It's half past time, do you know where your water's coming from in the next 10 to 20 years?
Note: We'll leave it with ya for a short station break. Please use this space to comment about any subject or to contemplate our water future. Will it be one of abundance, severe shortages, a slow emptying, too expensive for the less well off to afford? Will it be a time of plenty for some and extreme rationing for others? You might ask your local elected officials what answers they have to offer.
YNN | By John Salazar Experts stress action to curb Texas' water crsis – It's only been a month since water experts announced the 2012 state water plan, but many worry Texas' precious resource will continue to disappear if the one-inch thick book of recommendations is not put into practice.The Texas Water Development Board's Executive Administrator Melanie Callahan said the state’s water situation is so dire, the worst-case scenario is closer than we think.
"It's a resource and it has to be managed. It's not always going to be there,” she said. “If we don't take care of it, you may go to the tap at some point and it may not be there.”
39 comments:
You folks in Wimberley might want to start "managing" by kicking out city council members that are mindlessly supporting ridiculous resolutions under the pretext of "conservation".
You see, it's okay for the residents to be prohibited from having pools, topping off pools, or irrigating ... but the city itself expects to be exempt from such things.
It's also apparently okay for the city to support cutting off water to the residents under the pretext of "saving Jacobs Well". When the water is cut off, I wonder how many of those residents will support the city council? Even better, cutting off the residents is not going to save squat. They won't have water AND there isn't going to be a Jacobs Well.
You're going to have to give up your water amenities like everyone else.
Anonymous #1 tells the truth. The Wimberley citizens deserver better that the present Councilman Mac Mc Cullough. He is being challenged by former Mayor Tom Haley in the upcoming election. I'd say vote for Tom, especially after the antics of Mac at the last meeting, acting like he knew what to do about the DFC of 30 foot draw down when he didn't have a clue. He signed on with the WVWA and Card to make a shambles of a useless debate that had no place in a City Council meeting. He apparently thought he had to do something or be thought of as lazy. He bullied the rest of the Council into "doing something" even though it was wrong, Wimberley deserves a change. Tom knows about water and other things that the incumbent can only dream of.
Well the long-awaited decision in the Supreme Court case known as EAA v Day has been issued.
The property owners won against the EAA. The socialists lost.
The Supreme Court has now taken the position that groundwater is owned in place like oil & gas law. This seems to go a bit beyond what was necessary to resolve the issues in the case. The real issue in the case was whether the property owner had at least a vested interest in the groundwater such that the property owner could not be denied all access to the groundwater. Regulation is one thing. Regulation to zero is a taking.
The beautiful part is that all of this was provoked by the always over-reaching, anti-property rights socialists right here in Central Texas.
The socialists took the position that they could use governmental entities to deny property owners access to groundwater without compensation. The socialists claimed that denying all access was not a taking because the groundwater was your only once you captured it. The circular logic then proceeds to conclude that denying an owner any ability to capture the groundwater would not be a taking and that no compensation would be constitutionally required. The socialists pushing this agenda conveniently wanted exceptions for their own wells, of course.
Here's the unanimous opinion from the Texas Supreme Court:
EAA v. Day (Tex. 2012)
Today is a great day for property Rights! The Texas Supreme Court finally ruled in an unanimous decision in the long awaited conclusion of the EAA v. Day case, that the landowners have an ownership interest in the water beneath their land and may be compensated if regulators limit their access to it.
Part of a bad week form the WVWA and CARD with more to come.
Speaking of water topics, the Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District has asserted a counterclaim for attorney fees and costs against the Plaintiffs in that litigation. The Plaintiffs include David Baker's WVWA, Jim McMeans, the Acords, Johanna Smith, and David Glenn.
The courts, of course, shall decide whether the Plaintiffs have anything other than a frivolous case. Anyone that read the Plaintiffs' complaint might wonder how a court could decide otherwise. If the court does find for the HTGCD, HTGCD is entitled to a mandatory award of attorney fees from the Plaintiffs under the Water Code.
The real question is going to be whether Baker will seek Conley's support to have the county pick up WVWA's legal tab again. Seems that the taxpayers keep picking up the tab for Baker's legal battles and causes.
Perhaps there are enough eyes on this litigation and the county commissioners' weekly agenda to frustrate such attempts this election season. Sam Brannon are you watching?
I shudder to think of running out of ground water out here in the boonies. Thousands of peoples wells going dry over a period of time, with no replacement infrastructure in place, would be an economic catastrophe for the region. Save the ground water!
Some of the previous posters are obviously salivating over the prospect of dry creeks, dry wells and springs that no longer flow.
Why someone would want that is anybody's guess, but this is not typical of the people living in this area, nor expected of people who care about where they live.
Going dry is not inevitable.
We have to work together to share the water we have and to learn to live within our means on all levels.
We also do not have to just assume that our population will grow and we should neither encourage this nor consider it a good idea.
Everything has its optimum size and we are exceeding ours.
http://hayshypocrite.com
@Lilith who said...
Some of the previous posters are obviously salivating over the prospect of dry creeks, dry wells and springs that no longer flow.
Not at all - just that the Texas Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the property owners rather than the socialists. If the water happens to run dry, so be it.
Why someone would want that is anybody's guess, but this is not typical of the people living in this area, nor expected of people who care about where they live.
Actually the county has paid millions to an organization that promoted total derogation of others' property rights for "Jacobs Well". This group was trying to artificially create an "excess" of water by cutting off property owners' access to their own groundwater. Now if the "people" really want to take property away from the owners, the owners will be compensated rather than left holding the bag. Let's see how supportive the socialists are going to be when they have to pay people for the taking.
Going dry is not inevitable.
a 19 foot drawdown in 50 years is not dry.
We have to work together to share the water we have and to learn to live within our means on all levels.
Allowing it to spill into creeks to create a water amenity is not sharing - that's wasting.
We also do not have to just assume that our population will grow and we should neither encourage this nor consider it a good idea.
Don't know what you mean by "your" population. The population of the state is estimated to increase by 84% in the next 50 years. The water trolls have tried to control growth by controlling other people's water. Now they'll have to pay and they aren't they type to pay. They always expected everyone else to pay the price for the water trolls' amenities.
Everything has its optimum size and we are exceeding ours.
Well at least now you can't claim other people's groundwater to be "yours". Your attempts to deny change are futile and very costly in the long run.
You should read the 2012 State Water Plan from the Texas Water Development Board. Read §7 in particular.
The Wimberley crowd has tried to artificially create an excess of water by denying the actual owners of that groundwater any access to it. Not only have you betrayed your own constituents and neighbors, you will not be able to keep any ill-gotten booty. There are bigger fish to take it away from you.
Excess is going to get taken and sent where the water is needed:
See §7.2.3 regarding the State Plan for the production of groundwater.
It is clear from the mindset of some of the comments here and elsewhere around the county that we already have a severe shortage of another resource: Big picture big thinkers.
Dispensing groundwater like there's no tomorrow under the pretext of property rights is a foolish way to think and plan. Cutting your nose off to spite your face -- welcoming growth willy nilly, unprepared -- is no plan.
Preparing for the next historic droughts will necessitate huge public (tax dollar) investments to secure new water supplies and lay the pipelines and storage. We will all wind up paying for it in one form or another. And I have yet to read a single cohesive statement from our public officials about what their game plan is.
"Preparing for the next historic droughts will necessitate huge public (tax dollar) investments to secure new water supplies and lay the pipelines and storage."
Horseshit.
If you're on a well, be prepared to dig it deeper. But more likely, this came from a developer hoping to profit from easy access to water that other people pay for.
Do you really think the people along I-35 are willing to pay a dime so that the western half of the county has water? You think you're entitled to that?
@ not so water wise:
Water wise said...
It is clear from the mindset of some of the comments here and elsewhere around the county that we already have a severe shortage of another resource: Big picture big thinkers.
There is no shortage of people that claim to be the big thinkers with the big picture. Communitarians, new urbanists, etc., etc. They always claim moral or intellectual superiority and the ability to recognize, understand, and articulate the common good they want to impose as their idea of a good society.
The decision in the EAA v. Day case now means they can't expect their self-serving "big picture" to come solely at the expense of non-resident property owners - a common objective for those "big thinkers" that relied upon the mantra of "protecting the people that are here now".
Dispensing groundwater like there's no tomorrow under the pretext of property rights is a foolish way to think and plan. Cutting your nose off to spite your face -- welcoming growth willy nilly, unprepared -- is no plan.
"Dispensing" groundwater? I smell a statist. Do you feel the same way about "dispensing" surface water via streams, creeks, etc.?
An AP article authored by Chris Tomlinson in response to the EAA v. Day decision states:
The Sierra Club spokesperson Tomlinson quoted thinks this is awful, citing how the ruling handicaps "the proper management of the groundwater resources needed for our state's people and our environment."
The "handicap" is that "big thinkers" must recognize that the groundwater is the property of the property owners and that denying access to that groundwater is a compensable taking. Apparently it's a "handicap" to recognize that some governmental takings require compensation to the property owner. A rebuttal to that by Tom Blumer points out:
"Imagine that. A government which wanted something for nothing has been thwarted."
Statist Mindset at AP
Preparing for the next historic droughts will necessitate huge public (tax dollar) investments to secure new water supplies and lay the pipelines and storage. We will all wind up paying for it in one form or another. And I have yet to read a single cohesive statement from our public officials about what their game plan is.
Hays County has already been acquiring pipelines. In addition, Hays County is working to secure other sources of water for transport to this area. The only thing that has really changed is that the no-growthers can no longer expect to take the property of other property owners without compensation. This means that the discriminatory and ill-conceived legislation promulgated by former groundwater district board members, WVWA, CARD and certain former county commissioners for the past several years will never fly.
The Day case remanded the case back down to determine if there had been a taking.
"The Day case remanded the case back down to determine if there had been a taking."
... after judging that it WAS A TAKING. You are a dreamer that can not face reality. Read the opinion again, you lost; I can't say it anymore clearer than that. It was a victory for property owner's rights in our great State!
This is how it goes these days in Judge Will Conley-Cobb's Courtroom:
Commissioners Court’s camera ban violated open meetings laws
A ban on cameras in the Hays County Commissioners Courtroom lasted all of five hours Monday when the county realized it had run afoul of the state’s open meetings laws.
At 11:11 a.m., Hays County spokeswoman Laureen Chernow sent the following email to the Hays Free Press and presumably other members of the news media:
Beginning Tuesday, February 28, 2012, video and still cameras will not be allowed to be used in the Hays County Commissioners Courtroom when Court is in session. Special allowances may be made at the County Judge’s discretion.
At 4:21 p.m., Chernow sent a subsequent note:
My pleasure to let you know that in concert with the Texas Open Meetings Act requirements and the relatively small size of our Commissioners Courtroom, reporters and their cameras are welcome to join us at Commissioners Court. We will ask you to sit at the Media Table and arrange tripod/cameras nearby, but out of the line of vision between the Court dais and the public lectern. If the room becomes extremely crowded, we may ask that reporters pool their coverage.
A section of the state’s open meetings act expressly permits members of the public to record open meetings with a tape recorder or a video camera:
(a) A person in attendance may record all or any part of an open meeting of a governmental body by means of a tape recorder, video camera, or other means of aural or visual reproduction.
(b) A governmental body may adopt reasonable rules to maintain order at a meeting, including rules relating to:
(1) the location of recording equipment; and
(2) the manner in which the recording is conducted.
(c) A rule adopted under Subsection (b) may not prevent or unreasonably impair a person from exercising a right granted under Subsection (a).215
The Commissioners Court also appears to have violated open meetings laws at its meeting last Tuesday. When TV news reporters descended on the courtroom for coverage of the changes to the county’s animal control ordinance, a constable would not allow them to take photos or shoot video inside the courtroom. Instead, the reporters and camera crews set up just beyond the doors and filmed through the glass window.
(Perhaps the Judge should consider hiring new legal counsel for these constant UH-OHs)Mark Kennedy=Fail
Where can I find more information on Day v. EAA? The only information I find about Day online is
DAY VS NEWHAIR.com
That case is about on online hair dealer that sold a man a toupee made from a rare Buffalo found only in the Ukraine. Which when discovered by Fish and Wildlife resulted in a large fine and the man's toupee being impounded.
I don't think that is the right case.
The man in that case might be J. Day - former HTGCD board member and frequent whiner at HTGCD and city council meetings. That's a different Day.
There is a hyperlink to the EAA v Day case in the first comment.
If you are serious,
Here is the court opinion in The EAA v. Day case:
http://www.supreme.courts.state.tx.us/historical/2012/feb/080964.pdf
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/tx-supreme-court/1595644.html
"The water will be sent to where it is needed"? Really?
This sounds more like taking water from people and allocating it to others than the claims you make for those who would like to see their creeks and springs remain viable.
Did you fall in a creek as a kid and get left with a lifelong hatred of flowing streams?
Did a bubbling brook run over your puppy?
What is WRONG with you people who would delight in Wimberley's Cypress Creek going dry or Jacob's Well being a muddy pit?
Do you actually have concrete reasons why you want to see creeks and springs go dry or do you just have a problem with Wimberley in particular?
If it weren't true, I would not believe someone could conjure up such notions.
As I have said before: if the law does not currently provide for the continued health of our creeks and springs, then it should be altered to do so.
Rather than root for the demise of natural beauty in the name of some antiquated legal argument, why don't you use your mind in the service of the environment that sustains us all.
Anon 2/29 11:35
He's better than Jackie
The TWDB Today, ruled FOR the DFC of GMA 9 at 30 ft. as expected and they didn't even entertain the WVWA, CARD and City of Wimberley's last whacky gasp for setting their own DFC.
Another victory for the good guys.
Here is the wording of the decision as it relates to a taking.
In sum, the three Penn Central factors do not support summary judgment for the Authority and the State. A full development of the record may demonstrate that EAAA regulation is too restrictive of Day's groundwater rights and without justification in the overall regulatory scheme. We therefore agree with the court of appeals that summary judgment against Day's takings claim must be reversed.
Please note, it does not call the action by EAA a taking. Note the second sentence, re a full development of the record.
It was remanded to develop that record, for the trial court to determine if there was in fact a taking.
The flow that comes from Jacob's Well is primarily surface water that is diverted through faults, fissures and other conduits from the upper part of the Blanco River. It generally takes a very short time to get to the well in its underground travels. It is in no way Trinity Aquifer water since the water table for the aquifer is far too deep to appear at the mouth of the Well in any significant amount. No Aquifer can recharge that fast. A canary in a coal mine, I think not!
That is why the flow at the Well is dependent on rainfall not Aquifer recharge as those with the most to gain from those claims often quote. Big rain event; big flow from Jacob's Well Have a Drought; low or no flow from the Well. I suspect even the Indians figured that out; they probably didn't have a no-growth agenda.
According to the USGS telemetry: The Blanco is currently flowing at 90 cu.ft/sec and declining slowly after a huge surge of 230 on the 18th. Jacobs Well is flowing at a good rate of 13 cu.ft/sec. and steady since the surge of 32 on the 18th. The Well was flowing at about 6 cu.ft./sec. before the rain even on the 18th. Much of that flow was left over from the flash flood on Feb. 4.
Ask the pseudo-scientists over at the WVWA and C.A.R.D. to explain this to you.
****Breaking News*****
Texas Water Development Board rejects Wimberley Valley Watershed Association's protest of the GMA 9 DFC
The Texas Water Development Board convened this morning to render a decision on WVWA's protest of the GMA 9 30 foot DFC (19 foot for Wimberley). This meeting was originally scheduled for February 1, 2012 but was delayed for a month as a result of a last-minute request by WVWA.
WVWA again failed to address the legal issue of reasonableness. Speaker after speaker went up and droned on about "creating a special management district" or a "special management area". In other words, WVWA attempted to hijack the TWDB meeting to divert the discussion to a topic that was not on the agenda and not even within the authority of the TWDB to address.
After several hours of propaganda and off-topic diversions about special districts (mostly from WVWA and members of various astroturfing organizations such as CARD), the TWDB unanimously voted to reject WVWA's protest and to support the 30 foot DFC already in place for GMA 9.
@bemused said...
"The water will be sent to where it is needed"? Really?
That's what the State Management Plan says with respect to groundwater.
This sounds more like taking water from people and allocating it to others than the claims you make for those who would like to see their creeks and springs remain viable.
The creeks and streams do not belong you and neither does other peoples' groundwater.
Did you fall in a creek as a kid and get left with a lifelong hatred of flowing streams?
Did a bubbling brook run over your puppy?
What is WRONG with you people who would delight in Wimberley's Cypress Creek going dry or Jacob's Well being a muddy pit?
I would delight in never hearing about Jacobs Well again except in a history book. You are trying to legislate that Wimberley should not experience a drought. That's not really physically possible. So you lobby for laws and rules with the objective of denying property owners over a 9 county access to water so that you can enjoy the sight and sound of THEIR water running in a ditch through Wimberley during a drought. You deserve no special treatment - especially not at the expense of and to the detriment of all those other property owners. You can man up and do without your water amenity just like everyone else.
Do you actually have concrete reasons why you want to see creeks and springs go dry or do you just have a problem with Wimberley in particular?
Concrete would be a good solution for Jacobs Well.
Wimberley yokels like to remind everyone that the purpose of the groundwater conservation district is to "conserve, preserve, recharge and prevent waste of groundwater". Please explain how allowing it to be dumped into Cypress Creek is consistent with any of these objectives? No one but the cult members in Wimberley believe they are specifically entitled to have water running thru Wimberley even during a drought.
If it weren't true, I would not believe someone could conjure up such notions.
As I have said before: if the law does not currently provide for the continued health of our creeks and springs, then it should be altered to do so.
Rather than root for the demise of natural beauty in the name of some antiquated legal argument, why don't you use your mind in the service of the environment that sustains us all.
They are not your creeks and springs. Such water belongs to the State of Texas. On the other hand, the groundwater belongs to the property owners. This is not an antiquated legal argument by any means. The Texas Supreme Court confirmed as such as recently as February 24, 2012 - not even a week ago. Things like creeks and streams come and go. You will have difficulty getting any legislation to recognize the entitlement mentality you have towards creeks and streams. If you are successful in getting legislation to empower you to take away the groundwater from the property owners, you will have to pay them. You aren't prepared to pay the price that you expect everyone else to bear for your local water amenity.
Patrick Rose started Corridor Title Co. in San Marcos in 2010. To see a photo and read about him, go to www.corridortitleco.com and
then click on "Our Staff." Rose's bio ("President") is the last one in the list.
To: Where Is He Now?
I don't know what your comment has to do with the subject at hand but it is good to hear the Patrick landed on his feet and I wish him the best. Thanks for the link.
If anyone cares, another dethroned Democrat, former County Judge, Liz Sumter is now the unpaid Vice President of the Board of the infamous WPOA. She was elected in January. I wish her luck as well.
Ok, so we had a bad week. But that was just one battle and we'll get even in November, May for Conley. My question is who do we need to beat the most?
Jason Issac
Will Conley
Jimmy Skipton
Mark Key
I vote for Conley, because Skipton and Key are nothing without his backing.
Yes! I too, am going to vote for Will Conley and Jason Issac! I'm glad to see that "Loyal Dem" finally saw the light;)
PS. You libs lost more than one battle in the last weeks, you may have lost the war.
Yeah, I vote to get rid of Conley as well.
He gave millions of taxpayer dollars to WVWA and let them retain title to land that the taxpayers paid for.
When convenient, he buddies up with these morons like at this recent TWDB hearing. WVWA wants to cut off water to property owners in a 9 county area so that the idol they worship can keep gifting them millions at taxpayer expense - (and at the expense of property owners in a 9 county area). Conley and WVWA were told "no".
I wonder if any taxpayer dollars were used to pay for the protest that WVWA filed. A closer analysis of invoices submitted to and paid by the county to WVWA for the last year might be revealing.
WVWA's economic well-being relies upon contributions from gullible patrons. "Make sacrifices lest the volcano god erupt" "Pay us so our witchdoctor (David Baker) can dance and make the water god happy"
WVWA will lose and lose again because they have no right to demand that surface water be flowing on county property and certainly no right to demand that other property owners give up their groundwater for WVWA's dubious business model.
Contrary to the wishes of a few Wimberley "nonprofit" organizations, the groundwater rights of all the rest of the property owners in GMA 9 don't change based upon the composition of the HTGCD board or the newest "make money at county taxpayer expense" hatched out in Wimberley with support from Conley.
Get a different game plan. The Wimberley cedar choppers shut down the saw mill in the late 1800s because there wasn't enough flow in Cypress Creek then. Are you going to blame that on a groundwater district created a century later? The Wimberley cedar choppers adapted or moved. You will too.
Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District meeting:
Date: Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Time: 6:30 PM
Place: Wimberley Community Center
Get an update on:
• the Texas Supreme Court ruling regarding groundwater rights and ownership
• the lawsuit filed by WVWA against HTGCD
• decisions from GMA 9 and the Texas Water Development board re drawdown
• permit applications
Also at the March 7th HTGCD meeting:
listen to WVWA defend watering grass at Blue Hole!
WEDNESDAY, WEDNESDAY, WEDNESDAY!!!!
***CORRECTION ON MEETING TIME***
Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District meeting:
Date: Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Time: *** 6:00 PM ***
Place: Wimberley Community Center
Get an update on:
• the Texas Supreme Court ruling regarding groundwater rights and ownership
• the lawsuit filed by WVWA against HTGCD
• decisions from GMA 9 and the Texas Water Development board re drawdown
• permit applications
If David Baker, WVWA, Jim McMeans and crew even show up, I'd say they have more guts than good sense. They had their sustainable butts handed to the last couple of weeks and should probably stay home and lick their wounds.
It would however, be fun to hear C.A.R.D. and WVWA explain why they are in favor of the City of Wimberley pumping 70,000 gallons of ground water onto St. Augustine grass at Blue Hole and then allowing them a permit to do it with impunity. HYPOCRITES!
It was 700 THOUSAND gallons; not 70 thousand.
AND YES!!!!!
Jim McMeans, Jack Holland, Susan Cook, and the entire WVWA were asked if they opposed the waste. Oddly, not one of them had any comment. I really wish it was like that every meeting!
to Anon 6:01 PM:
It was CARD, not WVWA, that Jimmy
Skipton asked whether they had a
comment, Jon Cobb.
What became of Skipton's lawsuit against the county?
to Anon 8:06 AM--
I believe Skipton withdrew his suit.
Ask him at next HTGCD meeting.
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