Thanks for Providing a Strong Voice for Texas’s Natural Resources

Thank you for your support! Earlier this month, we asked you to join the National Wildlife Federation and our Texas Living Waters Project partners in asking the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to safeguard the state’s fish and wildlife populations by strengthening a proposed environmental flow rule. As a result, over 3,000 Texans, including over 1,200 NWF members and supporters, sent letters to TCEQ this month.

The proposed TCEQ rule will determine the amount of water that should remain flowing in Central and South Central Texas rivers and associated bays to keep fish and wildlife–and the industries that depend upon them–healthy. However, as currently proposed, this rule fails to adequately protect the region’s whooping cranes, oysters and other natural treasures and disregards many of the recommendations from the region’s two stakeholder groups: the Colorado and Lavaca Rivers/Matagorda and Lavaca Bays committee and Guadalupe and San Antonio Rivers/San Antonio Bay System committee.

The next step in this process is for TCEQ staff to consider all the comments received and present the rule to the three TCEQ Commissioners for adoption on August 8, 2012. We will keep you posted. In the meantime, you can learn more about this process and water for wildlife issues by visiting our Texas Water Matters website.