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Texas law requires some — or all — of the river water not already dedicated to thirsty cities, farms and ranches and industrial plants to be set aside for the environment.
But the state’s proposed management plan for the two rivers feeding Galveston Bay puts the critter-rich estuary’s health and productivity at risk, conservationists and some scientists say.
The critics say the plan would deny the bay the fresh water it needs, particularly in times of drought, because the recommended flow levels for the Trinity and San Jacinto Rivers are too low. A change in the coastal estuary’s mix of salt and fresh waters could decimate an ecosystem teeming with crabs, oysters, shrimp, fish and birds.
“We believe it’s incredibly low considering what the bay has historically seen,” said Myron Hess, manager of the Texas water program for the National Wildlife Federation. “The proposal doesn’t fit with historical values.”
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which is responsible for the state’s surface water supply, said the plan is protective of the bay but is a work in progress that is open to public comment until Dec. 20.
“The commission’s intent is that everything is on the table,” said Todd Chenoweth, special counsel in the TCEQ’s water office.
The state’s draft plan comes in response to a 3-year-old state law that says a river should be able to keep some of its unallocated flow to protect the estuaries and bays that lie at its mouth.
Not viewed as a waste
Historically, water not tapped by cities, industries and farms and left to run to the Gulf of Mexico has been considered wasted. But that thinking changed as the Rio Grande and other rivers stopped flowing altogether at times in recent years.
Galveston Bay, the center of the state’s $2 billion a year commercial and recreational fishing industry, and Sabine Lake are the first estuary systems to go through the process to set these so-called environmental flows under the law.
The plan was developed through a public process that included scientific study and input from water suppliers, cities, environmental groups and businesses – everyone with a stake in the rivers.
The scientists and the stakeholders, however, could not reach an agreement on Galveston Bay. The TCEQ sided with the majority of stakeholders – mostly aligned with entities selling water – and proposed lower flow levels and fewer monitoring stations along the rivers than the scientists recommended.
The plan’s critics – which include the Galveston Bay Foundation and the Coastal Conservation Association, a national sport-fishing group – also say it should set monthly or seasonal targets for the flow based on natural rainfall patterns instead of annual goals.
‘An absence of timing’
The National Wildlife Federation and Sierra Club have proposed a set of inflow standards for wet and dry times throughout the year.
“In theory, you could have a big flood one month and a serious drought later and still meet TCEQ’s target,” Hess said. “But that won’t protect the bay because critters come into the bay at different times of year. There is an absence of timing.”
Jim Lester, a scientist who participated in one of the flow studies for Galveston Bay, said a single annual flow target can’t maintain a sound ecological environment as required under law. TCEQ’s plan fails to consider that some species need high freshwater flows in the spring for reproduction.
“TCEQ gives us an amount for the bay that we can’t really evaluate” because it doesn’t consider seasonal variability, said Lester, vice president and chief operating officer of the Houston Advanced Research Center in The Woodlands.
Chenoweth said the TCEQ chose annual goals because they would be easier for the state to implement and for water users to understand but acknowledged that the agency may have simplified them too much.
Still, TCEQ’s targets are not too far apart from what the conservationists want – about 250,000 acre-feet of water a year, he said.
But TCEQ’s proposal would have no significant impact on water availability over the next decade .
“Doesn’t that suggest we could have better protection for the bay?” Hess said.