Scientists at Texas universities researching topics on water resources are invited to submit proposals for the 2011 National Competitive Grants Program through the Texas Water Resources Institute (TWRI). The U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the National Institutes for Water Research, of which TWRI is Texas’ representative, requests the proposals as part of the Water Resources Research Act.

“Proposals may be for projects of 1 to 3 years in duration and may request up to $250,000 in federal funds,” said Dr. B.L. Harris, TWRI acting director. “Proposals require a 1:1 match, thus successful applicants must match each dollar of the federal grant with one dollar from non-federal sources.”

The Texas Water Journal, an online, peer-reviewed journal published by the Texas Water Resources Institute and the nonprofit group, The Texas Water Journal, is seeking high-quality articles from a range of disciplines.

The journal is devoted to the timely consideration of Texas water resources management and policy issues from a multidisciplinary perspective that integrates science, engineering, law, planning, and other disciplines, according to Dr. Todd Votteler, the journal’s editor-in-chief.

Due to funding uncertainties, the 2011 Rio Grande Basin Initiative Conference has been canceled. The meeting was originally scheduled for May 9-12, 2011 in Albuquerque, N. M.

More information will be posted at online as it becomes available.

The Texas AgriLife Extension Service and Irrigation Technology Center will present the South Texas Irrigation Symposium 2011 and “Last Chance CEU Blowout” on Feb. 2 at Southwest Texas Junior College in Uvalde. The symposium will take place in the college’s Student Center Ballroom.

Continuing education units (CEU) will be available for Texas Department of Agriculture private applicator and commercial/non-commercial license-holders and certified crop advisors.

Thomas Abia, a doctoral student in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at Texas A&M University, worked with his advising professor Dr. Yongheng Huang to evaluate the in situ placement of iron oxides onto sand matrices to remove arsenic from groundwater. Abia received a 2009-10 Texas Water Resources Institute (TWRI) research grant. With the $5,000 grant, Abia developed and optimized the iron coating of sand under submerged conditions to stimulate an aquifer environment.

A 2008 Associated Press investigation across the United States revealed the presence of various pharmaceuticals including antibiotics, mood stabilizers and sex hormones in drinking water. Emily Maloney Bickle and Jennifer Markley, two University of Texas School of Nursing graduate students, assessed the Austin community in hopes of guiding future public education efforts regarding the proper disposal of unused pharmaceuticals.

Texas A&M University-Kingsville’s Institute for Sustainable Energy and the Environment (ISEE) has received $1.5 million from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to help construct, promote and implement low impact development in the rapidly-growing Lower Rio Grande Valley. The grant is funded by the Clean Water Act Section 319 urban nonpoint source pollution prevention program.

Public service announcements recently aired on television in the Rio Grande Valley to educate viewers on ways they can help clean up the Arroyo Colorado, according to an official with the Texas Water Resources Institute (TWRI).

The production and airing of the public service announcements were an effort of the Arroyo Colorado Watershed Partnership’s watershed protection plan, said Jaime Flores, the institute’s Arroyo Colorado watershed coordinator.

Baylor University and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department teamed up to complete the largest and most comprehensive study ever done exploring catfish survivability in Texas. Baylor researchers sampled 30 reservoirs across Texas and compared blue catfish abundance, condition and natural reproduction with multiple physicochemical and biological variables at each reservoir.

Policymakers, government employees and engineers can learn to make communities more resilient to the negative impact of flooding by reading “Rising Waters:The Causes and Consequences of Flooding in the United States,” a new book co-authored by Sam Brody, professor of urban planning at Texas A&M University, available soon from Cambridge University Press.

Brody and his co-authors, Wes Highfield, assistant research scientist at Texas A&M University at Galveston's Department of Marine Science, and Jung Eun Kang, research fellow at the Korea Environment Institute's Adaptation Center for Climate Change, spent five years researching the topic with a grant from the National Science Foundation.

The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) College of Engineering recently was awarded half of a $1.3 million grant by the U. S. Bureau of Reclamation to advance water treatment research. The money will be allocated to five research and laboratory study facilities, one pilot test and one demonstration project under the Desalination and Water Purification Program. The goal of the program is to develop more cost-effective, technologically efficient and implementable means to desalinate water.

New projects: Water Quality Monitoring in the Buck Creek Watershed and Facilitation of Buck Creek Watershed Partnership, Building Partnerships for Cooperative Conservation in the Trinity River Basin, Preventing Water Quality Contamination Through the Texas Well Owner Network, and Arroyo Colorado Agricultural Water Quality Education Program. Publications: Updated Guidelines for Soil Selection and Improvements for Irrigated Pecan Production: Alluvial Soils, Bacteria Runoff BMPs for Intensive Beef Cattle Operations, A Guide to Good Horsekeeping, Making a Rain Barrel (Spanish), and Stormwater Wetlands for the Texas Gulf Coast.