Texas Environmental Agency Creates Office of Water

The new office will include the three existing water divisions in the agency - Water Planning, Water Supply, and Water Quality.

"The new office is in recognition of the fact that the state's population is expected to double in the next 30 years," Chairman Bryan Shaw said in a statement. "So the agency must put even more focus on water issues to ensure that there will be adequate water quality and quantity for future demand."

"Over the past several years, much of the state experienced a fierce drought," said commissioner and former Rio Grande Watermaster Carlos Rubinstein. "Our agency's response to the people and communities that suffered from this event was extraordinary, and this new Office of Water will ensure that we provide an even higher and more focused level of response."

According to a report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Risk Management Agency, final tallies for 2009 released in November show that almost half of the total acreage of cotton, corn and sorghum was lost to the drought.

In September, soaking rains in parts of the Lower Rio Grande Valley broke record heat of summer. But according to the National Weather Service, rain is not in the forecast for deep South Texas as weather patterns are not conducive to a wet winter.

The last stretch of water on the upper part of Bull Creek in Austin, Texas. September 2009. (Photo by Atmtx)

"Water planning, water supply, and water quality are all issues that are important to the future of our state," said TCEQ commissioner Buddy Garcia. "This is an important step in our reorganization.

"There are 6,800 public water systems in our state," said TCEQ Executive Director Mark Vickery. "Making sure that the water that comes through these systems is clean and healthy is a priority of the TCEQ and is critically important to many, many Texans."

L'Oreal Stepney will serve as deputy director of the new Office of Water. She has served with the TCEQ and predecessor agencies since 1992.

Stepney has served in air permitting and wastewater permitting, as section manager of the Wastewater Permitting Section, as Water Quality Division director, and as assistant deputy director for the Office of Permitting and Registration. She holds a master's degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Texas.

The new Office of Water will be a busy place. The TCEQ has begun internal preparations for the next revision of the Texas Surface Water Quality Standards including criteria development for nutrients, toxics, and bacteria.

The TCEQ says revisions to the standards and the Standards Implementation Procedures are needed to incorporate recently developed site-specific standards for individual water bodies, incorporate new research on the toxicity of specific chemicals, and improve the way that the standards are used and applied.

The process of reviewing and revising the standards is a joint process with the TCEQ, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the general public, other governmental agencies, industries, municipalities and environmental groups. Much of the coordination is done through the Surface Water Quality Standards Advisory Work Group.

The TCEQ's Nonpoint Source Program is accepting applications for grants to support projects that abate nonpoint source water pollution. The application deadline is 5:00 pm on December 18, 2009.

The Bacteria Implementation Group will hold a public meeting on December 9, 2009. The BIG, as the group is commonly known, is a 30 member committee that is preparing an implementation plan to remedy high levels of bacteria and implement Total Maximum Daily Loads, TMDLs, in waterways within the Houston–Galveston area.

Also meeting December 9, is the Houston Ship Channel TMDL Stakeholder Group, which advises the agency's TMDL Program on its projects to reduce dioxin and polychlorinated biphenyl concentrations in the Houston Ship Channel and the Galveston Bay System. The group has representation from government, permitted facilities, agriculture, business, environmental groups and community interests in the Houston Ship Channel and Galveston Bay watersheds.

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