The Houston Chronicle reported on an interesting factoid that brought some joy to my heart.
Despite our gloom over the recent occupancy in the heat dome this summer, the Houston paper said a new report calculated that from 1972 to 2022 Houston had a drop in the annual number of “mosquito days.”
Mosquito days are defined as those with a daily minimum and maximum temperatures between 50 and 95 and an average humidity of 42 percent or higher.
In other words, it has been too hot for mosquitos to work their fiendish torture.
The Texas Tribune is reporting on a lawsuit Houston officials filed against the State of Texas over a sweeping law known as the “Death Star” that our governor, Greg Abbott, signed in June.
The law marked “Texas Republicans biggest attempt yet to kneecap local governments in a yearslong assault on Texas’ major metropolitan areas, often governed by Democrats.”
Perhaps the best known policy the law ended was ending mandated water breaks for construction workers in Dallas and Austin.
Needless to say, that consequence of the GOP warring on local government happened while the state was under the heat dome.
Local government leaders say the law weakens cities’ authority to self-govern and conflicts with the state constitution that allows cities to enact their own laws, the Tribune reports.
Now before dismissing this as another gripe session about our governor and statehouse, I’ve now covered several meetings where local officials were unhappy with House Bill 2127, as Death Star was known before it became law.
It was commonly seen as overreach by the state at the expense of local governments.
If you don’t have a problem with the state telling local government under the people we elected what to do, then the Death Star is your cup of tea.
So, to even things out somewhat, I will note the state legislature has mounted its most ambitious effort in a decade to improve Texas’ water system that is under pressure from a booming population and climate change.
Water is always a big deal in Texas.
Right now, a big deal for us locally is drainage issues.
Matagorda County Economic Development Corporation is presently working to get someone to study the possible impact of Wharton’s proposed levee system that could send a large volume of Colorado River water our way in case of a flood.
MCEDC will want to look at other drainage problems and build on earlier drainage studies.
