Texas Tribune
Texas’ first-ever state flood plan says 5 million at risk
by By Alejandra Martinez, The Texas Tribune – 2024-05-28 05:00:00
SUMMARY: More than 5 million Texans live or work in flood-prone areas, as detailed in the Texas Water Development Board's first-ever state flood plan. The plan aims to mitigate flood risks, increasing resilience against climate change's impact, including rising sea levels and intense hurricanes. Public comments are invited until June 17. The plan details the flood susceptibility of 1.3 million homes and the geographical areas at greatest risk. It recommends a range of projects and legislative actions, estimated to cost over $49 billion, to better prepare and protect Texas from future flooding events. The final plan will be submitted by September 1.
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More than 5 million Texans, or one in six people in the state, live or work in an area susceptible to flooding, according to a draft of the state's first-ever flood plan.
The plan by the Texas Water Development Board is an effort to reduce the risk for those people by recommending solutions to harden Texas against floods and rising sea levels. The board was required to create the plan in a 2019 state law passed in response to Hurricane Harvey.
The public can make comments on the plan during a May 30 meeting in Austin and have until June 17 to submit comments online.
The plan, released in early May, estimates that close to 1.3 million Texas homes are in flood-prone areas.
Sarah Kirkle, the director of policy and legislative affairs for the Texas Water Conservation Association, which represents water professionals including water districts, water authorities and groundwater conservation districts, said the plan is significant because it gives the most complete picture yet of which areas of the state are most at risk for flooding.
The plan used existing flood data to create the maps that served as a baseline, but many state regions either didn't have flood maps, or used outdated maps.
Local water managers filled the gaps with their knowledge and the TWDB contracted flood risk modeling data company Fathom to help.
“When the plan is approved, it's going to be a historic moment for Texas,” Kirkle said. “This will be a really critical piece in understanding the topography and where you have higher and lower elevations in order to properly plan for which parts of the state are going to be subject to the risk.”
Climate change is increasing flood risks in Texas, bringing warmer temperatures that cause more water to evaporate from the land and oceans, leading to heavier rainfall. Climate change also intensifies hurricanes and sea level rise — all of which may cause river floods to become larger and more frequent.
Texas has a long history of flooding, and Harvey, a Category 4 hurricane that dumped more than 50 inches of rain in parts of the Houston area over four days, was the wettest tropical cyclone in U.S. history and caused nearly $125 billion in damages. More recently, back-to-back, heavy spring rains caused widespread flooding and evacuations across Southeast Texas.
More than 2.4 million people live or work in a 100-year floodplain — areas that have a 1% chance of flooding each year — according to the draft state flood plan. Another 2.8 million people are in a 500-year floodplain, which have a 0.2% chance of flooding each year.
One-fourth of the state's land — roughly 67,000 square miles — either falls within the 100-year floodplain or the 500-year floodplain, according to the plan. And each of the state's 254 counties has experienced at least one federally-declared flood disaster since 1953, according to the TWDB.
The plan includes a set of legislative recommendations from the TWDB and another set by 15 regional groups, anchored by one of the state's major watersheds, that helped create the plan.
The state flood plan estimates that recommended flood mitigation projects to reduce the risk of flooding across Texas could cost more than $49 billion, but more than half of the money would be allocated to the “Ike Dike” project, a coastal barrier intended to protect the Houston region from storm surge during hurricanes. TWDB is recommending that state lawmakers allocate additional funding for flood mitigation and prevention projects.
The state's Flood Infrastructure Fund, which was created in 2019, has dedicated nearly $644 million through loans and grants to local governments to finance drainage and flood mitigation projects. Lawmakers have voted to allocate about $1.4 billion for the fund since it was created.
Kirkle said the state doesn't have a reliable source of revenue for flood projects unless state lawmakers approve additional funding each legislative session.
“It makes flood mitigation strategies really difficult to fund,” Kirkle said.
TWDB is also asking lawmakers to implement a flood early warning system across the state, which they believe will help alert residents when to evacuate using social media, radio, and reverse 911 calls.
Other recommendations by TWDB include asking lawmakers to establish a technical assistance program to help small, remote, rural and disadvantaged communities who are strained for resources to apply for grants or loans. That can include state staff walking communities through flood project options or even motivating them to consider applying for a grant.
According to the plan, more than 70% of all flood fatalities in Texas occur when people try to cross flooded low water crossings. The TWDB recommends additional funding for the removal of low water crossings, additional signage and bridge improvements.
Because money is limited for flood projects, the regional groups recommended that the state give counties the authority to collect drainage fees in unincorporated areas — currently only cities can charge such fees. The regional groups argue this would help counties self-finance flood mitigation and drainage projects outside of city limits.
According to a 2023 Nationwide Stormwater Utility Survey by Western Kentucky University, of the 1,450 cities and counties in Texas, only about 150 communities have a dedicated drainage fee.
Cyrus Reed, conservation director for the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, said the plan is an impressive effort, but does have some limitations.
He said the modeling used for the plan to predict how often floods can occur is outdated and looks at historic climate variability as opposed to future climate variables.
“What we thought was a one in 100 chance of flood, or one in 500, they may be much more frequent than we were thinking because the climate is changing,” he said.
TWDB will finalize the plan this summer and deliver it to the Legislature by Sept. 1.
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The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
Texas Tribune
Gov. Abbott’s border wall will take around 30 years, $20B
by By Jasper Scherer, The Texas Tribune – 2024-07-03 05:00:00
SUMMARY: Governor Greg Abbott announced a state-funded border wall along Texas' Mexico border three years ago, resulting in 34 miles of steel bollards so far, at a cost of $25 million per mile. The fragmented wall faces challenges like securing land rights, with plans to cover 100 miles by 2026. Critics, including Democrats and some Republicans, argue the wall is costly and ineffective, while Abbott claims it helps combat illegal immigration. The project is part of Abbott's $11 billion border security initiative, but acquiring private land remains a significant hurdle. The wall's projected full completion could take 30 years and $20 billion.
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Three years after Gov. Greg Abbott announced Texas would take the extraordinary step of building a state-funded wall along the Mexico border, he has 34 miles of steel bollards to show for it.
That infrastructure — which has so far run up a price tag of some $25 million per mile — isn't yet a contiguous wall. It has gone up in bits and pieces spread across at least six counties on Texas' 1,254-mile southern border. Progress has been hampered by the state's struggles to secure land access, one of myriad challenges signaling a long and enormously expensive slog ahead for Abbott.
Nonetheless, state contractors have already propped up more wall mileage than former President Donald Trump's administration managed to build in Texas, and Abbott's wall project is plowing ahead at a quickened pace. State officials hope to erect a total of 100 miles by the end of 2026, at a rate of about half a mile per week. The governor frequently shares video of wall construction on social media and has credited the project with helping combat immigration flows. To date, though, steel barriers cover just 4% of the more than 800 miles identified by state officials as “in need of some kind of a barrier.” And at its current rate — assuming officials somehow persuade all private landowners along the way to turn their property over to the state — construction would take around 30 years and upwards of $20 billion to finish.
Under Abbott's direction, state lawmakers have approved more than $3 billion for the wall since 2021, making it one of the biggest items under the GOP governor's $11 billion border crackdown known as Operation Lone Star. The rest of the money is being used for items like flooding the border with state police and National Guard soldiers and transporting migrants to Democrat-controlled cities outside Texas, all of which Abbott and other Republicans say is needed to stem the historic number of migrants trying to enter the country.
Democrats and immigration advocates have cast the wall project as a taxpayer-funded pipe dream that will do nothing to address the root causes driving the immigration crisis. And they say the governor, in reviving what was once a hallmark of Trump's agenda, is using public money to boost his political stock.
Even some immigration-hawk Republicans are showing unease about the mounting costs of the wall.
“I am, too, concerned that we're spending a whole lot of money to give the appearance of doing something rather than taking the problem on to actually solve it, and until we do that, I don't expect to see much happen,” state Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, said last fall before voting in committee to spend another $1.5 billion in wall funding.
Abbott's office did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Acquiring land
The construction pace has largely hinged on the state's success securing rights to build the wall through privately owned borderland. Early on, the project showed little signs of life as state contractors struggled to obtain the needed easements. But things picked up last year as the state began working out more agreements covering larger tracts. Through mid-June, officials had secured 79 easements covering about 59 miles of the border, according to Mike Novak, executive director of the Texas Facilities Commission, which is overseeing the effort.
At a facilities commission meeting last month, Novak said state officials were in various stages of negotiation with landowners over another 113 miles.
“We knew from the beginning that this was going to be the choke point, you know, one of the most challenging parts of this program,” Novak said of land acquisition. “And it proved true. But we've remained steadfast.”
Officials had built 33.5 miles of wall through June 14, a facilities commission spokesperson said.
The state's ability to secure land rights has also dictated the wall's location, though officials say they have focused on areas pinpointed by the Department of Public Safety as the “highest priority.” TFC officials have declined to share exactly where the wall is being built, citing security concerns, though Novak recently said construction was underway on wall segments in Cameron, Maverick, Starr, Val Verde, Webb and Zapata counties.
Though the Texas-Mexico border spans more than 1,200 miles, Abbott's budget director, Sarah Hicks, told a Senate panel in 2022 that DPS had identified 805 miles “as vulnerable, or [that] is in need of some kind of a barrier.” Another 180 miles are covered by natural barriers, mostly in the Big Bend region of West Texas, while existing barriers already cover another 140 miles, according to state officials.
Novak has said the pace of building about half a mile of wall per week is expected to continue for the “foreseeable future.” At that rate, about 100 miles would go up every four years, with the full 805 miles covered sometime after 2050, when Abbott would be in his 90s.
The earliest wall construction has cost roughly $25 million to $30 million per mile, according to TFC officials. That would amount to $20 billion to $24 billion for the entire 805-mile span, or about three times the cost of paying every Texas public university student's tuition last year. The estimate does not account for the cost of maintaining the wall once it is built, which TFC estimates will cost around $500,000 per mile each year.
Lubbock state Sen. Charles Perry, who last year carried Texas' new immigration law that allows state police to arrest people for illegally crossing the Mexico border, is another Republican who has expressed concern about the wall's cost.
“I am for border security. I am not against a wall. But to me, at least from what I can tell, it is a perpetual circle. We're on the hamster wheel,” Perry said last fall as he prepared to vote for the $1.5 billion wall funding bill. “[At some point] the response has not to be more money for infrastructure. At some point this state must draw the line in the sand.”
Still, no Texas Republican has voted against border wall funding. Lawmakers approved nearly $2.5 billion for the effort in the state's current two-year budget — more than was allotted in state funds to all but a handful of state agencies, and more than twice what Texas spends on its court and juvenile justice systems.
State Rep. Christina Morales, D-Houston, said she doesn't think Texas' GOP leadership “really understands why people are crossing in the first place.”
“Spending billions of dollars on a wall really does not address the root causes of the migration that's happening,” said Morales, who is vice chair of the House's Mexican American Legislative Caucus. “What we should be investing in is our education, our health care, real solutions for problems that are happening right now in Texas.”
Since 2021, federal officials have recorded an average of about 2 million illegal border crossings a year, a record that Abbott has attributed to President Joe Biden for rolling back some of Trump's border policies. The governor has touted the wall construction as a way for Texas to “address the border crisis while President Biden has sat idly by.” Biden and other Democrats have blamed Republicans for shooting down a sweeping bipartisan border deal earlier this year.
The scope of Texas' wall construction — and Abbott's broader border security efforts — are unprecedented in nature, as the federal government is generally responsible for immigration enforcement and the costs associated with it.
Even with the state's improved pace securing easements, Novak has said land access remains the biggest challenge for the project, and “it'll probably remain that way through most of the program.” The Trump administration encountered the same issue after the former president famously said he would build the wall and make Mexico pay for it. Even using the federal government's power to seize some borderland, Trump's administration built just 21 miles of new wall along the Texas-Mexico border.
The painstaking negotiations are required for Texas' wall because lawmakers barred the use of eminent domain to gain land access.
Last year, state Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, filed legislation to change that, arguing TFC officials could only build a complete wall if they were authorized to use eminent domain powers. The proposal failed to make it through the Senate, though Creighton said he plans to file it again for the session that starts next January.
“Of course, we can continue to negotiate with ranchers, but that is a very slow process,” Creighton said. “And it's an incomplete process, because there will always be holdouts for different reasons.”
Creighton, one of the upper chamber's more conservative members, said he still supports using state funds to build a border wall, even as some of his GOP colleagues have raised objections.
“I say no to waste, inefficiencies, potential fraud and unreasonable spending as much as any member,” Creighton said. “But … there are times, with all of that fiscal conservatism, that we have to use the money that we save efficiently to protect Texans and Texas.”
“A difficult and complex task”
Most border wall advocates acknowledge barriers alone will not deter people from trying to enter the country illegally. But they say a wall would work if paired with more law enforcement officers and technology, arguing it would slow down attempted crossers to give border agents more time to apprehend them and encourage migrants to seek asylum via ports of entry.
But smuggling gangs have used ordinary power tools to saw through parts of Trump's wall and scaled it using disposable ladders. Some immigration experts say border walls fail to solve the underlying factors driving people to migrate, such as the poverty, violence and political upheaval in Central America, Haiti and Venezuela that is driving millions to flee and straining U.S. resources at the border.
“Walls do not achieve the objectives for which they are said to be erected; they have limited effects in stemming insurgencies and do not block unwanted [migrant] flows, but rather lead to a re-routing of migrants to other paths,” wrote Élisabeth Vallet of the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute in a 2022 report.
Those sorts of objections have done nothing to deter Abbott and GOP lawmakers, who are armed with a huge budget surplus and polling that shows a majority of Texas voters support the state's wall effort and overall border spending. More than 90% of Republican voters support the wall, with 74% voicing “strong” support, according to an April poll by the Texas Politics Project.
With construction plunging ahead, Novak has projected confidence about the wall's status, pointing to the recent progress after an initial slow start, which saw officials build less than 2 miles in the 12 months after Abbott announced the effort.
It's not just land access that complicates wall construction, Novak said at the June TFC meeting, where he ticked off a list of other factors: changing soil conditions that require “complicated engineering solutions”; steering clear of irrigation systems when building on agricultural land; weather; and “sensitivity” to cattle, oil and gas and hunting operations.
“It's a difficult and complex task, at best,” Novak said. “But with that said, we're whipping it. The latest stats reflect what I like to call just steadfast progress.”
Just in: Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming; U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania; and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt will take the stage at The Texas Tribune Festival, Sept. 5–7 in downtown Austin. Buy tickets today!
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The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
Texas Tribune
Biden administration proposes rule to prevent heat injuries
by By Asad Jung, The Texas Tribune – 2024-07-02 17:27:33
SUMMARY: The Biden-Harris administration proposed a rule to protect workers from extreme heat, following increased heat-related hazards for Texas employees like construction workers and cooks. The rule mandates employers to create plans preventing heat injuries, ensuring water access, rest breaks, and controlling indoor heat. Rep. Greg Casar, advocating for a federal heat standard, supports the proposal, anticipating its finalization by next summer. This rule follows Texas' HB 2127, which eliminated local ordinances for mandatory water breaks. Climate change has intensified heat in Texas, leading to record temperatures and deadly outcomes. At least 300 people died from heat in Texas last year, highlighting the need for protective measures.
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Above-normal high temperatures in recent summers have been outright dangerous for construction workers, kitchen cooks and other Texas employees who may be at risk for hazardous heat exposure.
But some relief may be on the way after the Biden-Harris administration announced a proposed rule Tuesday that aims to protect millions of workers from the risks of extreme heat.
The rule would require employers to develop a plan to prevent heat injuries and illnesses in workplaces and make sure their employees can access drinking water, get rest breaks and control indoor heat. It would apply to all employers conducting indoor or outdoor work in construction, agriculture and other sectors where the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has jurisdiction.
Before going into effect, OSHA must publish the proposal publicly and establish a period to collect public input.
“In many ways, this decades-long fight in Texas is helping expand workers' rights nationwide,” said U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, D-Austin, who has advocated for a federal workplace heat standard and rest and water breaks in Texas.
Casar led a thirst strike at the U.S. Capitol a year ago to draw attention to the issue. Casar hopes the Biden administration's proposed rule will be finalized by next summer.
The proposed federal requirements come a year after Texas legislators passed House Bill 2127, which barred cities and counties from passing local ordinances that go further than state law in several areas — from labor and finance to agriculture and natural resources.
HB 2127 eliminated ordinances in Austin and Dallas that established mandatory water breaks for construction workers. Supporters of the law said those kinds of ordinances bogged down businesses and created inconsistent standards across the state.
Climate change driven by humans burning fossil fuels is pushing temperatures higher in Texas. Last year was the hottest on record in the state. The state climatologist expects average temperatures and the number of triple-digit days will continue to rise.
Heat is deadly. It's known as a silent killer because its impacts are more nuanced than a tornado or a fire. But heat kills more people than any other type of weather, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. At least 300 people died in Texas last year from the heat, more than in any other year on record. Most of the deaths happened in populous metro regions, like Houston and Dallas Fort-Worth, as well as in border regions.
“We know that temperatures will continue to go up. So these protections need to be in place,” said Ana Gonzalez, deputy director of policy and politics at the Texas AFL-CIO.
Emily Foxhall contributed to this story.
Just in: Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming; U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania; and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt will take the stage at The Texas Tribune Festival, Sept. 5–7 in downtown Austin. Buy tickets today!
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The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
Texas Tribune
U.S. Supreme Court rejects Texas death row inmate’s petition
by By Pooja Salhotra, The Texas Tribune – 2024-07-02 14:51:35
SUMMARY: The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review the murder case of Rodney Reed, who has maintained innocence for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites. Convicted in 1998, Reed's guilt has been questioned with accusations aimed at Stites' fiancé, Jimmy Fennell. Although Texas halted Reed's execution in 2019 for further review, the courts denied a new trial. However, the Supreme Court allowed Reed to pursue DNA testing on crime scene evidence. Reed's attorneys continue to fight for justice, asserting his innocence. Meanwhile, Stites' family insists on Reed's guilt. Both Reed and Fennell have faced accusations of sexual assaults.
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to give Rodney Reed the chance to have his murder case reviewed, delivering a blow to the death row inmate who has for more than a quarter century maintained that he is innocent of the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites.
Reed, a Black man, was convicted in 1998 of killing a 19-year-old white woman in the Central Texas town of Bastrop. For years, Reed's guilt has been questioned, with his supporters pointing blame at Stites' fiance, Jimmy Fennell.
In 2019, Texas' highest criminal court halted Reed's execution, sending the case back to the trial court for further review. But a district judge ruled against granting Reed a new trial in 2021, and two years later the state's highest criminal court also rejected Reed's claims of innocence.
Without offering any comment, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Reed's petition for a writ of certiorari, which would have ordered the lower court to deliver the case records to the higher court for review.
The ruling does not mean that Reed's execution will immediately be scheduled. In another appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court last year sided with Reed, who is now 56, and cleared the way for his team to pursue DNA testing on crime scene evidence that his attorney's said could exonerate him.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in that case in August, Reed's legal team said.
“[Reed] has litigation pending in several courts and his legal team is continuing to pursue all available avenues to secure his relief,” said Parker Rider-Longmaid, an attorney representing Reed. “Mr. Reed's legal fight to test key DNA evidence and prove his innocence is far from over.”
Reed's attorneys maintain that their client was sentenced to death for a crime he didn't commit. They say that Reed was having an affair with Stites and that the courts have not allowed for DNA testing of crucial evidence, including the belt used to strangle Stites.
Stites' sister, Debra Oliver, meanwhile, said that Reed is guilty and should accept responsibility for the crime.
“It is time to stop retraumatizing Stacey's loved ones for the benefit of activists and those seeking notoriety from this nightmare,” the statement said.
Oliver also said that Reed is guilty of raping her sister, who she says had no romantic relationship with Reed.
Both Reed and Stites' fiance have been accused of multiple sexual assaults. Reed was indicted in several rape cases. Fennell spent 10 years in prison after he kidnapped and allegedly raped a woman while on duty as a police officer in 2007.
Just in: Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming; U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania; and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt will take the stage at The Texas Tribune Festival, Sept. 5–7 in downtown Austin. Buy tickets today!
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The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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