New Texas Miracle

In the years during and immediately following the Great Recession in 2008 and 2009, the Texas Business Association and other like-minded chambers of commerce noted how America’s second most populous state had come through the ordeal with unrivaled economic vitality. Texas attracted more direct foreign investment, was the nation’s largest exporter, and was home to more than 50 Fortune 500 companies. The state also attracted new residents, businesses, and jobs at a faster pace than any other state.

Citing low taxes, less regulation, and business-friendly lawmakers, boosters referred to this fortuitous array of development data points as the “Texas Miracle.” In typically Texan beef-brisket bravado, Texas claimed to be a financial phoenix forged by policy.

Is it, though? The question asked by some enterprising academics and a few journalists was this: Was the silver belt buckle flash of the Texas boom prone to some tarnish? Was it, in short, durable? What factors — economic, social, environmental, geopolitical — might prove to be significant impediments to prosperity born not of sweat but of strategy?

Circle of Blue spent weeks in Texas in 2020 investigating the question. In August that year we published  “Water, Texas”, a six-part series that found unmistakable evidence that the real miracle of the Texas economy was that the state hadn’t yet run out of water. The limiting factor in the state’s continuing prosperity, the element that could turn a boom into bust, was a profound confrontation between the state’s boundless ambition to grow and its perilously low supply of fresh water.

We also found that despite episodic epic droughts, Texas did not understand — or publicly admit to understanding — the depth of its water scarcity. Nor did most residents even care to pay attention. “Texas is so big that we’ve had a hard time coming to grips that resources are finite,” we were told. “People don’t grasp that there are limits and we are approaching those limits.”

This year another Texas Miracle is unfolding. Recognizing that scarce water reserves could actually lead its markets to rack and ruin, Texas lawmakers are now proposing to extend for 20 more years a big $1 billion annual water-related spending account they established in 2023, and avoid what they finally view as an impending catastrophe.

A Campaign to Develop More Supply
Gov. Greg Abbott started the crusade at the beginning of the year with a call to end the state’s developing emergency with a “Texas-size investment” in water security.

“Water scarcity is no longer a distant threat. It’s here and it’s already disrupting the lives of Texans,” said Gov. Abbott in a statement. “We are out of time. Texans must act now to secure a reliable water supply for today and for future generations.”

The same could be said for at least half the states in America, and countries on every continent from Australia to Mexico, China to South Africa, Mongolia to India to Peru. Water scarcity limited operations on the Panama Canal last year. Day Zero shortages, when cities are close to draining all the water in their reservoirs, have hit Cape Town, São Paulo, and Mexico City. In 2008, Circle of Blue was in Australia to report on a 12-year drought so dire that it crippled the largest rice production sector in the Southern Hemisphere and worsened the global grain shortage that ignited the Arab Spring uprising.

Even now, springtime in the U.S., the National Drought Monitor finds severe water scarcity conditions in much of Texas and the American Southwest.

Gov. Abbott’s call for Texans to mobilize around the threat of diminishing freshwater reserves is entirely consistent with what Circle of Blue found in 2020 and widely published in and outside Texas. It also served as a prelude to reporting this year by The Texas Tribune, a non-profit public interest newsroom that is publishing its excellent “Running Out: Texas’  Water Crisis”.

Tribune reporters Alejandra Martinez and Jayme Lozano Carver found that the state’s water supply is in such peril that one more deep drought will push Texas into the worst water crisis in its history. “At risk,” they write, “is the water Texans use every day for cooking, cleaning — and drinking.”

Among the most salient features of Running Out is the careful explanation of the finite number of sources of fresh water in Texas. More than half — 54 percent — comes from the giant Ogallala and 30 other aquifers. The balance is surface water — 23 major river and coastal basins, a number of lakes, and 180 reservoirs. Of the nearly 17 million acre-feet of water used annually (11 trillion gallons), agriculture uses more than any other sector — 7.6 million acre-feet, or 45 percent.

Much More Needed
The point is that while it sounds like a lot of water, it’s not, considering the uses in the great state of Texas. Growing numbers of residents are escalating the demand on water reserves that are shrinking due to scarcity prompted by the bullying Texas is experiencing from climate change. Three years ago the Texas Water Development Board said the state will need 6.9 million acre-feet of additional water supplies by 2070 for 41.4 million people, 10 million more residents than now.

Both Circle of Blue and The Texas Tribune found plenty of innovation in Austin, San Antonio, and El Paso for measures to conserve water, treat recycled wastewater for residential and business use, and transport water over long distances. Corpus Christi is taking steps to build a $535 million desalination plant for its municipal freshwater supply. It’s the first of several plants that the city and state are considering along the Gulf Coast.

Perspectives vary on how Texas confronts the approaching collision between its allegiance to growth and its incumbent diminishing water supply. Here are two: Texas could well turn out to be a test case and a valuable model for how big and growing industrial regions confront and solve severe water scarcity. Or Texans could be compelled to pursue a strategy in conflict with their ten-gallon hat culture: curbing growth and using far less water.

— Keith Schneider