Texas Tribune
Texas companies race to develop hydrogen as a fuel
by Emily Foxhall, The Texas Tribune – 2024-03-25 05:00:00
SUMMARY: This article is part of a three-part series focusing on new energy sources in Texas. The birthplace of the oil and gas industry, Jefferson County, Texas, now hosts a large hydrogen storage facility by Air Liquide, representing an energy shift toward using hydrogen as an eco-friendly fuel alternative. Supporters believe clean hydrogen could revolutionize energy if produced cost-effectively. However, extracting hydrogen often results in carbon emissions. Engineers suggest that capturing and storing the emitted CO2 or using renewable energy to extract hydrogen from water can resolve this issue. Texas leads in hydrogen production using natural gas, but environmental critics question the viability of carbon capture and advocate for a focus on water-based hydrogen production. The U.S. government is offering tax credits and funding to support clean hydrogen initiatives. Texas, with its extensive oil, gas, and renewable energy resources, is considered well-positioned to become a hydrogen hub. Despite the excitement, concerns about the technology's impact on climate change and local communities persist.
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This is the first of a three-part series on emerging energy sources and Texas' role in developing them. Part two, on geothermal energy, publishes Tuesday, and part three, on small nuclear reactors, will publish on Wednesday.
JEFFERSON COUNTY — A concrete platform with fading blue paint marks the birthplace of the modern oil and gas industry in southeast Texas. Weather-beaten signs describe how drillers tapped the Spindletop oil well in 1901, a discovery that launched petroleum giants Texaco, Mobil and Gulf Oil.
Nearby, a red pipeline traces a neat path above flat, gravel-covered earth. French company Air Liquide started building this unassuming facility, with a wellhead and other machinery, on the iconic site in 2014 to store what it believes will be key to an energy revolution: hydrogen.
The ground that once released millions of barrels of oil now holds some 4.5 billion cubic feet of highly pressurized hydrogen. The gas is contained in a skyscraper-shaped cavern that reaches about a mile below ground within a subterranean salt dome.
Hydrogen promoters see the gas as a crucial part of addressing climate change. If it's produced in a way that creates few or no greenhouse gas emissions, it could provide an eco-friendly fuel for cars, planes, 18-wheelers and ships, and could power energy-intensive industries such as steel manufacturing. Hydrogen emits only water when used as fuel.
If companies can produce clean hydrogen at a price that's competitive with gasoline or diesel, supporters say it would revolutionize the fuel industry.
That's a big if.
Hydrogen is among the most common elements in the universe, but on Earth it's typically found bonded with something else, such as carbon. Today, hydrogen is often obtained by isolating it from methane, a mix of carbon and hydrogen that is the main component of natural gas. This process leaves behind carbon dioxide, which worsens climate change if released into the air.
Engineers say it's possible to clean up that process by catching the extra carbon dioxide and reusing it — to get more oil out of a well, for example — or injecting it into the earth to store it. Another less polluting method is to split hydrogen from water, which is made up of hydrogen and oxygen, using electricity generated by wind, solar or nuclear power.
Texas has emerged as a leader in producing hydrogen the cheaper way using abundant supplies of natural gas without capturing the carbon dioxide. Air Liquide makes hydrogen at facilities along the state's coast, from Beaumont to Corpus Christi. More than 100 miles of pipelines move that hydrogen to companies that buy it for processes such as removing sulfur from crude oil.
Little hydrogen is made from gas with carbon capture or from water in the state — or the rest of the country.
Some academics, policy advisers and companies that make hydrogen say Texas and the Gulf Coast should be where hydrogen created with fewer emissions takes off. A majority of the country's hydrogen pipelines are already here, Texas' petrochemical workers have skills that easily transfer to hydrogen production — which involves chemical reactions — and the state has the natural gas and renewable energy needed to produce it.
“We can be the breadbasket for not only the U.S. but for the world in providing hydrogen,” said Bryan Fisher, a managing director with RMI, a nonprofit that supports the clean energy transition.
But producing enough hydrogen cheaply, building the pipelines to move it and the subterranean caverns to store it and finding the customers to buy it requires companies to take some financial risk.
That effort is getting a boost from the federal government, which is offering billions of dollars' worth of tax credits to kick-start production of hydrogen from gas with carbon capture or water. The government also plans to divide as much as $7 billion among seven regional clusters of projects to build hydrogen infrastructure, including up to $1.2 billion for projects in Texas and Louisiana that plan to make hydrogen largely from natural gas.
Competing to break into the industry are traditional fossil fuel companies, including Chevron and ExxonMobil. Hydrogen advocates say interest by the oil giants is good because they have the money and expertise to tackle such an ambitious project.
But environmental groups doubt that fossil fuel companies can make hydrogen from natural gas as cleanly as they say they can. They worry the federal funding will prop up oil and gas companies, when the emphasis should be on making hydrogen from water or creating clean power another way.
“Producing hydrogen from natural gas is not clean, not low-carbon and cannot and should not be considered a solution in our efforts to solve the world's worsening climate change crisis,” David Schlissel, the co-author of a report from the Institute for Energy, Economics and Financial Analysis, said in a webinar.
Sitting in a mobile office at the Spindletop site, Katie Ellet, president of hydrogen energy and mobility for Air Liquide, urged critics not to be so puritanical about hydrogen production. She described hydrogen as part of a centuries-long evolution toward progressively cleaner fuels: coal replaced wood, then oil replaced coal.
Ellet believes now is hydrogen's Spindletop moment. She believes the technology, economics and interest are in place to allow the industry to boom.
“We transition through these different energy cycles,” Ellet said. “And we've gotten better. We've learned, and we've gotten better. This is us … evolving into that next generation.”
Hydrogen hype grows in Texas
One weekday in October, Brian Weeks, senior director of business development at GTI Energy, walked onto a Houston hotel's conference room stage to discuss hydrogen. GTI Energy used to be known as the Gas Technology Institute and researched natural gas. Now it promotes low-carbon energy.
Weeks faced a standing-room-only crowd at the Hydrogen North America event. He remembered when, maybe a decade earlier, only seven people at a conference showed up to hear him speak on the topic.
People have predicted hydrogen was about to take off before. Weeks worked on the idea off and on since the late 1990s, when he was at Texaco and the company believed hydrogen could power cars. At the time, they worried energy prices would keep rising. Weeks recalled it as a heady time for hydrogen, with actors from the hit TV series Baywatch starring in promotional videos.
But hydrogen didn't catch. Technology for producing it remained expensive, while oil production instead got a giant boost. Hydraulic fracturing technology allowed the United States to rapidly increase how much oil it produced.
Still, Weeks wouldn't have spent so much of his life on hydrogen if he didn't believe it had a future, he said. Like Ellet, he said the circumstances feel different now. That's in large part because of the federal government's big investment: By 2030, the Biden administration wants America to produce 10 million metric tons per year of hydrogen made from water using renewable energy or from gas using carbon storage — about how much is produced now largely from gas without carbon capture.
“It's been a roller coaster, really, for the last at least 20 years,” Weeks said in an interview.
Over the past few years, Weeks has helped a coalition of businesses, researchers and others apply for the federal funding earmarked in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for regional hydrogen projects, called “hydrogen hubs.”
Nine projects centered in Houston sought money as a single hub, and on Oct. 13, the Department of Energy announced that they and six other applicants from across the country won. As part of the Houston group, Chevron wants to make low-carbon hydrogen and ammonia, which is used in fertilizer. ExxonMobil wants to build hydrogen pipelines and fueling stations for trucks.
The Gulf Coast projects aimed to produce more than 1.8 million metric tons of hydrogen per year, more than any of the other winning hubs. Some 80% would be made from natural gas.
Local and state leaders are cheering on the industry's growth. Brett Perlman, CEO of the nonprofit Center for Houston's Future, supported the hydrogen hub effort. Perlman's job is to consider Houston's economy and what will happen to it as the world works to address climate change and wean itself off fossil fuels.
Perlman wrestles with how to make Houston the low-carbon energy capital of the world. He speaks at conferences, too, to build the case that hydrogen should be part of maintaining the city's success.
“The energy transition is going to happen, and Houston will have a role,” Perlman said at his office. “The real question is can Houston be, continue to be, a leader?”
Back at the same conference where Weeks spoke, Texas Public Utility Commissioner Lori Cobos, whose agency regulates the electricity industry, explained that because it has huge natural gas reserves and is a top producer of wind and solar energy, Texas is “uniquely positioned to be a national and global leader in hydrogen.”
The easy path to selling hydrogen made in these new ways would be to start by converting places already using hydrogen for purposes such as making fertilizer, refining petroleum and treating metals. But even more environmental benefits would come if it could also be used in new applications, said John Hensley, vice president of markets and policy analysis for the industry advocacy group American Clean Power Association.
Hydrogen believers envision the fuel could decarbonize industries that are considered hard to electrify. Hydrogen would power planes and trucks that heavy electric batteries would slow down. It would supply the high heat needed to make cement that electricity could not provide.
The new federal tax incentives get hydrogen close, if not all the way, to being able to compete with fossil fuels on price, said Fisher of RMI. The government plans to pay up to $3 per kilogram of what it defines as clean hydrogen, such as that made from water, or up to $85 per metric ton of stored carbon dioxide that's captured after making hydrogen from natural gas.
With the subsidies, producing hydrogen from water would cost generally from $4 to $6 per kilogram, and producing it from natural gas would cost generally from $2 to $4, Fisher said. He stressed that it would depend on the specifics of the project. The government's goal is to get the cost to $1 per kilogram for both types.
Environmental groups and critics raise concerns
The hydrogen solution does not sound so promising to environmental groups, especially when it comes to making it from natural gas using carbon capture. A number of critics came together in a windowless Houston conference room of their own later in October to build the case to journalists that carbon capture in hydrogen production shouldn't be seen as a way to address climate change but instead as a boost to the oil and gas industry.
“This is not a transfer off of fossil fuel dependency,” said Jane Patton, campaign manager for U.S. fossil economy at the Center for International Environmental Law. “This is a perpetuation of fossil fuel dependency.”
With money from the Rockefeller Family Fund, which has an initiative focused on slowing oil and gas production because it drives climate change, organizers brought in the big guns to tell the other side of the story. The day began with a speech from Bob Bullard, founding director of the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University, known by many as the father of environmental justice.
Bullard has passionately told many versions of the same narrative. He pioneered his environmental justice work decades ago when he highlighted that the city of Houston primarily built its trash incinerators and landfills in Black neighborhoods. And he brought attention to one example after another of companies polluting poor communities of color rather than wealthy, white ones.
Now a member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, Bullard said he's seen no proof that a build-out of hydrogen and carbon storage will be any better for local communities than the expansion of the petrochemical industry was over the past century, bringing more pollution than benefits to surrounding communities. He continued to call for a federal study to find out whether hydrogen production with carbon capture is safe for the people who live around it.
“You're asking the same people to sacrifice in the same way,” Bullard said at the event. “Can we trust the oil and gas industry to be truthful? I don't have to write a book on that. We know the answer.”
Schlissel, the director of resource planning analysis for the Institute for Energy, Economics and Financial Analysis, believes the government is using a badly built model to judge how clean hydrogen projects are when they're evaluated for federal support.
One problem is that the model inappropriately leaves out the fact that hydrogen pipelines could leak, Schlissel says. Hydrogen can react with the molecule that breaks down harmful methane in the atmosphere and make the methane last longer, contributing to climate change.
Schlissel also says the model assumes companies can catch a lot of carbon dioxide — which he believes is totally unrealistic. While companies using carbon capture technology don't typically publicize their capture rates, Schlissel and his colleagues dug up what they could and concluded that the technology was far short of where it needs to be.
Speakers at the event also expressed little confidence in the Railroad Commission of Texas, which regulates the state's oil and gas industry, to regulate hydrogen pipelines and underground storage. Commission Shift, a watchdog group that calls for reforming the Railroad Commission, says the agency has a poor track record when it comes to protecting Texans from explosions, leaks and other problems with wells and pipelines.
In a statement, commission spokesperson Patty Ramon said the agency has “protected public safety and the environment for more than a century.” The agency does pipeline inspections regularly and has exceeded Legislative performance goals, Ramon added.
These advocates are up against wealthy, politically powerful companies that say making hydrogen from natural gas with carbon capture is a ready solution to start lowering how much carbon dioxide escapes into the atmosphere — even if it's imperfect.
“I find this polarization of seeking perfect at the expense of very good is problematic,” Chris Greig, a senior research scientist with the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment at Princeton University, said in an interview.
“And, to be clear, the distrust (of oil and gas companies) is not unwarranted, right? There's been some wrongs done,” Greig added. “But somehow we have to set that aside and find some sort of middle ground.”
Disclosure: Exxon Mobil Corporation and Texas Southern University – Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
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Texas Tribune
Ted Cruz files bill to protect IVF
by By Eleanor Klibanoff, The Texas Tribune – 2024-05-20 09:45:47
SUMMARY: U.S. Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Katie Britt have introduced the IVF Protection Act to safeguard access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) amid changing anti-abortion laws. The bill aims to make states ineligible for Medicaid funding if they ban IVF. This legislative effort follows an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that classified embryos as protected human life, prompting some IVF providers to pause services. The Texas Supreme Court may also consider a case impacting IVF. Cruz, seeking reelection against Democrat Colin Allred, emphasizes IVF's importance for families. Texas Governor Greg Abbott supports clarifying state laws to protect IVF, while Senate Democrats and House Speaker Mike Johnson diverge on federal versus state jurisdiction.
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U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is leading a charge to protect access to in vitro fertilization as conservative states scramble to figure out where IVF fits in the new anti-abortion legal landscape.
On Monday, Cruz and Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama, both conservative, anti-abortion Republicans, filed the IVF Protection Act, which would make states ineligible to receive Medicaid funding if they ban IVF.
This bill comes in response to a ruling from the Alabama Supreme Court earlier this year that said embryos are protected human life when it comes to the state's wrongful death statute. After that ruling, many IVF providers paused those services until the Alabama Legislature passed temporary protections.
The Texas Supreme Court is considering taking up a case that could “upend IVF in Texas,” experts say. A woman has asked the court to overturn previous court rulings that awarded her ex-husband their three frozen embryos in their divorce, arguing that Texas' new abortion laws require embryos to have the same rights as living children.
Almost as soon as the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in summer 2022 and allowed states to ban abortion, questions emerged about the legal status of IVF.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed announcing this legislation, Cruz and Britt said Republicans want to “protect both life and IVF.”
“IVF has given miraculous hope to millions of Americans, and it has given families across the country the gift of children,” Cruz said in a statement. “I'm proud to partner with Sen. Katie Britt to ensure that couples in Texas and across the country have the opportunity to be loving parents, by ensuring that IVF is fully protected at the federal level.”
IVF is “profoundly pro-family,” the pair wrote in the op-ed. “Our bill will honor and support families seeking to welcome a new baby into their lives through IVF.”
Cruz is up for reelection this year, facing Democratic Congressman Colin Allred, who has made Cruz's support for Texas' abortion laws a key part of his campaign. In a statement after the Alabama court ruling, Allred said Cruz had done nothing to protect IVF, and his “dangerous record” on abortion and fetal personhood issues puts Texas families “rights and freedoms at risk.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has expressed his support for IVF, saying he believes the Legislature will clarify state law to protect the procedure.
Meanwhile, in D.C., Senate Democrats have tried unsuccessfully to pass two bills to protect IVF access, and House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he believes this is an issue best left to the states.
Pointing out that 86% of Americans believe IVF should be legal, Cruz and Britt say this should be a bipartisan bill that protects “life, family and personal liberty.”
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The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
Texas Tribune
Trump says Paxton would make good U.S. attorney general
by By Jasper Scherer, The Texas Tribune – 2024-05-20 08:47:03
SUMMARY: Former President Donald Trump is considering Ken Paxton, Texas' Attorney General, for the role of U.S. Attorney General if re-elected. Trump commended Paxton's abilities and loyalty, highlighting his legal challenge to the 2020 election results and his support during Trump's impeachment defense. Paxton was impeached for bribery allegations but acquitted, with Trump claiming credit for the outcome. Recent polls show Trump leading President Biden in key states. Paxton's legal issues have diminished following the dropping of securities fraud charges, although federal investigations continue. If nominated, Paxton's Senate confirmation faces partisan challenges and opposition from notable Republicans.
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Former President Donald Trump said he would consider tapping Ken Paxton for U.S. attorney general if he wins a second term in the White House, calling his longtime ally “a very talented guy” and praising his tenure as Texas' chief legal officer.
“I would, actually,” Trump said Saturday when asked by a KDFW-TV reporter if he would consider Paxton for the national post. “He's very, very talented. I mean, we have a lot of people that want that one and will be very good at it. But he's a very talented guy.”
Paxton has long been a close ally of Trump, famously waging an unsuccessful legal challenge to Trump's 2020 election loss in four battleground states. He also spoke at the pro-Trump rally that preceded the deadly U.S. Capitol riot in January 2021.
Paxton's loyalty was rewarded with an endorsement from Trump in the 2022 primary, which helped the attorney general fend off three prominent GOP challengers.
Trump also came to Paxton's defense when he was impeached last year for allegedly accepting bribes and abusing the power of his office to help a wealthy friend and campaign donor. After Paxton was acquitted in the Texas Senate, Trump claimed credit, citing his “intervention” on his Truth Social platform, where he denounced the proceedings and threatened political retribution for Republicans who backed the impeachment.
“I fought for him when he had the difficulty and we won,” he told KDFW. “He had some people really after him, and I thought it was really unfair.”
Trump's latest comments, delivered at the National Rifle Association's annual convention in Dallas, come after a series of recent polls have shown the presumptive Republican nominee leading President Joe Biden in a handful of key battleground states.
Paxton has also seen his political prospects rise in recent months, after prosecutors agreed in March to drop three felony counts of securities fraud that had loomed over Paxton for nearly his entire tenure as attorney general. The resolution of the nine-year-old case, along with Paxton's impeachment acquittal in the Senate last fall, has brought him closer than ever to a political career devoid of legal drama.
Still, Paxton's critics say he is far from vindicated. He remains under federal investigation for the same allegations that formed the basis of his impeachment, and he continues to face a whistleblower lawsuit from former deputies who said they were illegally fired for reporting Paxton to law enforcement. A separate lawsuit from the state bar seeks to penalize Paxton for his 2020 election challenge, which relied on discredited claims of election fraud.
If nominated, Paxton would need to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The chamber is narrowly divided along party lines, with Democrats holding a 51-49 majority. One of the most prominent Republican members, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, has been an outspoken critic of Paxton, while Paxton has openly entertained the idea of challenging Cornyn in 2026.
Paxton is not the only Texan Trump has floated for a high-profile spot in his potential administration. In February, he said Gov. Greg Abbott is “absolutely” on his short list of potential vice presidential candidates. Abbott has since downplayed his interest in the job.
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Texas Tribune
These Texans aren’t taking buyouts despite repeated floods
by By Emily Foxhall, The Texas Tribune – 2024-05-20 05:00:00
SUMMARY: Recent floods in Harris County, Texas, have devastated homes along the San Jacinto River. Tom Madigan, who owns multiple properties, quickly started repairs without knowing the Harris County Flood Control District aims to buy out such flood-prone properties. The region has a longstanding buyout program to remove homes from high-risk flood areas, with about 800 out of 2,400 targeted properties purchased. However, buyouts are voluntary and often insufficient for low-income residents. Despite the program, many choose to stay due to affordability and community ties, while others like Madigan remain skeptical of receiving a fair offer.
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HARRIS COUNTY — After the floodwaters earlier this month just about swallowed two of the six homes that 60-year-old Tom Madigan owns on the San Jacinto River, he didn't think twice about whether to fix them. He hired people to help, and they got to work stripping the walls, pulling up flooring and throwing out water-logged furniture.
What Madigan didn't know: The Harris County Flood Control District wants to buy his properties as part of an effort to get people out of dangerously flood-prone areas.
Back-to-back storms drenched southeast Texas in late April and early May, causing flash flooding and pushing rivers out of their banks and into low-lying neighborhoods. Officials across the region urged people in vulnerable areas to evacuate.
Like Madigan's, some places that were inundated along the San Jacinto in Harris County have flooded repeatedly. And for nearly 30 years, the flood control district has been trying to clear out homes around the river by paying property owners to move, then returning the lots to nature.
The recent floods show why buyout programs can be important. These spots typically flood first and worse. Gov. Greg Abbott reported that hundreds of rescues took place in the state while the floods destroyed homes. A man drowned and a child was swept away into the floods. One Harris County resident described climbing on top of his motor home as the water rose before first responders rescued him.
But the disaster and its aftermath also illustrate why buyouts are complicated to carry out even in Harris County, home to Houston, which has one of the most robust buyout programs in the country. The flood control district has identified roughly 2,400 properties as current buyout candidates around the San Jacinto; the district and county have bought about 800 of them.
Nearly all of the district's buyouts are voluntary. If an owner doesn't want to sell, the district can't force them out.
Buyouts make sense for some people who can't be protected from floods, said Alessandra Jerolleman, director of research for the Center on Environment, Land and Law at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law.
But buyouts might not provide lower-income people enough money to get somewhere safer, she said, and they could lose important support like child care from nearby family or neighbors.
“It's not as though it's a guarantee of reducing risks to that family,” Jerolleman said.
People who live near the river and who have endured repeated floods explained that they've stayed because it's affordable and, most of the time, peaceful. Where else would they be able to buy anything like it? Some said they didn't think the government would offer them what they consider a fair price to sell their land. Some didn't know the buyout program existed.
Madigan started buying homes more than 15 years ago in the unincorporated River Terrace neighborhood because they were cheap. On Tuesday, the Houston firefighter drank a Heineken and grilled hamburgers for his work crew outside his most damaged house, which he rents to his brother. Sodden rugs baked in the sun on the driveway.
Madigan said he might have taken a buyout if it was a reasonable offer — but he doubted it would be. He said he needed to get the properties ready again for his renters. “I can't wait,” he said.
Two blocks away, water had swept through a yellow house Madigan rents to a family with a teenage son. One of the workers fixing the property, 21-year-old Omar Reyna, watched the family throw out pretty much everything they had. Piecing together new laminate flooring with his dad, Reyna kept thinking about a trash bag of Teddy bears and stuffed toys he tossed out for them.
He wondered if the parents had been saving the toys for another kid they might have in the future.
“The faster we get it done, the faster they can come back in here,” Reyna said.
Some people choose to live with the risk of flooding
The San Jacinto is the largest river in the state's most populous county. For years before Harris County's first floodplain maps were drawn up in the mid-1980s, people built homes near its banks. Even today, people can still build in the vast floodplain if the houses are high enough and have enough stormwater detention.
The flood control district tries to buy out homes in pockets of the floodplain that are deepest, said James Wade, manager for the district's property acquisition department. Those are places where engineers can't easily fix flooding problems.
Buyouts are meant to get people out of flood zones before their property floods again, not to help in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. The process is slow: In some cases, it can take 18 months or longer to approve a buyout application, Wade said. The district pays owners the market value or pre-flood value for their house, determined by a third-party appraiser, plus moving expenses and a supplement to help them get into a house out of the floodplain, Wade said.
“It's a very equitable, fair program,” Wade said — but still some people don't want to leave.
Those who stay learn to adapt. They build homes on stilts. They monitor the river level and watch for releases of water from the Lake Conroe dam upstream. Some know intimately the routine of rebuilding: gut the house, clean it, put it back together.
The floor of 49-year-old Sean Vincent's house in the Forest Cove neighborhood in northeast Houston is 15 feet above the ground. Three feet of water flooded it when Hurricane Harvey hit in 2017. This month, the floods reached five feet high on Vincent's property. He cleaned out his waterlogged ground-level shed with help from church members. On Tuesday, he was building new shelves for it.
But most of the time Vincent, who works in railroad traffic control, said he enjoys the space surrounded by tall trees with room for his three kids.
“It's just really not a major part of our life,” Vincent said of the flooding. “Yes, it's inconvenient. Yes, it's now happened to us twice in seven years … It's sort of a trade-off for us. And it is lovely out here.”
“Where are you going to go?”
Then there are those who stay because they don't see anywhere else to go.
Jack St. John, 67, a retired long-haul truck driver, moved to Northshore 43 years ago and has had to clean up after two floods. He worries any time flooding threatens, but the neighborhood's advantages keep him there: He has no water bill because he has a well. His taxes are reasonable. The neighborhood has a fish fry in the spring and a barbecue in the fall.
“You know, when you leave, where are you going to go?” he said. “What's it going to cost to buy into another place?”
Farther northeast, in the Idle Wild and Idle Glen neighborhoods, the floods forced some residents to sleep under tarps. On one largely forested street, boats were turned sideways or flipped upside down. A small building was lodged in the trees. A car was in the ditch.
For several years, Elvia Bethea, 68, has driven from her home in Humble to check on people and pets here, and pick up stray animals. On Tuesday, she and other volunteers gave John Gray, 50, bamboo yard torches to fight the many mosquitoes, plus two trays of chocolate-covered strawberries.
Gray said he couldn't afford to fix up his destroyed house. He earns a living printing labor law posters for businesses. His printers at home were destroyed.
Gray said he had never heard of the buyout program but would consider taking one.
“Who do I call?” Gray asked. “I don't have a clue.”
From the back of a white SUV, Bethea handed some hot dogs to Jose Tabores, 68, who lives on Gray's land in a trailer now filled with mud.
“I'm coming for dinner, remember!” Bethea teased him.
Nearby, 51-year-old Veronika Scheid had been sleeping in a wet tent. The flood washed the shipping crate she lived in down the road and into the trees — along with her and her neighbors' belongings.
At a low point, when Scheid was crying over all she lost, she found a pink-and-white beaded necklace with stitching in the shape of a “V,” like her name. At the end was a charm shaped like a house.
She was grateful the person who owned the land where she stayed hadn't taken a buyout. Otherwise she would have nowhere to go.
“At least we have this,” Scheid said.
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The post These Texans aren't taking buyouts despite repeated floods appeared first on TexasTribune.org.
The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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