Texas Lawmakers Discuss Controversial Groundwater Bill
The House Natural Resources Committee is taking testimony today on a controversial groundwater bill passed last week by the Senate.
The bill, sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, and in the House by Rep. Allan Ritter, R-Nederland, would establish that landowners in the state have a "vested ownership interest" in the water below their land, while still being subject to the state's new groundwater planning process designed to preserve Texas aquifers.
"Water is a finite resource. It is the most precious resource that this state is charged with conserving," said Ritter, the committee chairman, as ...
Comments (4)
Ana Manciaz via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Interesting......
Karen Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Hmmm, there has got to be something more to this bill--what is the catch?
Ross Smith via Texas Tribune on Facebook
This would essentially write the ''right of capture'' doctrine into state law. It says that landowners can keep as much water as they can pump from under their land. The problem is that water (like oil) doesn't end at your property line. The water you pump is flowing in from under your neighbor's land, lowering the water level in their well and taking property they have a vested right in (aka theft). So far, the TX Supreme Court's answer to this has been 'tough luck'. (See the Ozarka case a few years back for details.) I predict this will kick off a lot of litigation - it's the first shot in the next round of water wars across Texas.
Kim Feil
This bill protects T Boone Pickens to rape all the water out of all the land he owns. He realized a decade ago that water will be more precious than oil or gas. With the new growth in hydrofaracking for oil and gas, this causes the demand of water to outpace traditional supply. They don't call it HYDRO fracking for nothing. Since there is urban drilling, once we sell all our municipal water to the drillers, T Boone will be right there ready to sell his water rights to Dallas. First come, first served in the water drilling world. If we take the water beneath our neighbors because we have a bigger or deeper hole nearby, so fracking what? I hope you can still take care of your farm...if not "oh well".
We need to regulate how much one person can take and it needs to be only for their own personal use. No one should ever make money off of a finite, God given resource as important as water.
Certainly, no one should be able to pollute our water or deplete it in the name of making money extracting fossil fuels when sustainable technologies should be developed. Old school fossil fuels does make a few rich and the rest of us fools.