Cry me a river

Ewww! A lot of Houston's drinking water comes from toilets and showers inDallas/Fort Worth

One thing that I did not want to hear while drinking coffee during my morning commute? That the very water that went into my coffee came from toilets and showers in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Sure, that wastewater may have passed through sand, cloth filters, chlorination and dechlorination before a trip down the Trinity River, and then more treatment outside of Houston and a pass through my Brita before reaching a 212-degree boil on the stovetop — but still, the thought of drinking it made my gag reflex kick in, really hard.

As reported by Dave Fehling on StateImpact Texas,

It has long been a joke to those who know where Houston gets it's [sic] water: take a drink from a tap in Houston and say 'thank you' to your friends in Dallas for flushing their toilets and doing all the other things that create a city's wastewater."

In a normal year, about one-eighth of the water in the Trinity comes from DFW toilets, but the lack of rain this summer has upped the percentage of their waste in our tap water. According to the Trinity River Authority, concentrated wastewater accounted for nearly one-half of the water flow of the river at Lake Livingston.

"The treated water has met all Federal and State standards during the drought, and no significant changes were observed in constituent levels," Alvin Wright, spokesperson for the Houston Public Works and Engineering Department, told StateImpact Texas.

Though experts assure that this poses no threat to human health, it seems dubious. Or, at the very least, gross.

Listen to the story here:

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Thanks, Queen Bey

Pop icon Beyoncé donates $100,000 to University of Houston Law School

Photo by Erza Shaw Getty Images

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Pop megastar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has donated $100,000 to the University of Houston Law Center Criminal Justice Clinic through her BeyGOOD Foundation. The gift will allow the clinic to hire fill-time faculty to head it, benefiting the students who study there.

“I am delighted that the BeyGOOD Foundation has made this very generous gift to the UH Law Center,” said Leonard Baynes, dean of the UH Law Center. “Not only will this funding help establish a full-time criminal justice clinic that provides pro bono legal services in our community, but it will also supercharge our already excellent criminal law and justice programming.”

The clinic is one of nine at UHLC. It helps students learn to navigate the criminal justice system, especially on behalf of clients that are underserved by skilled attorneys. People of color are affected disproportionately by a lack of good, ethical representation.

Beyoncé, the most decorated artist in Grammy history and easily the biggest musical star native to Houston, has a long history of advocating for criminal justice reform. She was a staunch supporter of the police reform following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, asking law enforcement to “stop killing us” in a web post. In 2020, she penned an open letter to the Kentucky attorney general asking for justice in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Through her BeyGOOD Foundation, established in 2013, Beyoncé has focused mostly on expanding the prospects of Black-owned business and offering education opportunities to students. Forwarding the cause of legal representation in Texas while also helping out marginalized communities compliments her other philanthropic work.

“At UH Law, we envision a legal profession where ‘everyone has the opportunity to prosper,’ as BeyGOOD envisions, and we will achieve this vision by providing access to strong and effective legal representation in criminal proceedings,” Baynes said. “And together, through this gift, the BeyGOOD Foundation and UHLC will shepherd the next generation of criminal justice attorneys in the city of Houston, the state of Texas and the nation.”