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Texas Senate Approves Creation New Immigration Enforcement Unit, Allow State Police to Arrest for Border Crossings
The House has already passed the bill, but the two chambers will need to iron out the differences in their versions before it is sent to Gov. Greg Abbott. It’s the most sweeping of a Republican package of bills that aims to stiffen the state’s response to a record number of crossings at Texas’ southern border.
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Northwest Region-Wide Effort for the Next Generation Electrical Grid
Smart grids offer an important defense against climate change: smart devices improve energy efficiency and data and automation help keep grids stable, even if the share of renewable energy increases. They thus address the problem of short-term disruptions to solar and wind power, such as when clouds obscure the sun or winds die down.
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Long-Term Coastal Cliff Loss Due to Climate Change
The dangers of coastal erosion are an all-too-familiar reality for the modern residents of California’s iconic mountainous coastal communities. New tool brings historical perspective to the topic of how to manage these disappearing coastlines.
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Colorado Law Will Require Homes to Be More Wildfire Resistant
The state will develop building standards for homes in high-risk areas after ProPublica’s reporting showed previous efforts to require fire-resistant housing materials had been repeatedly stymied by developers and municipalities.
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Colorado River Water Plan Could Trigger Unprecedented Supply Cuts, Ripple Effects on Key Industries
Decades of drought and overuse have brought the river’s water levels to historic lows. States in the Lower Colorado River Basin — Arizona, California and Nevada — now must choose between one of three options proposed by the federal government. The economic impact of the river’s dwindling water supplies is could be disastrous.
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Texas Senate Passes Bill Limiting Farmland Sales to China, Other Countries
The Texas Senate on Wednesday gave final approval to a bill that limits the sale of Texas farmland to citizens and entities associated with China and several other countries. The amended bill is a dramatically watered-down version of an earlier proposal that sought to ban land and home purchases by citizens of China and three other countries.
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Forced Water-Use Cuts Made California More Waterwise
After a drought-stricken California lifted a year of mandatory water-use cuts that were effective in 2015 and 2016, urban water use crept back up somewhat, but the overall lasting effect was a more waterwise Golden State.
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As States Replace Lead Pipes, Plastic Alternatives Could Bring New Risks
Across the country, states and cities are replacing lead pipes to address concerns over lead-contaminated drinking water, an urgent health threat. But critics say that substituting PVC for lead pipes “may well be leaping from the frying pan into the fire.”
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Feds’ Colorado River Choice: California’s Rights or Arizona’s Future?
Almost half of all the water that flows through the Colorado River each year is consumed by just two states: Arizona and California. For the Biden administration to stabilize the river, one of the two states will have to lose big.
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Texas Senate Moves to Set Aside Billions for Future Water Needs
The Texas Senate on Monday passed a bill that would create a new state fund tailored for large or long-shot water supply projects, including marine desalination. The bill will advance to the House.
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Train Cars Which Derailed in Ohio Were Labeled Non-Hazardous
Nearly two weeks after a train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed in rural Ohio, questions still linger about the lasting effects of the incident and the speed at which residents were returned to their homes. What we do know is that the train cars were marked as non-hazardous, and thus officials weren’t notified that the train would be crossing through the state.
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Stoking Wildfire Resilience in Oregon
Monitoring allows all the moving pieces of an emergency response to launch into action and for decision makers to have as much time as possible to assess and mitigate the threat. This is certainly true when it comes to wildfires. S&T is piloting smoke detection sensors ahead of the 2023 wildfire season.
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Science and Supercomputers Help Utilities Adapt to Climate Change
Northern Illinois traditionally enjoys four predictable seasons. But climate is changing, with big repercussions for the people who live in the region and the power grid that supports them.
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Flooding in California: What Went Wrong, and What Comes Next
Battered by storm after storm, California is facing intense flooding, with at least 19 lives lost so far and nearly 100,000 people evacuated from their homes. And there’s no sign that the storms will be letting up soon.
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California Declares Storm State of Emergency
A huge storm has hit the West Coast of the US, prompting California’s governor to declare a state of emergency. Officials said it may be “one of the most challenging and impactful” storms to hit the state in five years.
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The long view
Tech Breakthrough Could Increase States’ Use of Geothermal Power
Lawmakers in some states have been laying the groundwork to add geothermal power to the electrical grid and pump underground heat into buildings. Now, a technological breakthrough could dramatically expand those ambitions — and perhaps unleash a new wave of policies to tap into geothermal sources. If the technology’s promise is fulfilled, geothermal could power as much as 20% of the U.S. grid.
Sediment Movement During Hurricane Harvey Could Negatively Impact Future Flooding
Enormous amounts of sediment, or sand and mud, flowed through Houston waterways during Hurricane Harvey in 2017, due in part to modifications made by humans to bayous, rivers and streams over the past century. Harvey was the largest rainfall event in U.S. history, and it moved 27 million cubic meters of sediment, or 16 Astrodomes, through Houston waterways and reservoirs. This could seriously impact future flooding events and be costly to the City of Houston.