Water: It's not just a drink; it's the lifeblood of Texas.
At the Brazos River Authority, we're passionate about safeguarding this vital element for future generations. We regularly monitor the health of the Brazos River Basin, ensuring its water quality remains top-notch, but we can't do it alone.
Enter the Texas Clean Rivers Program.
A program you too can be a part of. It requires ongoing assessment of water quality and management strategies statewide. This will guide Texas water policy and decisions in the future.
Water is the center of everything we do at the Brazos River Authority, which develops, manages, and protects the water resources of the basin.
Flashback to 1991, the Texas Legislature passed the Texas Clean Rivers Act. It aimed to move Texas toward comprehensive water resources planning and management to ensure the integrity of the state's water supply over the long term. The Act established the Texas Clean Rivers Program under the Texas Water Commission (now the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, or TCEQ,). The program is funded by fees assessed on wastewater discharge permittees and water rights holders.
The BRA has participated in the Texas Clean Rivers Program for more than 20 years.
Participation from the public, industry, and local government is crucial to the support of the program's goals and priorities. The BRA holds annual meetings of its Texas Clean Rivers Act Steering Committee to review water quality-related activities in the basin. These meetings are open to the public, and members include representatives from the general public, government, industry, business, education, agriculture, and environmental groups. The focus is to ensure local concerns are expressed to the planning agencies and to aid the prioritization of water quality objectives. Your insights will help guide planning efforts, influence resource allocation, and ultimately contribute to a cleaner, healthier Brazos River Basin.
The Texas Clean Rivers Program provides about 60% of data used by the TCEQ for water quality decisions, according to the TCEQ. The data is then used to help with the development and implementation of watershed protection plans and other local actions. Joining forces with partners across the state creates a stronger network for monitoring rivers. This means more eyes on the water, ensuring the program is successful and producing informative and reliable water quality data, according to the TCEQ.
Texas has 23 major river basins and more than 700 rivers, lakes, and other bodies of water, according to the TCEQ. That's a lot of water that needs monitoring. Water quality specialists sample 1,000 locations statewide, including streams, creeks, rivers, lakes, and bays, at least quarterly. This produces more than 250,000 water quality measurements each year, creating a detailed snapshot of conditions. This information is invaluable for identifying current and potential issues.
With over 125 Clean Rivers Program sites throughout the Brazos River Basin, the BRA collects data every one to three months, depending on the site. The environmental team tests for everything from temperature and salinity to dissolved solids and chemical contaminants.
The data collected by the BRA and other Clean Rivers partners follows a stringent set of protocols in order to produce consistent and reliable water quality data. All the data the BRA collects is sent to TCEQ and is used as part of the Texas Integrated Report of Surface Water Quality, which is an overall assessment of Texas water quality that is produced every two years. The report describes the status of Texas surface waters and the extent to which they meet the surface water quality standards, all based on the data that the BRA and other CRP partners collect.
Between reports, the BRA makes all Clean Rivers monitoring data available online, with links to each monitoring location available via map points. That information can be viewed at brazos.org/clean-rivers. Each monitoring location is indicated by either a blue or red dot. The red dots indicate stations tested by the BRA. Once a site is selected, data can be filtered by several factors, including time range and varying parameters like basic water quality chemistry, nutrients, and bacteriology.
The BRA also produces a Basin Summary Report every five years, which includes assessments of waterways within the basin, recommendations, stakeholder input, and public outreach activities.
Are you ready to make a splash? Let's join forces to create a cleaner, healthier Texas. Together, we can ensure that our state's future is as bright as its waters. Go to here to sign up as a member of the Clean Rivers Program Steering Committee or request more information.