LCRA appoints Rick Perry political hack Phil Wilson

Well, this is interesting.

To replace its current general manager, Becky Motal, whose previously announced resignation is effective as of the first of the year, the board of director of the Lower Colorado River Authority appointed former TxDOT head Phil Wilson:

Wilson, a former deputy chief of staff for Gov. Rick Perry, was named Texas secretary of state in 2007. He left that job in 2008 to work as a lobbyist and senior vice president at Luminant Energy. He left there to join TxDOT.

Wow. 

Let me see. A top assistant to a global warming and climate change denialist, who then went on to work for a major coal-fired electric utility, adding to the global warming and climate change his previous boss denies, now is going to work for an entity whose primary business is water management, and whose primary business was hit hard by a 2011-12 drought that may have been exacerbated by climate change and global warming? Wunderbar.

LCRA's board head tries to sell this as an "experience" decision:

LCRA board chairman Tim Timmerman said Wilson’s experience as secretary of state, as executive director of TxDOT and as an executive with Luminant Energy made him the best choice.

“He’s been in the public sector, been in the private sector, and we’re sort of in the middle” as both a water and electricity wholesaler and the manager of parks and the region’s main water supply, Timmerman said. “It seemed like a perfect fit.”

Given that, per the National Weather Service, all of 2014 is likely to very likely to have above-average temperatures in West Texas, and somewhat likely to likely to have that for the full state, and with rainfall for West Texas likely to be below average for the first half of the year, Wilson's going to have his hands full.

Indeed, a week ago, LCRA already asked the state for permission to cut back on downstream flow-throughs in 2014, like it did this year and last year.

This is why: Flow into the Highland Lakes was the second-lowest on record last year.

Meanwhile, both newspapers in Marble Falls, in the center of the Highland Lakes, have little different to say than the American-Statesman story. Of course, the owner of one of them doesn't believe in anthropogenic global warming, so, there will be no op-eds of concern about this issue.