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 finite and fragile water resources. Groundwater, which supplies most of our state’s drinking water, is now being extracted at twice the sustainable rate and less than 2% of Texas streams remain free of significant chemicals from wastewater discharge.
Read more from Jennifer Walker of National Wildlife Federation, and Suzanne Scott of The Nature Conservancy in Texas, in this op-ed from the Austin American-Statesman here.