, California’s coast isn’t exactly teeming with such facilities.

Often here in East Texas, municipalities ask residents to conserve water during extreme periods of summer drought, and now one East Texas city is asking for conservation during the winter, for the user’s benefit. “People look at this bill and see a sewer charge, and people wonder how to you figure out how much to charge for my sewer usage,” said City of Longview Public Information Officer Richard Yeakley. Unlike water service, your sewer water is not metered.

The U.S. Drought Monitor releases new data every week to show how different parts of the country are affected by varying levels of drought. North Texas was labeled as abnormally dry or in a drought until late November, but the Drought Monitor's new map from shows improvement across the region.

The Texas State Aquarium released nine loggerhead sea turtles into the Gulf of Mexico after they were rehabilitated at its program in Corpus Christi. The aquarium has been caring for more than 40 loggerhead sea turtles that washed ashore along the Texas coast this year and were either injured, underweight, emaciated or otherwise showed strange behavior.

The Magnolia City Council unanimously approved the Magnolia Economic Development Corp.’s 4A project list, which included a project to provide a temporary water system for the east side of the city. The project is projected to cost $550,000, Economic Development Director Rachel Steele said at the meeting.

The fall colors in Austin slowly started to appear a few weeks ago. Now as November comes to a close, large sections of tree canopies seem to have changed overnight. This late season pop was not anticipated because of the summer drought.

Thousands of rainbow trout will be stocked in lakes and ponds around San Antonio this winter. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department stocks the fish from November through February as part of the Neighborhood Fishin' program.

Officials are urging some Baytown-area residents not to drink their water after an overflow. Rainfall over Thanksgiving weekend caused more than 100,000 gallons of wastewater to spill, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The overflow began on Nov. 24 at 9:54 p.m. and stopped shortly after.

The boil water notice for the City of Houston has been lifted after testing determined the tap water is safe to drink. Officials said customers no longer need to boil water before drinking, cooking, and making ice after water quality testing submitted to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality confirmed that tap water meets all regulatory standards and is safe to drink.