Bayou City Waterkeeper

Join us in welcoming new members to our Board of Directors! Learn more about their backgrounds in our most recent blog post. https://lnkd.in/ePZs5Exe

Join us in welcoming new members to our Board of Directors! Learn more about their backgrounds in our most recent blog post. https://lnkd.in/ePZs5Exe

Check out our newsletter to learn more about Bayou City Waterkeeper and our work this year! https://lnkd.in/e77qcWid

Read our latest blog post about environmental justice in the Houston Ship Channel. This piece by our Senior Legal Director and Waterkeeper Kristen Schlemmer was part of the newsprint accompanying Artist-in-Residence Fred Schmidt-Arenales’ film about the Ike Dike, which was exhibited at the Storefront for Art and Architecture earlier this spring. https://lnkd.in/eCmEjCyT

Community member Sade Hogue and BCWK Executive Director Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud co-authored this blog post on the need for the City to create a Sewer Lateral Assistance Program to repair sewer systems in homes. See the link in bio to read. https://lnkd.in/e7B6ieKp

The Texas Water Development Board has released its first full draft flood plan. Our Policy Analyst Usman Mahmood, along with other environmental organizations, submitted a public comment criticizing the lack of analysis of future impacts of climate change. "A public comment on the state flood plan submitted by a group of environmentalists ranging from the National Wildlife Federation to the local Bayou City Waterkeeper said 10 of 15 regions across the state had done their future-looking calculations by simply using 500-year floodplains to make assumptions about what 100-year floodplains might look like in the future." The full article is available on the Houston Chronicle. https://lnkd.in/eu_CdQHa

Last Tuesday, our Senior Legal Director Kristen Schlemmer was a panelist for a discussion on protecting Texas' coast and how to prepare for the next hurricane season. The main topic of the panel was the proposed infrastructure plan known as the “Ike Dike,” a system of gates that would cross the mouth of Galveston Bay. The project, proposed to be one big solution protect the Houston region from storm surges, would take 20 years to design and build. “This 20-year timeline is really disturbing when you consider the risks it's trying to protect against,” Schlemmer said. The panel recording and full article are available at the Texas Tribune. https://lnkd.in/gjBvRbTw

Read our recent blog post on Juneteenth: https://lnkd.in/g6WAvtqc. BCWK’s office is closed on Wed., June 19 in honor of Juneteenth, a celebration with roots in Galveston & Houston.

Join our Senior Legal Director Kristen Schlemmer and @TexasTribune for “Protecting Texas’ coastline,” happening in Corpus Christi or online Tuesday, June 18. Texans enter every hurricane season fearful they could face the next Harvey, Ike or Rita. And Texans living along the state’s 370-plus-mile coast are looking for new strategies to safeguard their communities. Much of the attention has focused on building the “Ike Dike,” a system of gates across the mouth of Galveston Bay - a $57 billion project which does not address our region’s combined risks from major storms, industrial pollution, and infrastructure failures. The state’s Coastal Resiliency Master Plan also proposes improvement projects along the entire Texas coast to help restore the natural environment. The Texas Tribune will talk with experts and community leaders about efforts to protect our coast and what we need to know before the next hurricane season. RSVP today at https://trib.it/zZof2s.

We are excited to announce the launch of the Latitude Fund, our new grantmaking program intended to provide quick-turnaround grants to grassroots groups in Texas to enhance capacity, functioning and impact. We're particularly grateful to the Latitude Fund Committee - Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud, Dave Cortez, Frances Valdez, Leticia Gutierrez (formerly Ablaza) and Tricia Cortez - a group of leaders with grassroots experience charged with making grant decisions for the Fund. Please share this opportunity with your networks! https://lnkd.in/g95R9SJQ