Tuesday, July 11, 2000
Big Country benefits from underground
source
Knox, Haskell counties
band together to protect limited water resource
By Ken Ellsworth
Reporter-News Staff Writer
Unlike most Big Country counties, Knox and
Haskell counties have the enviable position of sitting atop a
huge underground water supply — the Seymour Aquifer.
“We’re very fortunate,” Knox
County Judge David Perdue said. “I guess in some places you
could get out there with a shovel and find water. We’ve got
something no one else in the area has.”
Residents are grateful for their plentiful
supply, but realize that their water resources are limited and
need to be protected. To that end, residents of the two counties
voted last year to create the Haskell-Knox County Underground
Water District, hoping to preserve their watery assets.
Underground water districts have the authority
to implement regulations that restrict and conserve increasingly
precious water supplies in aquifers.
And conserving those supplies will become
increasingly important in the future, said Mike McGuire of Haskell,
who is president of the district’s board.
“The next wars will be fought over
water,” he predicted.
He was speaking figuratively, but making
the strong point that competition for water will increase in Texas
as the result of a growing population and demand.
“And the idea that we’ve got more
water than we need is not necessarily correct,” McGuire said
of the Seymour Aquifer. “The aquifer has fallen 2.6 feet
in the last 13 months. Because of the drought, it is not being
replenished. So this is a situation where it is prudent that we
take care of our water.”
Protecting aquifers
The Texas Legislature enacted the authority
to create underground water districts years ago. So far, about
50 such water districts have been created. Many of those are in
the Panhandle on land over the Ogallala Aquifer.
Baylor County, which sits over the rest
of the Seymour Aquifer, may join the Haskell-Knox group. If it
does, another portion of the aquifer would acquire legal protection.
Baylor County voters must approve joining the district.
Underground water districts may levy property
taxes. The tax rate of the Haskell-Knox district is 3 cents per
$100 valuation. If Baylor County joins, it may make operating
the district more efficient by providing a single administrative
office that could cover three counties instead of just two. That
could possibly permit a lower tax rate, McGuire said.
Bill Thomas of Haskell sits on the Haskell-Knox
district’s 10-person board of directors. County commissioners
appoint the board members, five per county, who serve staggered
two- and four-year terms.
“What we can do is protect the aquifer
for our own use, limit its use to our area,” Thomas said.
So far, the water district is just getting
started. Eventually, it will have an office and a full-time manager
who will issue permits, collect fees, and monitor drillers and
wells, he said.
“Underground water districts are just
a management tool to see that everyone is treated fairly,”
said state Rep. David Counts of Knox City.
Water districts have the authority to restrict
the spacing of wells, regulate the distance from another landowner’s
property that wells can be drilled, and limit quantity of water
that can be pumped. They can also regulate the export and sale
of water for use in other areas, as Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens
has proposed doing in Roberts County in the Panhandle.
Roberts County sits over a portion of the
huge Ogallala Aquifer, but the county is not a member of a water
district and cannot regulate water usage. Anyone who owns the
land or rights to the water under it is free to sink a well and
sell unrestricted amounts of water to whomever they wish, according
to Texas’ traditional common-law rule of capture.
“What that means, if the water is under
your ground you can pull all that you want out, even if it hurts
your neighbors,” Counts said.
Change on the horizon
That is exactly what the Texas Supreme Court
ruled last year, when it said that despite depleting the underground
water supplies of its neighbors, the rule of capture gave the
Ozarka Natural Spring Water Co. every legal right to pump and
sell as much water as it desires. The court also suggested that
any changes in the rule of capture should be legislated rather
than come from the courts.
Counts said legislators “all over Texas
are talking about changes,” but no formal legislation has
been proposed.
Calling water “the oil of the future,”
Pickens has been buying the underground water rights to hundreds
of thousands of acres in Roberts County with long-range plans
to pipe and sell the water to faraway municipalities.
“That’s alarming to me,”
Counts said. “Now, don’t misunderstand me. What he’s
doing is perfectly legal. But what he’s doing could affect
the whole aquifer.”
And, Counts added, if Roberts County created
a water district, Pickens still could not be stopped.
“He’d be grandfathered in,”
he said, “with the perfect right to take as much water as
he wanted.”
Counts said the ability to mitigate the
effects of the rule of capture is one of the reasons water districts
such as Haskell-Knox are so important.
If the competition for water becomes so
great that its monetary value substantially increases, agricultural
users could find it more profitable to sell their water than use
it to grow crops and water livestock. That would mean the demise
of many farmers and ranchers, he said.
“Then you would lose your community
of interest — the tractor dealers, the gins, the feed stores,”
Counts said. Eventually, he added, entire communities could die.
Water districts, by limiting water exports,
sales and their own usage, can help ensure the survival of those
communities, he said.
Contact regional writer Ken Ellsworth
at 676-6777 or (800) 588-6397 or ellsworthk@abinews.com.
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