'I'm a Realtor: It's how I make my money; water is how I live'

. . . as a Realtor dealing with investment properties (rentals) and people looking to buy and move into the area, it’s impossible to miss the exodus away from Aqua, Inc. areas is only growing stronger

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Guest Commentary

By Clay E. Ewing

I’m curious about the seeming hypocrisy concerning water in western Hays County.

On the one hand, we have people up in arms over the idea of vesting full authority in Chapter 36 for the Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District, for reasons that cannot seem to bear up to any level of scrutiny.

On the other, we allow an out-of-state corporation to run carte blanche over the reasonable right to water at a competitive rate, while also allowing them the leeway to let raw sewage flow freely from manhole covers during rainstorms or when one of the pumps goes out, not to even mention how they lose more water to leakage than they pump into homes.

We have loud and acrimonious meetings to shout down new subdivisions because of the astonishingly bad planning that promotes a thousand wells and septic tanks in less than a thousand acres, but do not seem capable of supporting the idea to promote—through tax breaks and incentives—the very proven rain water harvesting concept instead of all those wells.

In thinking about things like this, one thought keeps coming back up: we don’t think beyond our own life spans. We say we do, we might even think we do. But, a people who think a hundred years ahead don’t act as though we can burn, pump, cut down, or pollute all the resources we want to now, and still have any for our children and grandchildren’s needs. It’s just not reasonable to believe the person who gives themselves everything their heart desires, is thinking past those desires.

And, to not put any more fine a point than a simple one: there will be no subject, there will be nothing of greater importance not just to Western Hays County, but to the nation as a whole, than water. If your car runs out of gas, you walk, if my home runs out of electricity to run my air conditioner, I’ll sweat. If we run out of water, we die. Individually, collectively, we. Not you, not me. We.

Thus, it was with great disappointment I read how Mr.s Rose and Wentworth killed full vestment of Chapter 36. As a Realtor, I should jump and dance and shout hosannas, but the fact of the matter is, real estate is how I make money, but water is how I live. I try hard not to confuse the two, as they are very different things, and we, as a nation, confuse them all the time.

The scrutiny of Chapter 36? The nays say we don’t need another level of government, we don’t need to track our water usage, we don’t need to jeopardize our economy by layering new fees and rules onto our area. I hear that.

But I also note this: The layer of government they don’t want is there already, in volunteer form for something that will define our very existence for decades to come. So, do we really want well intentioned, even well educated, volunteers to handle this on a part-time basis, or do we want people, elected and hired people, who represent our interests—not some corporation, not some developer, but our interests—to handle this issue?

But, you don’t want to put a meter on your well and pay for the water you use? Well, the legislation Rose and Wentworth is letting die wouldn’t do that; in fact, the last writing of the legislation was very emphatic: existing wells are exempt from meters and fees, and of the new wells, only commercial wells are covered. Which means about 98% of the new wells would be exempt.

I would also note this: as a Realtor dealing with investment properties (rentals) and people looking to buy and move into the area, it’s impossible to miss the exodus away from Aqua, Inc. areas is only growing stronger. So, having a private water company running roughshod over your pocketbook, and providing nearly nothing in return for the three or four times the ‘normal’ base charges found all over America, is hurting sales and rentals far more than anything Chapter 36 would do.

In fact, our ground water district is the only one in Texas without full vestment of 36, and so far as I’ve read, none of the others have seen a dip in real estate activity that can be tied to before and after vestment. Which leads me to believe the arguments thus far are probably more hysterical than real.

Messieurs Rose and Wentworth, if you’re reading this: I’m actually very disappointed in your short-sightedness in this matter. I’m not all that surprised, because so far from what I’ve heard, your loudest constituents are making all the noises most associated with the short-term fever than, ultimately, is what has stricken our national economy and brought the world nearly to its knees, and it’s hard to suddenly stand up and say, This is wrong, we have to do something different.

It’s hard, and it’s perhaps frightening. We’ve been living short-term for so long we don’t seem to know any different any more. But the fact is, if we don’t think into our children’s lifetimes, when they’re the age we are now, we can probably kiss goodbye the life we know for them then, because our lack of vision will have killed it.

If there is never a question that something should be done to right a wrong, the question then becomes, What am I going to do?

Clay Ewing is a former op-ed columnist for the Texan Express (Goliad ’84-’86), edited a regional bicycling newsletter in South Texas (1990-2000), on-going blogger and writer of short stories, landscape and color abstract photographer. Mr. Ewing is a practicing Realtor in the Wimberley area.