Supreme Court Will Hear Texas-Oklahoma Water Case
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a major cross-border water case that pits Tarrant County against the state of Oklahoma, according to a court order published Friday.
Fast-growing North Texas would like to buy water from Oklahoma reservoirs, but the Sooner state isn’t selling. So Tarrant County sued six years ago.
The court’s decision to take up the case, Tarrant Regional Water District v. Herrmann, Rudolf J. et al, will come as a welcome news to North Texas officials, who had lost in the lower courts. Last January, the water district requested that the Supreme Court hear ...
Comments (1)
Jim Vance
Equitable share of what quality for water obtained at which specific source point of "delivery" in the contract? That seems to be the real question at issue, and the fact that quality degrades by the time it reaches the North Texas treatment plants is relevant only if that represents the defined point of delivery. If the Supreme Court decides that the point of delivery is where the water is taken and begins its journey south, then North Texas will simply be forced to recognize that water source requires more advanced treatment processing and pony up the extra costs to do so or find other alternatives -- that might not be a bad thing, as the different economic structure will give enhanced conservation measures a far better return on public investment and reduce the amounts of potable water presently now used inefficiently.