I'll admit that I love the conveniences of technology. At the appointed time every morning, the kitchen lights and the coffee maker come on to start the day. Alexa gives me the weather forecast and plays my favorite wake-up song. Then I hop into my car, which proceeds to inform me which roads to avoid for my commute. What's not to love?

No Time to Waste Texas can't wait any longer. We have great plans for water — water quality improvement, water resource management, water resource protection, natural systems protection, infrastructure improvement, and more. The list goes on and on and comes with a mega price tag.

When OpenAI was founded in 2015, the company set out to “ensure that artificial intelligence benefit(s) all of humanity.” Their latest breakthrough is an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot named ChatGPT. GPT stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer, which denotes that the chatbot operates a language model relying on deep learning. The chatbot operates through a browser. The premise of the...

For decades, the news about water infrastructure in the United States hasn’t been good. Development, treatment facilities, delivery systems, and restoration of natural systems have all been severely underfunded. But now, there is good news. There is a lot of funding available for infrastructure improvement, including water infrastructure.

By 2070 it’s estimated that 50 million people will call themselves Texans. They will all need water. So will the places they want to work. So will pools and golf courses. They will want to eat, too, and that requires water. There are other demands, including the environment. More than 480 current residents already participate in our regional water planning groups. That is quite a welcoming...

Utility Directors are, as a rule, an independent group. Their main focus is on delivering quality water to their customers at an affordable cost. The only good rate increase is a planned one and that is with begrudging acceptance. Planned rate increases pay for higher operational costs. But the smaller the utility, the smaller the customer base, and the more those rate increases hurt. When there...

Texas 2036 has created a water legislative blueprint titled the Water Infrastructure Crisis. While prepared by Texas 2036, the Texas Water Foundation and the Water Finance Exchange collaborated on a series of stakeholder meetings to discuss the challenges and opportunities for the water future of Texas. Another document that guides our thinking is the 2022 State Water Plan (SWP) developed by the...

Fewer utilities can go it alone these days. Utilities find that the costs of identifying, permitting, and developing new water supplies and the new or expanded treatment and pipelines necessary to get that water to customers have grown exponentially.

The unpredictability of rainfall is a major water supply problem. When it’s raining, we must find ways to capture and store it while leaving enough to sustain natural systems. But, often, there’s more rain than we or nature can absorb, resulting in flooding. On the opposite side of that concern is experiencing drought. One thing is certain, water security is essential, and there is no time for...

In 2021, Maria Lehman, the president-elect of the American Society of Civil Engineers, said, "You can't build a healthy economy on a crumbling infrastructure." The association grades roads, internet access, rail, water, and more every four years. Grades rarely rise above a D. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) is here to help, providing more than $1 trillion in spending, $550...