News & Updates
New bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers wants to highlight the state’s fragile water infrastructure
A bipartisan group of state lawmakers plans to spend part of its time in Austin this year highlighting the state’s increasingly fragile water infrastructure. Texas Water Foundation, a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on creating a sustainable water system in Texas,...
Flawed groundwater planning process puts Texans at risk
Texas’ process for protecting its groundwater resources is fundamentally flawed — lacking critical funding, science, and planning tools, failing to safeguard future groundwater supplies, and endangering both the water security of Texas communities and the property...
A billionaire’s luxury development fuels fight over Texas Hill Country
A billionaire seeking to build a resort with luxury homes in the Texas Hill Country is facing off against neighbors opposed to development on environmental grounds, highlighting the growing tensions as the region’s economic surge fuels a boom outside Austin. Steve...
Miranda Wait discusses Spring Lake adventure with Big Ideas TXST
Texas State University’s Miranda Wait, deputy director of Spring Lake education for The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University, joins the Big Ideas TXST podcast for February’s episode to discuss various projects and programs that can be...
Are you lonely? It’s not you, it’s the way we’ve built our nation
If you’re feeling lonely, you’re not alone. Loneliness is an increasingly common experience, and it can have severe consequences. People who feel lonely are at higher risk of serious health issues, including heart disease, immune deficiency and depression....
Texas Legislature 101: Understanding the state government and how it passes laws
The first time Shera Eichler entered the Texas Capitol to work as a legislative aide in 2002, she was nervous. She didn’t have much experience at the Capitol, apart from a visit through a school field trip. But she was quickly promoted about a month later to chief of...
An ode to Texas’s disappearing swimming holes
I lived through the golden age of Texas swimming holes. Having spent my youth submerged in chlorinated pools in and around Fort Worth, I moved to Austin in 1973 and discovered Hippie Hollow before it was a county park and Barton Creek before a mining executive...
South Texas rancher profile: Native American Seed Company — Taking Texas back to her roots
Bill Neiman has performed as keynote speaker at over 100 events for like-minded naturalist people around the state of Texas. His topic is his passion — sustainable native grass prairies, clean rivers, rainwater harvesting, and harnessing the energy of the sun for the...
Opinion: It’s time for a water session at the Legislature
There are now over 30 million Texans. The state crossed that landmark in mid-2022, gaining the most new residents of any state in the nation, with projections of an additional 25 million people living in Texas by 2050. All that growth is taking its toll on the state’s...