Monday, July 10, 2000
Lack of water gives Texans
something to fight for
Securing water supply pits
communities against others
By Anna M. Tinsley
Reporter-News Austin Bureau
AUSTIN — “Whiskey’s for drinking.
Water’s for fighting about.”
Mark Twain didn’t live to see this
drought-stricken Texas.
And he couldn’t have foreseen the state’s
population today and projections that it will double by 2050.
The Texas Water Development Board believes
the population projections could lead to a 35 percent water shortage
statewide.
That’s if Texas officials don’t
take steps to save water and develop new supplies, board records
show.
Texas communities are planning for future
water needs as part of Senate
Bill 1, a water conservation plan lawmakers
passed in 1997.
Securing water supplies has at times pitted
neighbor against neighbor and community against community.
And some fear such conflicts will become
commonplace if droughts continue drying Texas’ water supplies.
“But hopefully we’ll see counties
and water districts coming together to manage their water supplies
instead of fighting each other,’’ said state Sen. J.E.
“Buster’’ Brown, R-Lake Jackson and chairman of
the Senate Natural Resources Committee. “If communities don’t
pull together, we’re not going to have enough water to provide
for the state.’’
State water officials hope there will be
fewer water wars because SB 1 requires the water development board
to resolve inter-regional conflicts, spokeswoman Janice Cartwright
said.
“We can only approve plans without
conflicts,’’ she said. “I would be surprised if
there weren’t conflicts if two regions are counting on the
same water. But they’ll have to work out an agreement before
a plan can be approved.’’
Some recent or ongoing water fights in Texas
include:
Dueling cities
In 1996, Austin and Corpus Christi squared
off over a water plan developed four years earlier to transfer
to Corpus Christi as much as 35,000 acre-feet of lower Colorado
River water from the Garwood Irrigation Co., a private company
that supplies water to farmers in Colorado and Wharton counties.
Corpus Christi officials wanted to make
sure enough water was available to carry the Coastal Bend through
at least 2050.
City of Austin officials, who lay claim
to the lower Colorado River, were fearful that their own water
supply would be diminished. They vowed to fight the plan.
“We don’t begrudge Corpus Christi’s
desire to augment their water resources, but not at our expense,’’
former Austin mayor Bruce Todd said at the time.
Austin officials ultimately dropped their
opposition because the Lower Colorado River Authority bought the
remaining 133,000 acre-feet of water rights available from Garwood.
More than two years later, after several
hearings on the issue, Texas Natural Resource Conservation commissioners
gave the plan unanimous approval.
Dueling cities II
San Antonio-area water planners raised the
ire of Austin officials earlier this year when they proposed pumping
water from the Colorado River south to their city.
One proposal was to build a dam and a reservoir
on the lower Colorado River and then pump water about 100 miles
to San Antonio.
The planners are trying to find water sources
to supplement the Edwards Aquifer, which can be hard to access
during dire droughts but which San Antonio depends upon for all
its water.
But the Lower Colorado Regional Water Planning
Group, which includes Austin, didn’t take too kindly to the
proposal.
The Lower Colorado group has plowed ahead,
and made several purchases of water rights, to ensure they could
meet future water needs in Central Texas.
But San Antonio’s South Central Regional
Water Planning Group needs water. Leaders are still reviewing
about 60 options.
Fourteen of those include pumping water
from the Colorado, and they all face strong opposition.
Protecting water sources
The city of Brady has kept the water rights
to Brady Lake for nearly 40 years, even though residents now get
their water from the Hickory Aquifer.
Recently, water authorities and other cities
have been eyeing water at the lake, four miles outside of Brady.
The city has shied away from using the lake
because dry weather dropped water levels.
But Brady officials know that if they don’t
use the lake water, then they might lose their rights to use that
water.
Under Senate Bill 1, the state can reallocate
water rights that haven’t been used.
Now the city is looking to build a multi-million
dollar water treatment facility to protect the city’s water
resources.
“The City of Brady decided we’d
better get our act together and do something for the future,’’
City Manager Gary Broz has said.
Pumping the well dry
Two East Texas landowners in Rohr Spring
sued Ozarka Natural Spring Water Co., claiming the bottled-water
company would drain their water supplies.
The two families, the Siprianos and the
Fains, discovered their wells were drained after Ozarka began
pumping water from the aquifer beneath their land in East Texas.
The Sipriano well, more than 100 years old,
flowed continuously until Ozarka began production in February
1996.
A few days after Ozarka began its pumping
operation, the well was dry.
The Fain well was so seriously drained that
the family’s small farming operation was damaged, the families’
attorney, Dick Swift, has said.
The case made it to the Texas Supreme Court,
the state’s highest civil court, where justices reviewed
the state’s “rule of capture’’ law.
Under Texas law, ground water is treated
differently than water in lakes, rivers or streams.
The state controls “surface water’’
and people must obtain permits for the right to use that water.
But underground water falls under the “rule
of capture’’ and landowners can pump as much as they
can use without regard for the effects on neighbors.
Landowners asked justices to change the
state’s long-standing rule of capture and require reasonable
use of the water.
“We’re talking about one of life’s
most precious natural resources,’’ said Dale Groom,
chairman of Rohr Springs Citizens, which fought Ozarka. “Water
is precious to life.’’
The court ruled in favor of Ozarka, which
said the court wasn’t the proper entity to regulate groundwater.
That should be up to the Texas Legislature,
the judges said.
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