The state of Texas and several youth camps have reached an agreement over a new state law requiring camps to have end-to-end fiber optic internet. <\/p>\n
The agreement will allow youth camps to obtain a license to operate without meeting the requirement to install fiber line.<\/p>\n
In a news release announcing the agreement, state officials wrote, \u201cUnder the agreement, camps that maintain a redundant internet service will not face potential license denial or revocation for not having fiber service during the 2026 camping season, as long as they meet all other safety requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n
This requirement is part of new camp safety laws passed following the deaths of 25 campers, 2-counselors at Camp Mystic, as well as Mystic co-owner, Dick Eastland. The fiber requirement was designed to ensure camps had reliable communication during emergencies. Following the July 4, 2025 flood, lawmakers herard testimony that several camps are in areas with spotty cell and internet service.<\/p>\n
However, 19-camps sued Texas over this requirement, arguing the cost to bring fiber line to certain areas of the state was cost prohibitive. Many camp operators said the cost of installing fiber line in certain remote areas exceeded their camp\u2019s annual operating budget.<\/p>\n
At the end of March, Camp Oak Haven near Columbus, Tx. announced it was permanently closing because of the new requirement. Former director Riley Watkins told 2-Investigates. the cost to bring fiber line to the camp was $280,000, which was 3-times the camp\u2019s annual budget.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The state of Texas and several youth camps have reached an agreement over a new state law requiring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[12803,51535,17340,27,29,28,99387],"class_list":["post-284624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-agreement","tag-dshs","tag-fiber","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-youth-camps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}