The summer of 2026 is presenting South Texas with a convergence of environmental health crises that are occurring simultaneously and interacting in ways that compound their individual impacts.
On one front: Bexar County's mosquito abatement program is battling what officials described to Texas Public Radio as a "bumper crop" of mosquitoes — an extraordinary population surge driven by the wetter-than-average spring that has filled every drainage channel, storm culvert, and residential water container in and around San Antonio with productive Aedes aegypti and Culex mosquito breeding sites. Harris County, three hours northeast, has already confirmed the first West Nile-positive mosquitoes of 2026, with dengue transmission risk elevated to its highest level in years given the post-2024 global surge.
