Texas Water Development Board Launches New Web Site
The Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) has launched a new website called the Texas Water Newsroom.
Water Supply and Flood Planning
TWDB is the state agency responsible for water supply and flood planning, financing, and research. The agency helps ensure Texans plan and prepare for the perpetual threat of water scarcity and water surplus in Texas.
Water Newsroom Emphasizes Newsworthy Issues
The new website emphasizes news and timely topics. It bridges the gap between water professionals and consumers. It is a filtered, scaled-down, simplified version of the Board’s existing website, which can best be described as voluminous.
The Texas Water Newsroom was created to tell the stories of Texas water—the people, places, issues, and efforts. It contains videos, articles, press releases, and more. TWDB updates the stories regularly. All content is available for public use and reproduction for informational purposes. However, TWDB discourages promotional use.
Currently featured articles include:
- Public invited to comment on 2021 regional water plans,
- Advanced Metering Infrastructure allows water data to flow, a story about digital water meter technology.
- Solicitation for flood planning group nominations
- Mitigating flood damage by monitoring the floodplain
- Water + Weather report for May 2020
- Planning for Texas’ groundwater resources
- Reaching for the right water, a story about the differences between bottled waters
- Modern rainwater harvesting efforts evolve beyond backyard barrels
A Layer Cake of Information
The story on regional water plans in the Water Newsroom caught my eye. It talked about how sixteen regional water planning groups are putting the finishing touches on their plans to ensure their areas have enough water to survive a drought. It contained a link to the current drafts of the plans by region. Houston is in Region H.
The Region H plan consists of two parts: the 326 page plan and 1576 pages of appendices.
I won’t pretend that I’ve read the whole thing. But I did skim it. And I found buried nuggets of information that revealed political/legal/private agendas in play.
That in itself is inevitable. But some are shocking. One in particular caught my eye: “Flood Liability of Water Supply Reservoirs.” It contains a legislative recommendation that has the potential to take away some of your rights.
More on that in a separate post. Suffice it for now to say that the TWDB really does need public input on these recommendations. And I probably would not have found that recommendation had it not been for the new website. Check it out. Bookmark it. And visit often.
For future reference, I’ve posted it on the LINKS page of this web site.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 6/9/2020
1015 Days after Hurricane Harvey
