Texas House approves bill that would limit water exports from East Texas — for now

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LUFKIN — A bill to pause a proposed water extraction from East Texas won preliminary approval in the Texas House Monday.

The legislation by state Rep. Cody Harris, R-Palestine, directs the agency that manages the state’s water supply to study how much water is available to use under three counties — Anderson, Cherokee and Henderson. It also prohibits any new permits to extract water, or change existing applications, in the region. The bill was introduced during the special session called by Gov. Greg Abbott after plans by a Dallas-area businessman to export millions of gallons of water from the region became public, stirring controversy.

“This is really a simple bill that only affects my district and instructs the Texas Water Development Board to do a study of the aquifer inside the Neches and Trinity valleys Groundwater Conservation District for a period of two years,” Harris said.

House Bill 27 appears to run counter to the state’s longstanding law, known as rule of capture, that allows private land owners to generally use as much water as they can pump from their property. Land owners must seek permission from groundwater districts, tasked with conserving state aquifers, before drilling new wells.

Texas is facing a growing water crisis. The water board estimates that the state would not have enough water to meet its needs if there were a prolonged drought of record, like the one in the 1950s. Lawmakers during the regular session sought solutions. Many eyes have turned East, the state’s most lush and water-rich region.

Businessman Kyle Bass and his company, Conservation Equity Management, have applied for a permit to drill more than 40 high-capacity water wells in Anderson and Henderson counties. He also has plans to install wells in Houston County, which has no groundwater conservation district to ask for permission.

Bass has stated his goal for now is just to study the aquifer and determine if it could handle a large-scale extraction. If it can, he would pull more than 33,000 acre feet —equivalent to 15.9 million gallons — of water from the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer per year.

Residents don’t trust that Bass only seeks to study the aquifer or that the result of his study will change his plans for extraction. They met en masse on multiple occasions in East Texas to express their worries. Texas lawmakers met in an 11-hour committee hearing in July to deliberate the proposal.

Harris worries about what will happen to the region if these types of mass extraction projects are permitted to move forward, he told The Texas Tribune in an interview following a committee hearing on the matter. The proposed study would give the state a baseline to understand the potential impacts.

Rep. Erin Zwiener, D-Driftwood, on Monday asked if the bill could be amended to require a study of all the state’s aquifers. Lawmakers could not do that and remain within the confines of what was permitted during the special session, Harris said.

“That’s a shame, good legislation,” Zwiener said.

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