Why we need to minimize impervious cover and oppose federal funding cuts and state criminalization of remote and aerial imaging

In the last weeks of this session of the Texas Legislature there are at least two bills still being considered that threaten our ability to manage practices that impact flooding.  HB 3088 enables developers to sue if not grandfathered from regulation and  HB 912  that passed the house and now May 17 passed for  Senate consideration favorably by  the Senate Agriculture, Rural affairs and Homeland security committee.    HB 912  makes it a criminal  illegal offense to take or use aerial or satellite space imagining of any  land without the owners consent which is vital to relate peak flows to impervious cover and other great expenses on the public caused by poor land management.
This is an attack on technologies that enable the protection of the public and prevention of great costs to the public that are not otherwise detectable.   Photo below from Scientific American shows why  US federal funding for remote sensing is worthwhile to save the public from the expense and loss by both natural and man-made crisis so we can better manage human practices to minimize costs and risks to the public.  Man-made impacts on flooding and water shortage often can not be determined without satellite images.   Without satellite images, they keep costing the public tremendous costs to lives and economies.

Where the Eagle Ford lights the night sky there are no city lights only fracking operations.  This entire cresent normally is pitch black.  Above this cresent shaped Eagle Ford Shale formation is the Carrizo  Wilcox Sand Aquifer that is being injected with water to store for San Antonio to reuse later, That is the  only alternate water strategy for the Edwards Aquifer San Antonio region which is declared by EPA AS A SOLE SOURCE WATER SUPPLY FOR over 2 million people.  But now that Carrizzo water is being used and abused for all this fracking.  We need NON Aquifer water supply alternatives especially lots more storage tanks for rain capture and water reuse on large and small scales.  Artificial injection of water into  aquifers does not increase aquifer yield in karst aquifers and in both sand and Karst artificial water diversions during storms contaminate aquifers.  The people who want the water later may find the water is no longer there when they need it.  We have no control of private groundwater marketing to industry and developers and mining.  And we need best timing practices so their punctuated withdrawals don’t take place during times of water shortage.

The remote sensing satellite images of how impervious cover increases peak flooding in hilly areas indicates paving over such areas can be costly in terms of flood damages and fatalities and require alot more highway construction and bridges designed for even higher water levels.


International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation vol 16 June 2012 p 54-65                   Journal of Hydorlogy, 2011  vol 405(1-2) pg 69-82,
INcreased risk of great floods in a changing climate Nature 415(6871):514-517

With lots of cliffs over 200 ft high in the hill country our flooding disaster and stormwater pollution problems increase ten times with every 10% of the land we pave.  Our highways and bridges we just recently spent a lot of state money on will all have to be redone for ten times higher water levels during floods.

Below is a map of Comal Springs Invertebrate Species on federal Endangered species list. The quality and quantity of stream flows and springflows and water temperature are priorities for their critical habitat.

However, the proposed critical habitat reveision Spring 2013 does not include Blieders creek drainange a major source of stormwaterflow. 

Below is an unmonitored watershed in the BLieders Creek riparian zone that  may potentially quickly drown tens of thousand  elderly and poor and minority citizens.  In addition to introducing stormwater pollutants which at low springfflows will remain stuck inside the bottom of the Bowl, in other words in the Comal River and also at low flows be drawn underground into the Edwards Aquifer and into people's drinking water wells.

Canyon LAke Dam is a 220 ft high earthen dam that WILL fail if more land is paved upstream.
  In 2010,  the lake rose to 1 or 2 feet short of going over the high earthen dam.  Now The Texas legislators want to make it hard for local levels to restrict impervious cover in order to prevent flooding and to protect recharge areas..
The water sheds coming out ot Canyon lake shoot down canyon cliffs, circle under city of NB and crash at a 90 angle into a 150 ft Balcones cliff on Comal River in NB. That why already with bi flood even without Dam breaking we get 40 feet rises in water here in Urban New Braunfels When that dam goes because of of all the pavement in this hilly watershed all the land below this cliff in New Braunfels which is the minority voter precincts 301,302 and 303 will perish like happened in the similar situation with the Johnstown flood which had a similar earthen dam and also involved poor land management.

We need to limit paving of this area until we really study the drainage and we need more Federal Agency support for
FEMA emergency, USGS geological ,USACE engineering,USDA ag and drainage,USFWS wildlife, EPA environmental
None are locally enabled (even though federally mandated) to monitor in Blieders Creek drainage.There is a great deal of interference and  influence by a man who owns most of this drainage including an old quarry and he  is not looking after the interest of our citizens Is this man intimidating City COuncil?  And part of lack of monitoring by any agency is due to having two names on the same river and due to steering comte decisions to control modeling for TCEQ Dam safety  and  ESA aquifer protection.

We need remedies and safe guards against  Texas Leaders who neglect to use available funds for that and who make decisions counter to flood control .   like these 2013 Texas bills or any late add-ons like them need to be stopped.  SB 1918, SB1919 HB 890, HB912, HB 2640, HB 3087, HB 3088, HB3234.


Citizens and leaders need to  take action to request for federal changes in EPA to take control of Blieders creek Drainage and development decisions (We should protest that drainage becoming Dean Word's own water/flood control district in May 2013). Ask for federal appropriation to support FEMA,  USGS, USACE, USDA, USFWS and EPA monitoring of flood flows, levels and contamination, and flood control in the Blieders Creek Drainage and Canyon Lake drainage areas.  Right now None of these agencies are monitoring this drainage and the only one with the capacity to do this now is USFWS but the stakeholder implementation  committee incharge of strategies to protect Comal Springs species will not allow it.  Aslo the newly proposed USFWS critical habitat designation still leaves this drainage and its impacts out of critical habitat designation.(the public hearing is May 17 5pm San Marcos Activity Center).

(No state or federal agency has been doing that in Blieders Creek Drainage which for last few decades and only a few times in last 5 decades.  This area has become heavily platted for extensive development with little data for flood impact studies  but from previous disasters  are  already in international flood and climate disaster journals).
We  need to change federal laws that require or allow stakeholders and special interest to control monitoring and data collection and assumptions the scientists can use in advising  decisions makers about minimum flows for public safety and for Endangered species  and flood control and dam safety. There is an amendment about thirteen years old  in the Endangered species Act that requires stakeholder steering committees not a scientist panel to determine the  types of data, assumptions and model designs to be used to develop minimum flow strategies.  Very Dangerous.  Please have that amendment recalled or exempt the Texas Hill country from that dangerous amendment in the federal Endangered Species Act.