Grassroots fight for local water control takes shape

“We have to say to the few people who are putting this plan together that this does not serve the state of Texas or the people of Texas . . . Moving water does not work.”

There are numerous other ways citizens can get involved, especially helping to organize and support a planned statewide water conference slated for Saturday, March 19 at McKinney Roughs

Note: Here's the latest installment in the escalating war over the transfer of groundwater and groundwater rights in neighboring Bastrop and Lee counties. The map of the proposed pipeline by the Guadalupe Blanco River Authority clearly shows a spur connecting to San Marcos. Future supplemental water supplies to Hays and western Hays County may depend heavily on completion of this pipeline. Whether it can overcome the mounting resistance from Bastrop and Lee county citizens is the key question. There is an oblique reference to the project in a draft long range water plan for Hays County presented at a public meeting last night at the Wimberley Community Center. Here's what it states: "About the year 2030 when the interim supply agreement with (Canyon Lake Water Supply Corporation) would expire, construct an 18 mile, 16” diameter treated water pipeline from GBRA facilities at the San Marcos Water Treatment Plant, along RR 12, to the City of Wimberley." Download a copy of the draft Hays County Water and Wastewater Facilities Plan here. Comments from the public are being taken until Feb. 3. Call the county's grants administration office at 512.393.2211 for more information.

On another water-related front, we are informed to be on the lookout for legislation from State Sen. Jeff Wentworth that will empower the Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District to levy – with voter approval – an ad valorem property tax rate of up to 5-cents to fund district operations. Some would say, "Better late than never." And others, "Over my dead body!" What will be new State Rep. Jason Isaac's position, will he agree to co-author the bill in the House? Will the groundwater district's current board even allow the question to be brought to a vote?

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For more information on the March water conference and how to get involved, contact Linda Curtis at 512.535.0989.

Read the complete story in the Bastrop Advertiser at this link.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011 | By Cyndi Wright

Summoning the specter of the Trans-Texas Corridor project that was halted after a successful grassroots mobilization, a mixture of people and groups staged a standing-room only forum Saturday to organize a similar push against recent state decisions concerning water.

Smithville Times / click on graphic to enlarge

Specifically targeted was the Dec. 16 Texas Water Development Board’s approval of a $2.5 million loan to the Guadalupe Blanco River Authority for a pipeline project, dubbed by opponents as the Trans-Texas Water Highway, that is projected to pump an estimated 56,000 acre-feet of water per year from Bastrop and Lee counties to GBRA customers in Hays, Caldwell, Comal, Guadalupe and Kendall counties.

Billed as “The Texas Water War: Will the People Unite?”, the meeting was led by Independent Texan Linda Curtis at Bastrop’s public library on Saturday. The rainy weather seemed especially appropriate for a meeting designed to organize local Texans into finding some measure of control over the limited water resources in the state.

“We are here because this is something we are all concerned about,” Curtis said. “We all drink water.”

Besides Curtis, other organizers of the forum included Environmental Stewardship founder Steve Box; political candidate and local rancher Pati Jacobs; and Phil Cook, representing himself and the Sierra Club.

Not present due to illness was organizer Judith McGeary, founder of the Farm & Ranch Freedom Alliance, which was formed to fight the proposed National Animal Identification System, a governmental solution to tracking diseased livestock that opponents say will drive small and medium-size farmers and ranchers out of business while increasing the consolidation of the food supply into the hands of a few large, multinational corporations.

“The Farm & Ranch Freedom Alliance will play a major role in forming this coalition,” Curtis said.

The grassroots campaign that seriously wounded the Trans-Texas Corridor project was led by Fayetteville couple David and Linda Stall, who received a standing ovation when they joined the meeting Saturday. “You will have to create pressure on your elected officials to get them to make this a priority,” Linda Stall told the crowd. Curtis worked with the Stalls as they led their fight against the TTC. “We learned a lot during the organization of that movement,” she said. Who rules?

Organizers and speakers on Saturday agreed a major problem is the lack of a true, clear, legal definition of who owns groundwater. “Water law is unsettled,” Cook said. “Ownership of groundwater is undecided in Texas.”

The current legal definition, the Rule of Capture, states that whoever owns a piece of property owns the water beneath it. Absent malice or willful waste, landowners have the right to take all the water they can capture from under their land and to do with the water what they please. But according to Cook, it’s still questionable and mostly unclear when that ownership takes place.

“If it is owned, when and where does that take place? While it’s under the ground or when you bring it up and capture it? Water law is highly controversial,” Cook said, explaining why he thinks it has yet to be clearly defined in a legislative session. “For about 20 years we’ve been hearing ‘we’ll deal with that in the next session.’”

Republican Senator Troy Fraser from Horseshoe Bay introduced SB 332 last week, relating to the vested ownership interest in groundwater beneath the surface and the right to produce that groundwater, which states in part: A (grounwater) district may make and enforce rules, including rules limiting groundwater production based on tract size or the spacing of wells, to provide for conserving, preserving, protecting and recharging of the groundwater or of a groundwater reservoir or its subdivisions in order to control subsidence, prevent degradation of water quality or prevent waste of groundwater.

But “it doesn’t solve the problem,” Cook said.

According to Jacobs, a local rancher who owns Bastrop Cattle Company, 75-80 percent of Texas’ population will end up somewhere along the I-35 corridor. “And they need water,” she said. “These people are not our enemies. We need to turn them into our allies.”

According to Jacobs, the rising cost of gasoline will dictate a “seismic” change in the way things are done. “We are going to have to change from a petrochemical society,” she said. “There are tremendous opportunities for change, but you cannot do it without water. In 20 years, there will be no water on I-35 or out here if moving water is how they try to solve it.”

Jacobs said people just need to say no. “We have to say to the few people who are putting this plan together that this does not serve the state of Texas or the people of Texas,” she said. “Moving water does not work.”

With gas prices rising, Jacobs said it will no longer be feasible to truck vegetables from California to Texas – or anywhere else. “We need to build jobs and development around regional agriculture,” she said. “This is not pie in the sky. We have doubled our sales every year for the last four years and used less water doing it.”

One man, identified as Austinite Gordon Walton, told participants that it was going to be an uphill fight against the water marketers and politicians. “Everybody here is going to have to get very passionate,” he said. “This is not going to be a hand-holding thing. The only way we are going to get to them is to get in their faces and make them very uncomfortable. Organizations like this need money to fight this.”