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How the flooding in Southeast Texas got so dire

News Feed
Friday, May 3, 2024

Subscribe to The Y’all — a weekly dispatch about the people, places and policies defining Texas, produced by Texas Tribune journalists living in communities across the state. HOUSTON — Southeast Texas is used to heavy spring rains — but the widespread flooding that the region faced this week stands out because of just how much the rivers have risen. Back-to-back storms drenched the area that includes Polk, Montgomery, Liberty and Harris counties, causing flash-flooding from heavy rain. That rain also filled creeks, rivers and reservoirs, creating a compounding, dangerous problem of too much water with nowhere to go but back out of the riverbanks. Operators for three major reservoirs on rivers in the area have been on high alert as they deal with the slugs of water flowing into the man-made lakes. Part of their job is to calculate how much water to release downstream to protect the dams from failure, which would cause an even worse catastrophe than the swollen rivers. Lake Livingston, a reservoir located in the East Texas Piney Woods; Lake Houston, a reservoir on the west fork of the San Jacinto River, 15 miles northeast of downtown Houston; and Lake Conroe, a reservoir located north of Houston in Montgomery County, were all at capacity and releasing water downstream. The Trinity River’s water feeds into Lake Livingston. Meanwhile, the West Fork of the San Jacinto River contributes to Lake Conroe, which then feeds into Lake Houston, as does other runoff. All eventually empty into the Gulf of Mexico. Lake Livingston operators said at one point they were releasing more water than they did during Hurricane Harvey, a disastrous storm that hit Texas in 2017 and dropped unprecedented amounts of rain across the Greater Houston region. Lake Conroe was releasing high amounts too — but not quite as much as during Harvey. Related Story Updated: 2 hours ago While some dams are designed for flood control, these three are not. Instead, they serve as sources of drinking water. As the rivers swell with the reservoir releases and with other rainfall draining into them, low-lying neighborhoods are going underwater. “You're affecting people's livelihoods downstream,” said Rick Davis, assistant project manager at the Trinity River Authority, which manages the Lake Livingston dam. “But with every release, you can only hope that the water levels coming into the reservoir stabilize and can start tapering back the releases of water and hopefully give folks some relief.” Here’s how we got here and how this system is designed to work: What is a reservoir? A reservoir is a man-made lake formed by the construction of a dam across a river. The dam and gates control the amount of water that flows out of the reservoir. Reservoirs are built to hold back a certain amount of water because the amount of water in a river can vary over time. There are different types of reservoirs; the most common are for flood control and water conservation. Lake Livingston, Lake Houston and Lake Conroe essentially serve as big pools of water that hold drinking water for the city of Houston and the growing region. How can reservoirs contribute to flooding? Reservoir operators control how much water gets released downstream. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Without a dam, all the water draining into the river might flow downstream even quicker, said Katie Landry-Guyton, a senior service hydrologist with the National Weather Service Houston/Galveston office. But reservoirs can contribute to flooding when lakes reach capacity and operators must release the water to make sure the dam can keep operating safely. Rick Warner, a superintendent with the Coastal Water Authority, which operates the Lake Houston dam, said that when operators see the weather forecast alerting people of potential rainfall, they can open the dam’s gates to release water before the storm hits. Opening the gates helps lower the lake’s water levels and creates room for more water. He said these so-called controlled pre-releases will hopefully alleviate flooding that can occur with rainfall. “This gives us a little head start on releasing water before the flood water comes down to the reservoir,” he said. Warner said that any opening or closing of the dam’s gate has to be directed by the city of Houston, which owns the lake. That calculation might be harder for a reservoir farther north, like Lake Conroe. If the rainfall prediction is off, and neighborhoods to the south of the lake get hit with hard rainfall at the same time the river swells with an early release, that can create a major problem. Hydrologists and engineers set guidelines for monitoring and matching inflows into the reservoir and rates of release. Each reservoir has a unique set of rules and they are based on historical river data, floods and droughts, said Davis, the assistant project manager at the Trinity River Authority. With some dam and reservoir designs, such as Lake Conroe, when there’s heavy rainfall, lakes can begin to reach higher capacities and run the risk of overflowing. If water is not released, the dam could break. “It could cause catastrophic damage when lakes were allowed to get too full,” Warner said. According to the Association of State Dam Safety Officials, hundreds of dam failures have occurred throughout U.S. history and they’ve caused severe property and environmental damages and have taken thousands of lives. How did the weather lead to flooding this week? The flooding disaster unfolding across parts of Southeast Texas began days earlier, on Sunday, when the first rounds of heavy rain drenched the region and started to drain into lakes that were already full. The Trinity River too was elevated from the start, said Landry-Guyton, at the National Weather Service. Another round of heavy rain on Wednesday and Thursday added even more water to roughly the same areas, meteorologists said. Over the past week, 15 to 20 inches of water fell on the area that drains into Lake Livingston, and 10 to 15 inches on the area that drains into the East Fork of the San Jacinto River and Lake Conroe, Landry-Guyton said. More fell in some isolated spots. That’s a whopping amount of water. Meteorologist Matt Lanza, who helps run the much-watched Space City Weather website in Houston, said he was used to seeing 10 inches of rain falling overnight on occasion. But to see heavy rain spells twice in one week was “problematic,” he said. By Wednesday, as the rain was still falling, Lanza realized the region couldn’t take any more water. “This is not a normal type of spring flood,” Lanza said. “This is more of an extreme type of spring flood.” Polk County Office of Emergency Management officials warned residents Monday that the Trinity River Authority of Texas, an agency that oversees Lake Livingston and its dam, would discharge water from the lake into the area. Officials asked residents to evacuate immediately. By 3 p.m. Thursday, the amount of water coming out of Lake Livingston reached 124,000 cubic feet per second — equivalent to releasing 124,000 basketballs per second. This is the highest water release for the lake in its history. For context, during Hurricane Harvey, operators were releasing 110,000 cubic feet per second at the most. Carlos Nogueras Ramos contributed to this story. We’ve got big things in store for you at The Texas Tribune Festival, happening Sept. 5–7 in downtown Austin. Join us for three days of big, bold conversations about politics, public policy and the day’s news.

Since Sunday, multiple rounds of rainfall have soaked the region, causing rivers and creeks to swell and rise out of their banks.

Subscribe to The Y’all — a weekly dispatch about the people, places and policies defining Texas, produced by Texas Tribune journalists living in communities across the state.

HOUSTON — Southeast Texas is used to heavy spring rains — but the widespread flooding that the region faced this week stands out because of just how much the rivers have risen.

Back-to-back storms drenched the area that includes Polk, Montgomery, Liberty and Harris counties, causing flash-flooding from heavy rain. That rain also filled creeks, rivers and reservoirs, creating a compounding, dangerous problem of too much water with nowhere to go but back out of the riverbanks.

Operators for three major reservoirs on rivers in the area have been on high alert as they deal with the slugs of water flowing into the man-made lakes. Part of their job is to calculate how much water to release downstream to protect the dams from failure, which would cause an even worse catastrophe than the swollen rivers.

Lake Livingston, a reservoir located in the East Texas Piney Woods; Lake Houston, a reservoir on the west fork of the San Jacinto River, 15 miles northeast of downtown Houston; and Lake Conroe, a reservoir located north of Houston in Montgomery County, were all at capacity and releasing water downstream.

The Trinity River’s water feeds into Lake Livingston. Meanwhile, the West Fork of the San Jacinto River contributes to Lake Conroe, which then feeds into Lake Houston, as does other runoff. All eventually empty into the Gulf of Mexico.

Lake Livingston operators said at one point they were releasing more water than they did during Hurricane Harvey, a disastrous storm that hit Texas in 2017 and dropped unprecedented amounts of rain across the Greater Houston region. Lake Conroe was releasing high amounts too — but not quite as much as during Harvey.

Related Story

While some dams are designed for flood control, these three are not. Instead, they serve as sources of drinking water.

As the rivers swell with the reservoir releases and with other rainfall draining into them, low-lying neighborhoods are going underwater.

“You're affecting people's livelihoods downstream,” said Rick Davis, assistant project manager at the Trinity River Authority, which manages the Lake Livingston dam. “But with every release, you can only hope that the water levels coming into the reservoir stabilize and can start tapering back the releases of water and hopefully give folks some relief.”

Here’s how we got here and how this system is designed to work:

What is a reservoir?

A reservoir is a man-made lake formed by the construction of a dam across a river. The dam and gates control the amount of water that flows out of the reservoir.

Reservoirs are built to hold back a certain amount of water because the amount of water in a river can vary over time. There are different types of reservoirs; the most common are for flood control and water conservation. Lake Livingston, Lake Houston and Lake Conroe essentially serve as big pools of water that hold drinking water for the city of Houston and the growing region.

How can reservoirs contribute to flooding?

Reservoir operators control how much water gets released downstream. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Without a dam, all the water draining into the river might flow downstream even quicker, said Katie Landry-Guyton, a senior service hydrologist with the National Weather Service Houston/Galveston office.

But reservoirs can contribute to flooding when lakes reach capacity and operators must release the water to make sure the dam can keep operating safely.

Rick Warner, a superintendent with the Coastal Water Authority, which operates the Lake Houston dam, said that when operators see the weather forecast alerting people of potential rainfall, they can open the dam’s gates to release water before the storm hits.

Opening the gates helps lower the lake’s water levels and creates room for more water. He said these so-called controlled pre-releases will hopefully alleviate flooding that can occur with rainfall.

“This gives us a little head start on releasing water before the flood water comes down to the reservoir,” he said.

Warner said that any opening or closing of the dam’s gate has to be directed by the city of Houston, which owns the lake.

That calculation might be harder for a reservoir farther north, like Lake Conroe. If the rainfall prediction is off, and neighborhoods to the south of the lake get hit with hard rainfall at the same time the river swells with an early release, that can create a major problem.

Hydrologists and engineers set guidelines for monitoring and matching inflows into the reservoir and rates of release. Each reservoir has a unique set of rules and they are based on historical river data, floods and droughts, said Davis, the assistant project manager at the Trinity River Authority.

With some dam and reservoir designs, such as Lake Conroe, when there’s heavy rainfall, lakes can begin to reach higher capacities and run the risk of overflowing. If water is not released, the dam could break.

“It could cause catastrophic damage when lakes were allowed to get too full,” Warner said.

According to the Association of State Dam Safety Officials, hundreds of dam failures have occurred throughout U.S. history and they’ve caused severe property and environmental damages and have taken thousands of lives.

How did the weather lead to flooding this week?

The flooding disaster unfolding across parts of Southeast Texas began days earlier, on Sunday, when the first rounds of heavy rain drenched the region and started to drain into lakes that were already full. The Trinity River too was elevated from the start, said Landry-Guyton, at the National Weather Service.

Another round of heavy rain on Wednesday and Thursday added even more water to roughly the same areas, meteorologists said.

Over the past week, 15 to 20 inches of water fell on the area that drains into Lake Livingston, and 10 to 15 inches on the area that drains into the East Fork of the San Jacinto River and Lake Conroe, Landry-Guyton said. More fell in some isolated spots.

That’s a whopping amount of water.

Meteorologist Matt Lanza, who helps run the much-watched Space City Weather website in Houston, said he was used to seeing 10 inches of rain falling overnight on occasion. But to see heavy rain spells twice in one week was “problematic,” he said.

By Wednesday, as the rain was still falling, Lanza realized the region couldn’t take any more water.

“This is not a normal type of spring flood,” Lanza said. “This is more of an extreme type of spring flood.”

Polk County Office of Emergency Management officials warned residents Monday that the Trinity River Authority of Texas, an agency that oversees Lake Livingston and its dam, would discharge water from the lake into the area. Officials asked residents to evacuate immediately.

By 3 p.m. Thursday, the amount of water coming out of Lake Livingston reached 124,000 cubic feet per second — equivalent to releasing 124,000 basketballs per second. This is the highest water release for the lake in its history. For context, during Hurricane Harvey, operators were releasing 110,000 cubic feet per second at the most.

Carlos Nogueras Ramos contributed to this story.

We’ve got big things in store for you at The Texas Tribune Festival, happening Sept. 5–7 in downtown Austin. Join us for three days of big, bold conversations about politics, public policy and the day’s news.

Read the full story here.
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Iguanas Are Native, Not Invasive, on This Mexican Island, DNA Study Suggests, Rewriting Conservation Ideas

The spiny-tailed iguanas of Clarion Island predate human presence in the Americas by tens of thousands of years, researchers say

Iguanas Are Native, Not Invasive, on This Mexican Island, DNA Study Suggests, Rewriting Conservation Ideas The spiny-tailed iguanas of Clarion Island predate human presence in the Americas by tens of thousands of years, researchers say Sara Hashemi - Daily Correspondent November 7, 2025 1:39 p.m. A spiny-tailed iguana on Clarion Island Daniel Mulcahy The spiny-tailed iguanas on Mexico’s Clarion Island were long thought to have been introduced by humans. But a study published this October in the journal Ecology and Evolution turns that idea on its head. It suggests the lizards predate humans in the Americas—and that they are an endemic, not invasive, species. Clarion Island, the oldest on the remote Revillagigedo Archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, was once covered in prickly-pear cactuses that made it almost impenetrable without a machete, per a statement. That all changed in the 1970s, when the Mexican military set up a base on the island and introduced sheep, pigs and rabbits that ate most of the vegetation. Biologists also assumed the iguanas were introduced by military personnel, because previous surveys of the island had not recorded them. “It was all speculative that they were introduced—no one ever tested it,” Daniel Mulcahy, an evolutionary biologist at the Museum of Natural History in Berlin and the study’s first author, tells the New York Times. Fun fact: Clarion’s unique wildlife Iguanas aren’t the only animals endemic to Clarion Island: It’s home to unique birds, snakes and lizards. It also was once the habitat of the Townsend’s shearwater (Puffinus auricularis), a rare seabird that had its nesting sites decimated by the island’s invasive mammals. The bird is now considered “critically endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, with just 250 to 999 thought to still live in the wild worldwide, according to a 2018 assessment. Mulcahy tells the outlet that he collected DNA from the iguanas while on a Smithsonian Institution research trip to study snakes more than a decade ago. The DNA materials from the island iguanas didn’t seem to match those of iguanas from the mainland. But he didn’t think to publish those results until a colleague told him the Mexican government planned to exterminate the lizards under the belief that they’re invasive and harming the local ecosystem, he tells the Times. The result was his new study, which compared the mitochondrial DNA of island and mainland iguanas and found that they are genetically distinct from each other. The researchers’ evolutionary analysis found that the two populations likely diverged some 425,000 years ago. Humans, on the other hand, only crossed the Bering Land Bridge to the Americas roughly 15,000 to 25,000 years ago. As such, the island’s iguanas “substantially predate not only the establishment of the navy base on Clarion Island but also human colonization of the Americas,” the researchers write in the paper. This finding, they add, suggests the iguanas dispersed naturally over water—likely on a mat of floating vegetation—to make their way to the island. But that raises another question: How did the Clarion iguanas go unnoticed for so long? The study authors suggest the reptiles probably remained hidden because of the dense vegetation that once covered the island, allowing the skittish animals to hide. The iguanas tend to run away from humans, hiding in rock crevices or burrows. “We posit that the iguanas on Clarion Island were historically elusive and that recent alterations to the vegetation have made them more conspicuous,” they write in the study. Though pigs and sheep have now been eradicated from the island, they write, rabbits remain. So does the environmental destruction wrought by the invasive species, which “significantly altered” the island’s native plants. “This type of work is fundamental to conserving some of the world’s most unique and imperiled diversity,” Rayna Bell, an evolutionary biologist at the California Academy of Sciences who was not involved with the study, tells the New York Times. The study could have important implications for future conservation plans on the island, now that iguanas can be considered native wildlife. The researchers hope their findings bring an end to Clarion Island’s ongoing iguana eradication efforts. “This research fundamentally changes how we view Clarion’s ecology,” the team says to Rob Hutchins at Oceanographic magazine. “The spiny-tailed iguana is not an invader—it’s a survivor.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Conservation
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Nature

Scientific consortium hasn’t given up on giant telescope in Hawaii despite protests, increased costs

Construction on the Thirty Meter Telescope stalled at a different site on Mauna Kea in 2019 amid protests. Opponents said the land is sacred to Native Hawaiians.

Despite some daunting setbacks, executives with the Thirty Meter Telescope aren’t giving up on their plans to build it on Mauna Kea, and are investigating the possibility the observatory could be constructed on a site where an old telescope was decommissioned and torn down.Gov. Josh Green and the entire Hawaii congressional delegation signed a letter last month promising to work with state officials to establish a permitting process for construction on the sites of decommissioned telescopes on Mauna Kea.That letter to the chair and co-chair of the board of directors of the Thirty Meter Telescope International Observatory acknowledges “your commitment to addressing the Hawaii community’s request for a possible relocation to a disturbed site” on the mountain.Construction of the telescope near the summit of Mauna Kea stalled in 2019 as protests erupted on the mountain, attracting thousands of project opponents from across the state. Those protests became a powerful rallying point for Hawaiians, including some who consider the mountain to be sacred land.Protesters opposed to the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope gather outside the Hawaii Legislature in Honolulu, April 21, 2015. (AP Photo/Cathy Bussewitz, File)APThe protests ended with the onset of the pandemic in 2020, and construction has remained in limbo ever since. Years of delays caused the total estimated cost of the TMT project to grow to $3 billion, according to TMT Project Manager Fengchuan Liu, and TMT now has “a pretty big funding gap.”The funding shortfall for TMT at this point is about $1 billion, he said, but that could change depending on when construction would begin.Money and other challengesThe National Science Foundation announced earlier this year it had opted to fund a different large telescope project in Chile, a decision that Liu called “a major challenge.” But TMT planners are working on a solution to that problem.TMT backers have approached Congress for funding via the NSF, and Liu said in an interview Monday the Senate draft of the 2026 federal budget includes language explicitly supportive of funding for TMT as well as the Extremely Large Telescope being built in Chile.The House draft supports the development of large telescopes, but does not mention TMT specifically.“We’re working through that, we have a lot of support from the Hawaii congressional delegation, we very much appreciate it, and the governor as well, but it’s hard to predict in these days how the congressional appropriation process will work out,” Liu said.U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda, who represents rural Oahu and the neighbor islands, said in an interview Monday that she and other lawmakers plan to send a bipartisan letter to leadership of the House Appropriations Committee to ask for an amendment to the House draft of the budget bill to include language similar to the Senate version.She said she believes the letter signed by Green and the Hawaii congressional delegation was intended to demonstrate a unified position in support of TMT.Tokuda acknowledged some TMT critics continue to oppose the project, and said finding a balance between culture and the advancement of science “will take courage — community and political courage as well. This is something that can be a huge benefit to Hawaii island, to Native Hawaiians, to many.”Green said in the letter that “we look forward to working with TIO and the broader community to honor the shared responsibility for stewardship of Maunakea and the success of this project.”Makana McClellan, director of communications for Green, said the governor “will stand on his letter,” and declined further comment.Sen. Brian Schatz also said through a spokesman that he would not make any further comment, and Sen. Mazie Hirono and Rep. Ed Case did not respond to requests for comment Monday.Pua Case, who describes herself as a protector of Mauna Kea, said the letter is another example of political leaders disregarding TMT’s opponents.She said they have been collecting signatures of people opposed to construction on Mauna Kea for more than a decade, and now have nearly 500,000 signatures.That petition demonstrates the opponents of the project “are more than some Hawaiians and our allies,” she said. “We are many, many more than that, and we must safeguard our sacred lands and Mauna Kea and our Hawaii.”“Throughout the years, Native Hawaiians, communities throughout Hawaii and around the world have stood, sacrificed and worked together to safeguard our sacred lands including Mauna Kea and our Hawaii,” she said. “We have remained unified for a mauna that brought us together in ways that we never thought possible.”The Thirty Meter Telescope has been in the planning stages for years and has a state conservation district use permit authorizing the project to move forward, but opponents have filed challenges in an attempt to invalidate it.What ‘disturbed’ site?The idea that new facilities could be built on the site of a decommissioned telescope on Mauna Kea was included in Act 255, which state legislators passed in 2022. That law also established the Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight Authority as the sole authority for the management of lands on Mauna Kea.The law prioritized “the reuse of footprints of observatories that are scheduled for decommissioning, or have been decommissioned, as sites for facilities or improvements over the use of undeveloped lands for such purposes.”The Caltech Submillimeter Observatory and the University of Hawaii Hilo Hoku Kea Observatory have been decommissioned and removed from Mauna Kea, but nothing else has been built on the sites where those telescopes once stood.Green promised in the letter that his administration will work with the Mauna Kea oversight authority and the university “to establish a clear and transparent procedure for obtaining the necessary permits associated with a decommissioned site.”Longtime TMT opponent E. Kalani Flores said there are no decommissioned telescope sites on Mauna Kea large enough to accommodate the Thirty Meter Telescope.“The size and scope of the TMT is so huge and massive that it wouldn’t even fit on that site,” he said of the Caltech telescope site. “The question is, what disturbed site is there?”Flores also noted the use of NSF funding for the TMT project would trigger a requirement for a federal environmental impact statement and a cultural consultation, “so we’re talking about years away from it ever happening.”“What we’re seeing now is it appears that the governor and the congressional members are trying to make decisions excluding any input from Native Hawaiians in particular, and we have concerns in that regard, of course,” he said.___This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Conservation
Culture
Mountains

Scientific Consortium Hasn't Given up on Giant Telescope in Hawaii Despite Protests, Increased Costs

Despite some daunting setbacks, an international consortium isn't giving up on plans to built a giant telescope on the highest peak in Hawaii

Despite some daunting setbacks, executives with the Thirty Meter Telescope aren’t giving up on their plans to build it on Mauna Kea, and are investigating the possibility the observatory could be constructed on a site where an old telescope was decommissioned and torn down.Gov. Josh Green and the entire Hawaii congressional delegation signed a letter last month promising to work with state officials to establish a permitting process for construction on the sites of decommissioned telescopes on Mauna Kea.That letter to the chair and co-chair of the board of directors of the Thirty Meter Telescope International Observatory acknowledges “your commitment to addressing the Hawaii community’s request for a possible relocation to a disturbed site” on the mountain.Construction of the telescope near the summit of Mauna Kea stalled in 2019 as protests erupted on the mountain, attracting thousands of project opponents from across the state. Those protests became a powerful rallying point for Hawaiians, including some who consider the mountain to be sacred land.The protests ended with the onset of the pandemic in 2020, and construction has remained in limbo ever since. Years of delays caused the total estimated cost of the TMT project to grow to $3 billion, according to TMT Project Manager Fengchuan Liu, and TMT now has “a pretty big funding gap.”The funding shortfall for TMT at this point is about $1 billion, he said, but that could change depending on when construction would begin. Money And Other Challenges TMT backers have approached Congress for funding via the NSF, and Liu said in an interview Monday the Senate draft of the 2026 federal budget includes language explicitly supportive of funding for TMT as well as the Extremely Large Telescope being built in Chile.The House draft supports the development of large telescopes, but does not mention TMT specifically.“We’re working through that, we have a lot of support from the Hawaii congressional delegation, we very much appreciate it, and the governor as well, but it’s hard to predict in these days how the congressional appropriation process will work out,” Liu said.U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda, who represents rural Oahu and the neighbor islands, said in an interview Monday that she and other lawmakers plan to send a bipartisan letter to leadership of the House Appropriations Committee to ask for an amendment to the House draft of the budget bill to include language similar to the Senate version.She said she believes the letter signed by Green and the Hawaii congressional delegation was intended to demonstrate a unified position in support of TMT.Tokuda acknowledged some TMT critics continue to oppose the project, and said finding a balance between culture and the advancement of science “will take courage — community and political courage as well. This is something that can be a huge benefit to Hawaii island, to Native Hawaiians, to many.”Green said in the letter that “we look forward to working with TIO and the broader community to honor the shared responsibility for stewardship of Maunakea and the success of this project.”Makana McClellan, director of communications for Green, said the governor “will stand on his letter,” and declined further comment.Sen. Brian Schatz also said through a spokesman that he would not make any further comment, and Sen. Mazie Hirono and Rep. Ed Case did not respond to requests for comment Monday. Pua Case, who describes herself as a protector of Mauna Kea, said the letter is another example of political leaders disregarding TMT’s opponents.She said they have been collecting signatures of people opposed to construction on Mauna Kea for more than a decade, and now have nearly 500,000 signatures.That petition demonstrates the opponents of the project “are more than some Hawaiians and our allies,” she said. “We are many, many more than that, and we must safeguard our sacred lands and Mauna Kea and our Hawaii.”“Throughout the years, Native Hawaiians, communities throughout Hawaii and around the world have stood, sacrificed and worked together to safeguard our sacred lands including Mauna Kea and our Hawaii,” she said. “We have remained unified for a mauna that brought us together in ways that we never thought possible.”The Thirty Meter Telescope has been in the planning stages for years and has a state conservation district use permit authorizing the project to move forward, but opponents have filed challenges in an attempt to invalidate it.The idea that new facilities could be built on the site of a decommissioned telescope on Mauna Kea was included in Act 255, which state legislators passed in 2022. That law also established the Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight Authority as the sole authority for the management of lands on Mauna Kea.The law prioritized “the reuse of footprints of observatories that are scheduled for decommissioning, or have been decommissioned, as sites for facilities or improvements over the use of undeveloped lands for such purposes.”Green promised in the letter that his administration will work with the Mauna Kea oversight authority and the university “to establish a clear and transparent procedure for obtaining the necessary permits associated with a decommissioned site.”Longtime TMT opponent E. Kalani Flores said there are no decommissioned telescope sites on Mauna Kea large enough to accommodate the Thirty Meter Telescope.“The size and scope of the TMT is so huge and massive that it wouldn’t even fit on that site,” he said of the Caltech telescope site. “The question is, what disturbed site is there?”Flores also noted the use of NSF funding for the TMT project would trigger a requirement for a federal environmental impact statement and a cultural consultation, “so we’re talking about years away from it ever happening.”“What we’re seeing now is it appears that the governor and the congressional members are trying to make decisions excluding any input from Native Hawaiians in particular, and we have concerns in that regard, of course,” he said.This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

Conservation
Culture
Mountains

‘Serious gaps’ in Labor’s environment laws undermine attempt to fix broken system, integrity experts say

Pressure mounts on federal government to rethink controversial ‘national interest’ exemption for projectsFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastPolitical integrity experts have raised concerns about Labor’s proposed new nature laws, including a contentious new “national interest” exemption, as pressure mounts on the Albanese government to rethink major parts of the reform.As debate on legislation to overhaul the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act resumes in the lower house on Tuesday, the Centre for Public Integrity has identified several “integrity risks” that threaten to undermine attempts to fix the broken system. Continue reading...

Political integrity experts have raised concerns about Labor’s proposed new nature laws, including a contentious new “national interest” exemption, as pressure mounts on the Albanese government to rethink major parts of the reform.As debate on legislation to overhaul the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act resumes in the lower house on Tuesday, the Centre for Public Integrity has identified several “integrity risks” that threaten to undermine attempts to fix the broken system.The thinktank has joined a chorus of critics – including environment groups, the former Treasury secretary Ken Henry and Labor MP Ed Husic – in raising alarm about a new exemption that would allow the minister to approve a project in breach of new nature laws if it was in the “national interest”.While the environment minister, Murray Watt, has insisted the power was designed for projects linked to defence, security or national emergencies, he hasn’t been able to rule out the possibility it could be used for other applications – including fossil fuel developments – because of the discretionary nature of the exemption.“Despite the claims to a limited application, the centre holds grave concerns about the scope, transparency, and accountability of the exercise of the discretion,” the thinktank wrote in an analysis of the bill published on Tuesday.The thinktank was also concerned about the apparent lack of independence of the government’s proposed independent environment protection agency.Sign up: AU Breaking News emailUnder Labor’s model, the regulator would exercise some functions at arm’s length of the government, including policing of nature laws, but the minister would keep the power to approve projects.The retention of ministerial decision-making power was a key demand of the Coalition and industry groups, but has been criticised by environmentalists.The centre’s report said it was “highly unusual” for an independent regulator to cede such “significant powers” to a minister.“Public confidence and trust in environmental decision making would be better served if responsibility lay with an independent body, free from political influence and less susceptible to vested interests,” the report said.The centre’s head of research, Gabrielle Appleby, said the government’s bill was flawed.“Environmental decision making is especially prone to capture by vested interests – that’s why integrity safeguards must be strong,” she said.“Yet these bills leave serious gaps: the new regulator lacks independence and appropriate powers, and the minister retains sweeping powers to sidestep environmental protections. The government has the solutions in front of it – it just needs the will to close these loopholes and build a system Australians can trust.”The thinktank criticised the government for developing the legislation largely behind “closed doors” in consultation with select stakeholders.It also raised concerns about the process for creating new national environment standards, which were the main recommendation of the Samuel review that inspired the reforms.While the bill establishes a power for the minister to make, vary, or revoke new green rules, the standards themselves aren’t included in the legislation.The thinktank said the standards should have been detailed in the legislation and subject to parliamentary approval. The minister is planning to consult on the design of the standards before their introduction, starting with those applying to matters of national environmental significance and offsets.Labor’s grassroots environment action group is now lobbying the government to make two amendments to the bill, which it ultimately wants passed after years of internal campaigning to fix the EPBC Act.The first would remove or limit the “national interest” carveout by giving parliament the power to disallow the decision through a majority vote in either house.The second would abolish a “continuous use” exemption that allows historically legal agricultural land clearing, particularly in Queensland, to continue without the need for federal approval or oversight.This exemption is also used by state governments to justify shark netting programs that pose a threat to endangered whales.The national secretary of Labor Environment Action Network, Janaline Oh, said there was a strong case for national interest exemption that could be used in national emergencies, but there was a significant risk that a minister could abuse that power and the power should be limited.“In the case where a project is of such overriding national interest that it can be allowed to have even unacceptable impacts, the government should go through an additional process of parliamentary scrutiny,” she said.

Conservation
Government
Nature

Nigeria to Impose More Stringent Penalties on Wildlife Traffickers

By Isaac AnyaoguLAGOS (Reuters) -Nigeria will impose fines of up to 12 million naira ($8,200) and jail terms of up to 10 years on traffickers of...

LAGOS (Reuters) -Nigeria will impose fines of up to 12 million naira ($8,200) and jail terms of up to 10 years on traffickers of ivory, pangolin scales and other wildlife in a sweeping new bill passed by its Senate on Tuesday.Conservation groups say the law could help curb organised crime networks which have made Nigeria a major hub for illegal wildlife trade. The networks have been linked with more than 30 tonnes of ivory since 2015 and over half of global pangolin scale trafficking between 2016 and 2019.The Endangered Species Conservation and Protection Bill, passed by the lower parliament in May, updates decades-old laws that allow offenders to spend three months to five years in jail or pay fines as low as 100,000 naira ($68) for trafficking.The Bill grants the Nigerian Customs investigators powers to track financial flows, and search and detain aircraft and vessels transporting prohibited wildlife. Judges will be allowed to fast-track cases and seize assets.The law, which also prohibits pollution of wildlife habitat and the eating of endangered wildlife, aligns Nigeria with global treaties and enables extradition of offenders."This is a huge win for Nigeria and shows, without any doubt, that we remain committed to stamping out wildlife trafficking and protecting our unique fauna and flora," said Terseer Ugbor, the lawmaker who sponsored the bill.Environmental groups welcomed the move, saying it will help protect wildlife."For too long, traffickers have used Nigeria as a transit country for the illegal wildlife trade, bringing endangered wildlife from all over Africa through our porous borders, ports and airports to export them illegally to Europe and Asia," said Tunde Morakinyo, Executive Director, Africa Nature Investors Foundation (ANI).They urged swift presidential assent before the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, a UN-affiliated international agreement summit in Uzbekistan in November.(Reporting by Isaac Anyaogu, editing by Ed Osmond)Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

Conservation
Nature
Pollution

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