By: Julie Nahrgang

When you read this, it will be springtime in Texas, and our bluebonnets will be blanketing the highways, yards, and fields. Our collective memory is short. And when the flowers bloom, the showers refresh and quench the ground, the springs recharge, and historic water legislation in SB 28 and Proposition 6 pass; the water worries of most Texans become distant thoughts. But as the adage goes, to avoid previous mistakes and continue to safeguard our water resources and our water workforce, we need to remain vigilant and carry the collective memory of the cycles of drought and flood and hard-fought victories to fund flood planning and drinking water plans. While we enjoy springtime in Texas with showers and flowers, the water sector cannot afford to forget the past or acknowledge the volatility of our climate swings. There are many opportunities on the horizon to keep talking, learning, storytelling, and being a water advocate!

Texas Water 2024 in Fort Worth, Texas, is approaching. As the largest regional water conference in the U.S., TXW24 will bring together over 6,000 folks to learn and connect around all water sector issues. Presentations and conversations covering water policy, treatment technology, and upcoming regulations, including PFAS and the softer science of water management, including workforce development and effective public communication, perception, and education, will all be available. WEAT is thrilled to be co- hosting this event and excited to bring forward program and competition favorites like the Dodson’s Drive Fun Run, Operations Challenge, Curtis Smalley Environmental Event, and newer events, including the InFLOW program and this year’s Biosolids Beauty Contest. If you haven’t made plans to attend, do so today! Texas Water is the water sector event to attend. With water needs as big and diverse as Texas and a booming market, Texas Water is the annual event for gathering insights and building connections for any current or future water sector leader.

With the passage of Texas’s historic water legislation in SB 28 and Proposition 6, the Texas Water Development Board is currently undergoing rule writing to implement SB 28. Comments are due by April 1 (no fooling). WEAT plans to provide comments that encourage flexibility and emphasize the spreading of funds around existing programs. Because SB 28 is written so that clean water projects will only benefit from funds pushed to the SRF program, we will continue to push for funding funneled to this source and work with the TWDB to alleviate some of the burdensome federal requirements attached to SRF funding. TWDB will host a stakeholder meeting on March 20 at 1:30. WEAT will listen in and track the implementation process. We will also look for any information on legislative intent provided by Chairman Perry. This is possible as the Chairman will seek to craft the implementation vis-a-vis the bill’s intent.

One reason the Texas legislature was willing to invest $2 billion in Texas’ water resources was the historic budget surplus the state ran during the previous biennium. According to the Comptroller and Governor Abbott, Texas will again enjoy a budget surplus of approximately $20 billion. WEAT will join our water organization colleagues in the state as we push for additional funding in the 89th Texas Legislative Session. We will hold onto the premise that SB 28 created the foundation for greater water funding. Before we pull out our crystal ball to discuss what we may see on the Texas water legislative horizon, we will need to review the data from the Texas primaries. As I write this, we do not yet have the outcome in our hands, but we know that Speaker Dade Phelan is in a primary battle against David Covey, a former GOP County Chair whose campaign is incredibly well-funded and endorsed by Governor Abbott. Senate District 30 is up for grabs as Senator Drew Springer is not seeking reelection. Representative Holland also has a formidable primary challenger, Katrina Pierson, who was a former Trump spokesperson. Finally, Senator Nathan Johnson is being challenged by current State Rep. Neave Criado, who has strong ties in a diverse district. The subtext here is that there are plenty of internal divisions in the Republican party in Texas, as the 88th Texas Legislature showed fissures in the party along familiar lines, including Gov. Abbott’s priority issue in school vouchers. A great water loss will also mark the 89th Texas Legislative Session. We know many water leaders will not seek reelection, making the work of the Water Caucus and water advocate groups like WEAT more prescient. Chairman Tracy O. King, Representative Four Price, Representative Ed Thompson, and Representative Kyle Kacal have all chosen not to run for reelection. All four members previously served on the House Natural Resources Committee in the 88th and include the Committee’s Chairman, Vice Chair, and 36% of the HNRC members. Other notable departures include Senator Drew Springer, who was a member of the Senate Ag, Water, and Rural Affairs Committee, and Representative Andrew Murr. Both are water leaders in their own right. Their departure from the Texas Legislature will be felt. We still await the House Natural Resources Committee Interim Report and the Senate Water, Agriculture, and Rural Affairs Committee Interim Report. These reports will provide the roadmap to the studies and tenor of conversations that set the stage for legislation during the 89th. However, because of the incredibly long and arduous 88th legislative session, both committees are delayed in preparing and disseminating their respective reports. We should know more after the primaries are completed.

Pivoting now to the federal front, PFAS is still the dominant topic and issue. EPA recently finalized and published two detection methods for drinking water and wastewater. EPA’s publication preamble noted “that these analytical methods will be used by laboratories to test samples for PFAS in a consistent and reliable way…The agency collaborated closely with the Department of Defense to validate Method 1633, which measures 40 PFAS compounds and is suitable for use in various applications, including compliance monitoring. Method 1621 measures adsorbable organic fluorine in wastewater, a surrogate for measuring the total amount of PFAS, which will also help detect fluorine-containing pesticides and pharmaceuticals.” Finalizing and publishing the double-verified methods are a big step forward following EPA’s 2021 PFAS roadmap. We are moving down the road to further testing and regulation of PFAS.

An important piece of the PFAS puzzle is shielding utilities from citizen suits and liability as passive receivers of PFAS. As we know, PFAS has been proposed for CERCLA designation. While the EPA has said utilities will not be the target, lack of liability protection still leaves utilities open for citizen suits. Senator Lumis’s PFAS Liability Protection Act is an answer to the. Proposed legislation S. 1430, the Water Systems PFAS Liability Protection Act, is weaving its way through Congress. During hearings late last year, a number of environmental groups testified that clean water entities should not be exempt from liability due to pretreatment programs, which should have monitored and remediated any PFAS in effluent. Of course, this is a spurious claim for a number of reasons, the least of which is that detection methods nor abatement technologies had been finalized or recommended by the EPA. That said, there is still a public belief that Resource Recovery Facilities should be doing more. There’s little doubt that this line of thinking will begin to take hold in various ways as the sector and the public grapple with a greater understanding of the omnipresence of 10,000+ chemical compounds known as ‘forever chemicals’. WEAT will continue to join the chorus of organizations, including WEF and NACWA, as we push a polluter pays approach and for a liability shield for our utilities, who are passive recipients of PFAS.

There’s never a dull moment in the water sector. And WEAT is excited to continue to be part of the fray - pushing forward good water policy, increased funding, legislation, and educating the public on our water resources. If any aspect of these efforts is intriguing to you, or you like to enjoy the company of good folks talking water, join us at the WEAT Board meeting and Leadership Networking reception on Tuesday, April 9, starting at 1 p.m. Past, current, and future leaders will be present. If you’re at all WEAT-leader curious, I hope to see you there! For now, take care, and enjoy the showers and flowers while they’re here!