txags92 said:

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SunrayAg said:

---

About 20 years ago, T Boone Pickens bought up most of the water rights from the rough country in the eastern Panhandle, and was prepared to spend a billion dollars on a pipeline to pipe it to the San Antonio area. It has been well known for a long time that population growth in the Edwards Aquifer area is far outpacing recharge, even when not in a horrible drought like this year.

The panhandle water district made a deal with T Boone's group to keep the water up here... But you are not going to invest a billion in a pipeline unless you are making 2 billion on the water.

I guess what I'm saying is according to all the water guru's I know, farmers and ranchers in the Edwards aquifer area of Texas are F-ed. And as the population in the area grows they are just going to get more F-ed.

---

T Boone didn't buy any water rights. Water rights are not a thing for groundwater in Texas unless controlled by a groundwater conservation district. He pre-emptively started a groundwater conservation district on his ranch to keep anybody from preventing him from exporting the water from his wells. He had his ranch employees who lived on the ranch become the board of directors for the conservation district and vote to allow export of the water. He was banking on Rick Perry's super utility corridors (I forget what the official name was) to give him easy right of way to one of the major metro areas to sell the water. The cost of the pipeline would have been peanuts compared to what he could have sold it for.

---

You are really splitting hairs here. While there are differences between subsurface water and surface water in the eyes of the state, the fact of the matter is that when you own land - you own the water beneath that land and by definition have rights to all of the water you can pump from under your land, with a handful of exceptions granted through groundwater conservation districts. Or "water rights".

So saying that somebody owns water rights on their land when talking about subsurface water is not incorrect. SAWS gets a fair amount of their water through private sales from landowners that own the water under their land and since they own the water and the rights to use it as they see fit, exercise their rights with their water (or, their water rights) and make a healthy amount of money selling it for SAWS to treat and distribute.

Sometimes common vernacular is just as good as legalese and the "I must prove you wrong through some massive bending and twisting of words". Especially on a fuggin message board.

schmellba99 said:

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txags92 said:

---

SunrayAg said:

---

About 20 years ago, T Boone Pickens bought up most of the water rights from the rough country in the eastern Panhandle, and was prepared to spend a billion dollars on a pipeline to pipe it to the San Antonio area. It has been well known for a long time that population growth in the Edwards Aquifer area is far outpacing recharge, even when not in a horrible drought like this year.

The panhandle water district made a deal with T Boone's group to keep the water up here... But you are not going to invest a billion in a pipeline unless you are making 2 billion on the water.

I guess what I'm saying is according to all the water guru's I know, farmers and ranchers in the Edwards aquifer area of Texas are F-ed. And as the population in the area grows they are just going to get more F-ed.

---

T Boone didn't buy any water rights. Water rights are not a thing for groundwater in Texas unless controlled by a groundwater conservation district. He pre-emptively started a groundwater conservation district on his ranch to keep anybody from preventing him from exporting the water from his wells. He had his ranch employees who lived on the ranch become the board of directors for the conservation district and vote to allow export of the water. He was banking on Rick Perry's super utility corridors (I forget what the official name was) to give him easy right of way to one of the major metro areas to sell the water. The cost of the pipeline would have been peanuts compared to what he could have sold it for.

---

You are really splitting hairs here. While there are differences between subsurface water and surface water in the eyes of the state, the fact of the matter is that when you own land - you own the water beneath that land and by definition have rights to all of the water you can pump from under your land, with a handful of exceptions granted through groundwater conservation districts. Or "water rights".

So saying that somebody owns water rights on their land when talking about subsurface water is not incorrect. SAWS gets a fair amount of their water through private sales from landowners that own the water under their land and since they own the water and the rights to use it as they see fit, exercise their rights with their water (or, their water rights) and make a healthy amount of money selling it for SAWS to treat and distribute.

Sometimes common vernacular is just as good as legalese and the "I must prove you wrong through some massive bending and twisting of words". Especially on a fuggin message board.

---

The only part of what you said that I disagree with, and yes I know that it is splitting hairs, is that there is no concept in Texas law except as granted to GWCDs to limit your right to only "the water under your land". Except where limited by a GWCD, you have a right to all the water you can draw to your well, even if it is coming from your neighbor's land. And that is the point of what I was trying to convey regarding TBoone. He wasn't buying a right to a specific quantity, which is what the term "water right" usually means.

Most people don't realize how unlimited the right to pump groundwater is in most of Texas. Water rights usually have a defined quantity and a seniority designation, such that when water is scarce, the most Junior users have to give up their rights first to make sure that those rights with the most seniority get theirs first. EAA enforces that as the GWCD for a big part of central Texas, but their reach only goes so far. Most of the areas north and west of their reach have very weak GWCDs or no GWCD because the people there don't want anybody telling them how much or how little they can pump. And those are the same people now complaining about their wells running dry, while the deeper wells on their neighbors land are used to pump water to send to Austin and San Antonio.

Texas has a plethora of water.
Just not inexpensive water that's affordable for irrigation & consumption.

More than adequate saline ground water and Gulf of Mexico to desalinate. It has the added cost of power to desalinate & transport.

As mentioned there are multiple sites available for surface storage lakes but the issue hasn't become critical enough to overcome political resistance.

As an example, Shaw's Bend reservoir near Columbus on the Colorado River.
First proposed 50 years ago.
It could greatly alleviate San Antonio's shortages.

LCRA recently built a large surface storage reservoir near Wharton. They bought private land and quickly constructed it.

Rainwater harvesting only has traction in the Austin-San Antonio area. After the BCS water shortages this summer it should have taken off for irrigation purposes but it didn't.

txags92 said:

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Ban live grass golf courses and grass lawns would be my first choice. The lack of golf courses should run off at some of the folks and discourage others who don't want to play on astroturf.

---

**** that, keep them around for another 20 years and make them use gray water. It's a bit harder on maintenance but beats concrete jungles and even more subdivisions. Munis in SA are on gray water and several have close in the past only to be developed with more clear cutting and planting of ****ty St Augustine grass yards which owners don't manage nearly as well as smart golf course staff.

Tony Franklins Other Shoe said:

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txags92 said:

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Ban live grass golf courses and grass lawns would be my first choice. The lack of golf courses should run off at some of the folks and discourage others who don't want to play on astroturf.

---

**** that, keep them around for another 20 years and make them use gray water. It's a bit harder on maintenance but beats concrete jungles and even more subdivisions. Munis in SA are on gray water and several have close in the past only to be developed with more clear cutting and planting of ****ty St Augustine grass yards which owners don't manage nearly as well as smart golf course staff.

---

My only problem with using gray water for that is that it takes it out of the system where it could have otherwise been reused. So water from a sewer treatment plant in New Braunfels that would have otherwise gone back into the river and could infiltrate into GW downstream or be reused for ag or potable use further downstream is instead going onto grass and will evapotranspirate and fall as rain in east Texas where they have plenty of water.

ETA: And the difference between that and using gray water for other uses (like flushing toilets, recharging aquifers, etc. is that those uses end up with the water available for reuse again, while using it for irrigation of grass (at a house or a golf course) consumes most of the water without putting any back in the system.

Tony Franklins Other Shoe said:

---

txags92 said:

---

Ban live grass golf courses and grass lawns would be my first choice. The lack of golf courses should run off at some of the folks and discourage others who don't want to play on astroturf.

---

**** that, keep them around for another 20 years and make them use gray water. It's a bit harder on maintenance but beats concrete jungles and even more subdivisions. Munis in SA are on gray water and several have close in the past only to be developed with more clear cutting and planting of ****ty St Augustine grass yards which owners don't manage nearly as well as smart golf course staff.

---

Most courses, municipal landscaping, TXDOT landscaping, etc. use reuse water. Nobody is treating water to potable standards to use it as irrigation in large quantities, which golf courses would classify as.

txags92 said:

---

schmellba99 said:

---

txags92 said:

---

SunrayAg said:

---

About 20 years ago, T Boone Pickens bought up most of the water rights from the rough country in the eastern Panhandle, and was prepared to spend a billion dollars on a pipeline to pipe it to the San Antonio area. It has been well known for a long time that population growth in the Edwards Aquifer area is far outpacing recharge, even when not in a horrible drought like this year.

The panhandle water district made a deal with T Boone's group to keep the water up here... But you are not going to invest a billion in a pipeline unless you are making 2 billion on the water.

I guess what I'm saying is according to all the water guru's I know, farmers and ranchers in the Edwards aquifer area of Texas are F-ed. And as the population in the area grows they are just going to get more F-ed.

---

T Boone didn't buy any water rights. Water rights are not a thing for groundwater in Texas unless controlled by a groundwater conservation district. He pre-emptively started a groundwater conservation district on his ranch to keep anybody from preventing him from exporting the water from his wells. He had his ranch employees who lived on the ranch become the board of directors for the conservation district and vote to allow export of the water. He was banking on Rick Perry's super utility corridors (I forget what the official name was) to give him easy right of way to one of the major metro areas to sell the water. The cost of the pipeline would have been peanuts compared to what he could have sold it for.

---

You are really splitting hairs here. While there are differences between subsurface water and surface water in the eyes of the state, the fact of the matter is that when you own land - you own the water beneath that land and by definition have rights to all of the water you can pump from under your land, with a handful of exceptions granted through groundwater conservation districts. Or "water rights".

So saying that somebody owns water rights on their land when talking about subsurface water is not incorrect. SAWS gets a fair amount of their water through private sales from landowners that own the water under their land and since they own the water and the rights to use it as they see fit, exercise their rights with their water (or, their water rights) and make a healthy amount of money selling it for SAWS to treat and distribute.

Sometimes common vernacular is just as good as legalese and the "I must prove you wrong through some massive bending and twisting of words". Especially on a fuggin message board.

---

The only part of what you said that I disagree with, and yes I know that it is splitting hairs, is that there is no concept in Texas law except as granted to GWCDs to limit your right to only "the water under your land". Except where limited by a GWCD, you have a right to all the water you can draw to your well, even if it is coming from your neighbor's land. And that is the point of what I was trying to convey regarding TBoone. He wasn't buying a right to a specific quantity, which is what the term "water right" usually means.

Most people don't realize how unlimited the right to pump groundwater is in most of Texas. Water rights usually have a defined quantity and a seniority designation, such that when water is scarce, the most Junior users have to give up their rights first to make sure that those rights with the most seniority get theirs first. EAA enforces that as the GWCD for a big part of central Texas, but their reach only goes so far. Most of the areas north and west of their reach have very weak GWCDs or no GWCD because the people there don't want anybody telling them how much or how little they can pump. And those are the same people now complaining about their wells running dry, while the deeper wells on their neighbors land are used to pump water to send to Austin and San Antonio.

---

That is true to a degree, but it is not a limitless right. If you are causing harm to your neighbor with your pumping, they can claim damages and even without a GWCD, you can be limited to what you are allowed to pump. If you cause subsidence to your neighbor, you can be sued for damages. There are other scenarios as well that provide limitations on what you can pump out of the ground.

Surface water rights have a seniority designation. The State is always the most senior and pretty much everybody else has some level of junior surface water rights beyond that. Surface water has designations on quantities because the waters are owned by the state and are quantifiable; subsurface rights aren't owned by the state and cannot be quantified - which is why the laws regarding them are much more lax. But groundwater conservation districts exist for a reason, and that is because there has to be some limitations on subsurface rights or you end up with scenarios where subsidence, dry wells, etc. are contested hotly between neighbors.

Back in the late 50's pop had an irrigation well drilled down into the Carrizo and it pumped a legitimate 300 gallons per minute and would never pump down. The neighbor next to us had a conniption fit and said Pop was going to pump all of the water out of the ground and that his wells were going to go dry. Five years later the man puts in a swimming pool and asks pop if he could run his irrigation pipe over to fill his pool because it was taking too long by water hose. Pop agreed and it took us longer to run the pipe over than it did to fill the pool up....

Animal Eight 84 said:

---

Texas has a plethora of water.
Just not inexpensive water that's affordable for irrigation & consumption.

More than adequate saline ground water and Gulf of Mexico to desalinate. It has the added cost of power to desalinate & transport.

As mentioned there are multiple sites available for surface storage lakes but the issue hasn't become critical enough to overcome political resistance.

As an example, Shaw's Bend reservoir near Columbus on the Colorado River.
First proposed 50 years ago.
It could greatly alleviate San Antonio's shortages.

LCRA recently built a large surface storage reservoir near Wharton. They bought private land and quickly constructed it.

Rainwater harvesting only has traction in the Austin-San Antonio area. After the BCS water shortages this summer it should have taken off for irrigation purposes but it didn't.

---

Reservoirs are very difficult for a number of reasons - geography is a main driver, especially as you get closer to the coast and you lose elevation changes that would lend to natural boundaries on the reservoir. You also have a lot of issues with the fact that reservoirs generally cover a large land area, and that proposed area is either owned by a whole lot of people that have to agree to sell or it is owned by a single entity that has to agree to sell - either way, it's not easy and usually takes a long and very expensive route through the courts to completion.

Desal is a very viable alternative, but it is not without its own shortfalls. Biggest one is brine discharge and the environmental aspects that surround it. You can't just dump brine into a river or lake because it will usually have a significant effect on water body salinity, wildlife habitat, etc. You might get lucky and find an industrial or commercial use for it, but not likely. So you have to account for the brine and get the EPA, TCEQ, ACE and probably a few other .gov agencies to all agree and sign off on what the disposal procedure will be.

The reservoir in Lane City has been an abject failure. It has never held the volume of water it was calculated to hold due to subsurface issues in the soil and with the design (I was on that project). LCRA has never really wanted to put the effort into fixing it either; it was built as an appeasement to local farmers and honestly LCRA I don't think ever had any real intention of it being close to what they billed it to be. And it wasn't cheap, between the land acquisition and the overall design and construction cost. It could have been significantly cheaper but that's another story.

Rainwater harvesting is never likely to really take off because of the volumes required to do something other than drip irrigate a small garden. YOu have to have significant cistern storage, which requires the land/space to build it. Otherwise it's generally limited to a few 55 gallon drums. Maybe that will change at some point, but think about the average neighborhood with 1/4 acre lots and houses that cover most of the lot - you don't have the ability to install any real storage system to make rainwater harvesting truly viable.

schmellba99 said:

---

txags92 said:

---

schmellba99 said:

---

txags92 said:

---

SunrayAg said:

---

About 20 years ago, T Boone Pickens bought up most of the water rights from the rough country in the eastern Panhandle, and was prepared to spend a billion dollars on a pipeline to pipe it to the San Antonio area. It has been well known for a long time that population growth in the Edwards Aquifer area is far outpacing recharge, even when not in a horrible drought like this year.

The panhandle water district made a deal with T Boone's group to keep the water up here... But you are not going to invest a billion in a pipeline unless you are making 2 billion on the water.

I guess what I'm saying is according to all the water guru's I know, farmers and ranchers in the Edwards aquifer area of Texas are F-ed. And as the population in the area grows they are just going to get more F-ed.

---

T Boone didn't buy any water rights. Water rights are not a thing for groundwater in Texas unless controlled by a groundwater conservation district. He pre-emptively started a groundwater conservation district on his ranch to keep anybody from preventing him from exporting the water from his wells. He had his ranch employees who lived on the ranch become the board of directors for the conservation district and vote to allow export of the water. He was banking on Rick Perry's super utility corridors (I forget what the official name was) to give him easy right of way to one of the major metro areas to sell the water. The cost of the pipeline would have been peanuts compared to what he could have sold it for.

---

You are really splitting hairs here. While there are differences between subsurface water and surface water in the eyes of the state, the fact of the matter is that when you own land - you own the water beneath that land and by definition have rights to all of the water you can pump from under your land, with a handful of exceptions granted through groundwater conservation districts. Or "water rights".

So saying that somebody owns water rights on their land when talking about subsurface water is not incorrect. SAWS gets a fair amount of their water through private sales from landowners that own the water under their land and since they own the water and the rights to use it as they see fit, exercise their rights with their water (or, their water rights) and make a healthy amount of money selling it for SAWS to treat and distribute.

Sometimes common vernacular is just as good as legalese and the "I must prove you wrong through some massive bending and twisting of words". Especially on a fuggin message board.

---

The only part of what you said that I disagree with, and yes I know that it is splitting hairs, is that there is no concept in Texas law except as granted to GWCDs to limit your right to only "the water under your land". Except where limited by a GWCD, you have a right to all the water you can draw to your well, even if it is coming from your neighbor's land. And that is the point of what I was trying to convey regarding TBoone. He wasn't buying a right to a specific quantity, which is what the term "water right" usually means.

Most people don't realize how unlimited the right to pump groundwater is in most of Texas. Water rights usually have a defined quantity and a seniority designation, such that when water is scarce, the most Junior users have to give up their rights first to make sure that those rights with the most seniority get theirs first. EAA enforces that as the GWCD for a big part of central Texas, but their reach only goes so far. Most of the areas north and west of their reach have very weak GWCDs or no GWCD because the people there don't want anybody telling them how much or how little they can pump. And those are the same people now complaining about their wells running dry, while the deeper wells on their neighbors land are used to pump water to send to Austin and San Antonio.

---

That is true to a degree, but it is not a limitless right. If you are causing harm to your neighbor with your pumping, they can claim damages and even without a GWCD, you can be limited to what you are allowed to pump. If you cause subsidence to your neighbor, you can be sued for damages. There are other scenarios as well that provide limitations on what you can pump out of the ground.

Surface water rights have a seniority designation. The State is always the most senior and pretty much everybody else has some level of junior surface water rights beyond that. Surface water has designations on quantities because the waters are owned by the state and are quantifiable; subsurface rights aren't owned by the state and cannot be quantified - which is why the laws regarding them are much more lax. But groundwater conservation districts exist for a reason, and that is because there has to be some limitations on subsurface rights or you end up with scenarios where subsidence, dry wells, etc. are contested hotly between neighbors.

---

What you posted in bold is absolutely not correct based on Texas water law and the existing case law regarding "taking water", it is true only for causing actual surface damage. Unless you are found to have pumped water to deliberately run somebody else's well dry or taken their water with malicious intent, you cannot be sued for running their well dry. The exceptions to the rule of capture in Texas are enumerated on the Texas Water website from TAMU (Texas Water Law):

"Exceptions to Absolute Owner Rule. There are five situations in which a Texas landowner can take legal action for interference with his groundwater rights:
* If an adjoining neighbor trespasses on the land to remove water either by drilling a well directly on the landowner's property or by drilling a "slant" well on adjoining property so that it crosses the subterranean property line, the injured landowner can sue for trespass.
* There is malicious or wanton conduct in pumping water for the sole purpose of injuring an adjoining landowner.
* Landowners waste artesian well water by allowing it to run off their land or to percolate back into the water table.
* There is contamination of water in a landowner's well. No one is allowed to unlawfully pollute groundwater.
* Land subsidence and surface injury result from negligent overpumping from adjoining lands."

It was the Sipriano vs. Great Spring Waters of America case (finally adjudicated in 1999) that was part of the driving force behind including Groundwater Conservation Districts in the state and regional water planning created by Senate Bill 1 in 1997. The legislature wanted to give local democratic options to managing groundwater that went beyond the rule of capture that was the statewide precedent reaffirmed by Sipriano.

txags92 said:

---

schmellba99 said:

---

txags92 said:

---

schmellba99 said:

---

txags92 said:

---

SunrayAg said:

---

About 20 years ago, T Boone Pickens bought up most of the water rights from the rough country in the eastern Panhandle, and was prepared to spend a billion dollars on a pipeline to pipe it to the San Antonio area. It has been well known for a long time that population growth in the Edwards Aquifer area is far outpacing recharge, even when not in a horrible drought like this year.

The panhandle water district made a deal with T Boone's group to keep the water up here... But you are not going to invest a billion in a pipeline unless you are making 2 billion on the water.

I guess what I'm saying is according to all the water guru's I know, farmers and ranchers in the Edwards aquifer area of Texas are F-ed. And as the population in the area grows they are just going to get more F-ed.

---

T Boone didn't buy any water rights. Water rights are not a thing for groundwater in Texas unless controlled by a groundwater conservation district. He pre-emptively started a groundwater conservation district on his ranch to keep anybody from preventing him from exporting the water from his wells. He had his ranch employees who lived on the ranch become the board of directors for the conservation district and vote to allow export of the water. He was banking on Rick Perry's super utility corridors (I forget what the official name was) to give him easy right of way to one of the major metro areas to sell the water. The cost of the pipeline would have been peanuts compared to what he could have sold it for.

---

You are really splitting hairs here. While there are differences between subsurface water and surface water in the eyes of the state, the fact of the matter is that when you own land - you own the water beneath that land and by definition have rights to all of the water you can pump from under your land, with a handful of exceptions granted through groundwater conservation districts. Or "water rights".

So saying that somebody owns water rights on their land when talking about subsurface water is not incorrect. SAWS gets a fair amount of their water through private sales from landowners that own the water under their land and since they own the water and the rights to use it as they see fit, exercise their rights with their water (or, their water rights) and make a healthy amount of money selling it for SAWS to treat and distribute.

Sometimes common vernacular is just as good as legalese and the "I must prove you wrong through some massive bending and twisting of words". Especially on a fuggin message board.

---

The only part of what you said that I disagree with, and yes I know that it is splitting hairs, is that there is no concept in Texas law except as granted to GWCDs to limit your right to only "the water under your land". Except where limited by a GWCD, you have a right to all the water you can draw to your well, even if it is coming from your neighbor's land. And that is the point of what I was trying to convey regarding TBoone. He wasn't buying a right to a specific quantity, which is what the term "water right" usually means.

Most people don't realize how unlimited the right to pump groundwater is in most of Texas. Water rights usually have a defined quantity and a seniority designation, such that when water is scarce, the most Junior users have to give up their rights first to make sure that those rights with the most seniority get theirs first. EAA enforces that as the GWCD for a big part of central Texas, but their reach only goes so far. Most of the areas north and west of their reach have very weak GWCDs or no GWCD because the people there don't want anybody telling them how much or how little they can pump. And those are the same people now complaining about their wells running dry, while the deeper wells on their neighbors land are used to pump water to send to Austin and San Antonio.

---

That is true to a degree, but it is not a limitless right. If you are causing harm to your neighbor with your pumping, they can claim damages and even without a GWCD, you can be limited to what you are allowed to pump. If you cause subsidence to your neighbor, you can be sued for damages. There are other scenarios as well that provide limitations on what you can pump out of the ground.

Surface water rights have a seniority designation. The State is always the most senior and pretty much everybody else has some level of junior surface water rights beyond that. Surface water has designations on quantities because the waters are owned by the state and are quantifiable; subsurface rights aren't owned by the state and cannot be quantified - which is why the laws regarding them are much more lax. But groundwater conservation districts exist for a reason, and that is because there has to be some limitations on subsurface rights or you end up with scenarios where subsidence, dry wells, etc. are contested hotly between neighbors.

---

What you posted in bold is absolutely not correct based on Texas water law and the existing case law regarding "taking water", it is true only for causing actual surface damage. Unless you are found to have pumped water to deliberately run somebody else's well dry or taken their water with malicious intent, you cannot be sued for running their well dry. The exceptions to the rule of capture in Texas are enumerated on the Texas Water website from TAMU (Texas Water Law):

"Exceptions to Absolute Owner Rule. There are five situations in which a Texas landowner can take legal action for interference with his groundwater rights:
* If an adjoining neighbor trespasses on the land to remove water either by drilling a well directly on the landowner's property or by drilling a "slant" well on adjoining property so that it crosses the subterranean property line, the injured landowner can sue for trespass.
* There is malicious or wanton conduct in pumping water for the sole purpose of injuring an adjoining landowner.
* Landowners waste artesian well water by allowing it to run off their land or to percolate back into the water table.
* There is contamination of water in a landowner's well. No one is allowed to unlawfully pollute groundwater.
* Land subsidence and surface injury result from negligent overpumping from adjoining lands."

It was the Sipriano vs. Great Spring Waters of America case (finally adjudicated in 1999) that was part of the driving force behind including Groundwater Conservation Districts in the state and regional water planning created by Senate Bill 1 in 1997. The legislature wanted to give local democratic options to managing groundwater that went beyond the rule of capture that was the statewide precedent reaffirmed by Sipriano.

---

Sigh....

Those absolutely fall under the "causing your neighbor harm". Again, you are looking for hairs to split for the sake of splitting hairs because you want to be right and the most knowledgeable. I defer to you, because it's just easier that way.

BTW - the "negligent overpumping from adjoining lands" has a pretty wide berth and you don't have to be proven to have done something will ill intent under the "negligent" component.

Bottom line - there are limitations on what you can pump and it is not an unlimited right.

Animal Eight 84 said:

---

Texas has a plethora of water.
Just not inexpensive water that's affordable for irrigation & consumption.

More than adequate saline ground water and Gulf of Mexico to desalinate. It has the added cost of power to desalinate & transport.

As mentioned there are multiple sites available for surface storage lakes but the issue hasn't become critical enough to overcome political resistance.

As an example, Shaw's Bend reservoir near Columbus on the Colorado River.
First proposed 50 years ago.
It could greatly alleviate San Antonio's shortages.

LCRA recently built a large surface storage reservoir near Wharton. They bought private land and quickly constructed it.

Rainwater harvesting only has traction in the Austin-San Antonio area. After the BCS water shortages this summer it should have taken off for irrigation purposes but it didn't.

---

BTW, San Antonio is getting a lot of water from Lee, Bastrop, Fayette and Burleson (I think those are the ones) counties via the Vista Ridge pipeline. If I remember correctly, SAWS will get 50k acre feet per year for the next 30 years from the Carrizo aquifer to add to the water supply. Somewhere around 20% of SAWS water will come from there.

schmellba99 said:

---

txags92 said:

---

schmellba99 said:

---

txags92 said:

---

schmellba99 said:

---

txags92 said:

---

SunrayAg said:

---

About 20 years ago, T Boone Pickens bought up most of the water rights from the rough country in the eastern Panhandle, and was prepared to spend a billion dollars on a pipeline to pipe it to the San Antonio area. It has been well known for a long time that population growth in the Edwards Aquifer area is far outpacing recharge, even when not in a horrible drought like this year.

The panhandle water district made a deal with T Boone's group to keep the water up here... But you are not going to invest a billion in a pipeline unless you are making 2 billion on the water.

I guess what I'm saying is according to all the water guru's I know, farmers and ranchers in the Edwards aquifer area of Texas are F-ed. And as the population in the area grows they are just going to get more F-ed.

---

T Boone didn't buy any water rights. Water rights are not a thing for groundwater in Texas unless controlled by a groundwater conservation district. He pre-emptively started a groundwater conservation district on his ranch to keep anybody from preventing him from exporting the water from his wells. He had his ranch employees who lived on the ranch become the board of directors for the conservation district and vote to allow export of the water. He was banking on Rick Perry's super utility corridors (I forget what the official name was) to give him easy right of way to one of the major metro areas to sell the water. The cost of the pipeline would have been peanuts compared to what he could have sold it for.

---

You are really splitting hairs here. While there are differences between subsurface water and surface water in the eyes of the state, the fact of the matter is that when you own land - you own the water beneath that land and by definition have rights to all of the water you can pump from under your land, with a handful of exceptions granted through groundwater conservation districts. Or "water rights".

So saying that somebody owns water rights on their land when talking about subsurface water is not incorrect. SAWS gets a fair amount of their water through private sales from landowners that own the water under their land and since they own the water and the rights to use it as they see fit, exercise their rights with their water (or, their water rights) and make a healthy amount of money selling it for SAWS to treat and distribute.

Sometimes common vernacular is just as good as legalese and the "I must prove you wrong through some massive bending and twisting of words". Especially on a fuggin message board.

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The only part of what you said that I disagree with, and yes I know that it is splitting hairs, is that there is no concept in Texas law except as granted to GWCDs to limit your right to only "the water under your land". Except where limited by a GWCD, you have a right to all the water you can draw to your well, even if it is coming from your neighbor's land. And that is the point of what I was trying to convey regarding TBoone. He wasn't buying a right to a specific quantity, which is what the term "water right" usually means.

Most people don't realize how unlimited the right to pump groundwater is in most of Texas. Water rights usually have a defined quantity and a seniority designation, such that when water is scarce, the most Junior users have to give up their rights first to make sure that those rights with the most seniority get theirs first. EAA enforces that as the GWCD for a big part of central Texas, but their reach only goes so far. Most of the areas north and west of their reach have very weak GWCDs or no GWCD because the people there don't want anybody telling them how much or how little they can pump. And those are the same people now complaining about their wells running dry, while the deeper wells on their neighbors land are used to pump water to send to Austin and San Antonio.

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That is true to a degree, but it is not a limitless right. If you are causing harm to your neighbor with your pumping, they can claim damages and even without a GWCD, you can be limited to what you are allowed to pump. If you cause subsidence to your neighbor, you can be sued for damages. There are other scenarios as well that provide limitations on what you can pump out of the ground.

Surface water rights have a seniority designation. The State is always the most senior and pretty much everybody else has some level of junior surface water rights beyond that. Surface water has designations on quantities because the waters are owned by the state and are quantifiable; subsurface rights aren't owned by the state and cannot be quantified - which is why the laws regarding them are much more lax. But groundwater conservation districts exist for a reason, and that is because there has to be some limitations on subsurface rights or you end up with scenarios where subsidence, dry wells, etc. are contested hotly between neighbors.

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What you posted in bold is absolutely not correct based on Texas water law and the existing case law regarding "taking water", it is true only for causing actual surface damage. Unless you are found to have pumped water to deliberately run somebody else's well dry or taken their water with malicious intent, you cannot be sued for running their well dry. The exceptions to the rule of capture in Texas are enumerated on the Texas Water website from TAMU (Texas Water Law):

"Exceptions to Absolute Owner Rule. There are five situations in which a Texas landowner can take legal action for interference with his groundwater rights:
* If an adjoining neighbor trespasses on the land to remove water either by drilling a well directly on the landowner's property or by drilling a "slant" well on adjoining property so that it crosses the subterranean property line, the injured landowner can sue for trespass.
* There is malicious or wanton conduct in pumping water for the sole purpose of injuring an adjoining landowner.
* Landowners waste artesian well water by allowing it to run off their land or to percolate back into the water table.
* There is contamination of water in a landowner's well. No one is allowed to unlawfully pollute groundwater.
* Land subsidence and surface injury result from negligent overpumping from adjoining lands."

It was the Sipriano vs. Great Spring Waters of America case (finally adjudicated in 1999) that was part of the driving force behind including Groundwater Conservation Districts in the state and regional water planning created by Senate Bill 1 in 1997. The legislature wanted to give local democratic options to managing groundwater that went beyond the rule of capture that was the statewide precedent reaffirmed by Sipriano.

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Sigh....

Those absolutely fall under the "causing your neighbor harm". Again, you are looking for hairs to split for the sake of splitting hairs because you want to be right and the most knowledgeable. I defer to you, because it's just easier that way.

BTW - the "negligent overpumping from adjoining lands" has a pretty wide berth and you don't have to be proven to have done something will ill intent under the "negligent" component.

Bottom line - there are limitations on what you can pump and it is not an unlimited right.

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What I am telling you is that those are the ONLY 5 ways you can sue for damages under Texas law outside of the GWCD and that simply "causing your neighbor harm" is not a standard that makes any difference outside of those exceptions. You cannot be sued by your neighbor for taking his water unless it falls under one of those 5 situations. You are also incorrect about the damage/subsidence angle. The negligent overpumping angle only applies to causing actual surface damage, not through running wells dry. The case law shows that proving that the damage or subsidence was caused by "negligent overpumping" has been very difficult and the courts continue to rely on that standard when deciding whether damages are warranted. Friendswood Development Company vs Smith-Southwest in 1978, reaffirmed that in the absence of malicious intent or negligent or wasteful pumping, the adjacent landowners could not claim damages due to subsidence caused by pumping.

"Causing your neighbor harm" has no bearing under Texas Water Law or the existing case law when it comes to withdrawing groundwater from the subsurface EXCEPT if you do it maliciously to deprive them of water or do it wastefully or negligently and cause actual surface damage. Simply running their well dry is not enough to warrant any claim of damages under state law and the relevant case law. That is what the Sipriano case was about in case you declined to read up on it. Ozarka installed a well for a bottling plant and ran Sipriano's well dry. He sued for damages and Ozarka won because there was no evidence that they ran his well dry maliciously. I know you believe it should be otherwise, but it is not, and that is why the legislature created GWCDs. They wanted to give local areas an option to create a body with the power to go beyond those standards in regulating how groundwater is used.

schmellba99 said:

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Animal Eight 84 said:

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Texas has a plethora of water.
Just not inexpensive water that's affordable for irrigation & consumption.

More than adequate saline ground water and Gulf of Mexico to desalinate. It has the added cost of power to desalinate & transport.

As mentioned there are multiple sites available for surface storage lakes but the issue hasn't become critical enough to overcome political resistance.

As an example, Shaw's Bend reservoir near Columbus on the Colorado River.
First proposed 50 years ago.
It could greatly alleviate San Antonio's shortages.

LCRA recently built a large surface storage reservoir near Wharton. They bought private land and quickly constructed it.

Rainwater harvesting only has traction in the Austin-San Antonio area. After the BCS water shortages this summer it should have taken off for irrigation purposes but it didn't.

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BTW, San Antonio is getting a lot of water from Lee, Bastrop, Fayette and Burleson (I think those are the ones) counties via the Vista Ridge pipeline. If I remember correctly, SAWS will get 50k acre feet per year for the next 30 years from the Carrizo aquifer to add to the water supply. Somewhere around 20% of SAWS water will come from there.

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I believe the water from Burleson CO is coming from a different aquifer than the Carrizo. They also contracted for 11.688 acre feet/ year out of wells in Gonzales Co which is out of the Carrizo. They are also getting water out of Canyon Lake, Medina Lake and Lake Dunlap

One positive about the Edward's that some other aquifers, the Ogallala for example, don't have is that it recharges fairly rapidly. One good wet year and that thing can recharge pretty quickly.

Hubert J. Farnsworth said:

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One positive about the Edward's that some other aquifers, the Ogallala for example, don't have is that it recharges fairly rapidly. One good wet year and that thing can recharge pretty quickly.

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Building more stormwater retention basins over the recharge zone would help that tremendously.

txags92 said:

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Hubert J. Farnsworth said:

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One positive about the Edward's that some other aquifers, the Ogallala for example, don't have is that it recharges fairly rapidly. One good wet year and that thing can recharge pretty quickly.

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Building more stormwater retention basins over the recharge zone would help that tremendously.

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Definitely. That would be tax dollars well spent. I imagine it wouldn't be easy dealing with all of those landowners though.

Hubert J. Farnsworth said:

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txags92 said:

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Hubert J. Farnsworth said:

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One positive about the Edward's that some other aquifers, the Ogallala for example, don't have is that it recharges fairly rapidly. One good wet year and that thing can recharge pretty quickly.

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Building more stormwater retention basins over the recharge zone would help that tremendously.

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Definitely. That would be tax dollars well spent. I imagine it wouldn't be easy dealing with all of those landowners though.

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It is also about the downstream water rights as well. All the water coming into those watersheds is already owned by somebody, so damming it up and letting it recharge the aquifer instead of flowing downstream would be a consumptive use that could deprive downstream users. I know there has been some talk about building a reservoir between san antonio and corpus and pumping the water back to the san antonio area, but it would be more efficient to buy the water rights from the downstream users and dam it up in the recharge zone instead. Recharging the aquifer using a smaller retention structure instead of having a larger surface reservoir cuts down on how much property you need to buy and also minimizes the evaporation loss from the reservoir. There are already a few of these on Salado Creek out at Camp Bullis and a few others across the north side of san antonio, but it is easily possible to do a lot more of them in the hill country.

When we purchased our Eastern Kimble County ranch about 30 years ago it had a seasonal/spring creek and some other wet weather creeks. It was chop full of cedar...,
basically covered with it......+ or - 1200 acres.
I purchased a used skid steer and tree shear and grapple and went to work.... and my neighbor had a business doing that so I traded him road work as I had a grader, dump truck and front end loader for him cutting cedar. I finished the project 4 years later.
My seasonal/ spring creek runs all the time to this day and two more springs also started flowing and still are.
Had to cut regrowth about 8 years ago but other than some small areas of virgin big cedar the place has none now.
Hard work, lots of time invested in cutting, stacking and burning but changed the whole dynamics of my place.
Oaks grew larger and native grasses and browse grew like fire.
They should do that to the whole hill country.

txags92 said:

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Hubert J. Farnsworth said:

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One positive about the Edward's that some other aquifers, the Ogallala for example, don't have is that it recharges fairly rapidly. One good wet year and that thing can recharge pretty quickly.

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Building more stormwater retention basins over the recharge zone would help that tremendously.

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When i lived in AZ, we built a lot of dry wells who's purpose was to facilitate recharging the aquifer during rain events.

schmellba99 said:

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txags92 said:

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Hubert J. Farnsworth said:

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One positive about the Edward's that some other aquifers, the Ogallala for example, don't have is that it recharges fairly rapidly. One good wet year and that thing can recharge pretty quickly.

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Building more stormwater retention basins over the recharge zone would help that tremendously.

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When i lived in AZ, we built a lot of dry wells who's purpose was to facilitate recharging the aquifer during rain events.

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The beauty of the hill country is that you don't even need to build the dry wells in most places because the karst geology has already created the pathways to allow the recharge to occur. There are huge openings in the bed of Cibolo Creek on the north side of Camp Bullis that recharge almost directly into the Lower Glen Rose Formation. When we would get a big rainfall event that would cause significant flow in the Cibolo, we could GW elevation changes of 60+ feet within a few days in our wells a couple of miles south of the Cibolo. The lower Glen Rose in that area is directly connected to the Edwards Aquifer just a few miles to the SE of there by the faults in the Balcones Escarpment.

During a dye tracer study out at Bullis, we had a big recharge event like that and saw dye that we had injected at about 140' below ground surface transported into wells that were screened about 40' bgs. Just imagine if they put a few small dams along the Cibolo to enhance that recharge even more instead of letting it all flow downstream. Not talking about big reservoirs...just something that would hold back a portion of the water coming through long enough to enhance the infiltration.

Similar to the recharge structure north of Dell City.

txags92 said:

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schmellba99 said:

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txags92 said:

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Hubert J. Farnsworth said:

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One positive about the Edward's that some other aquifers, the Ogallala for example, don't have is that it recharges fairly rapidly. One good wet year and that thing can recharge pretty quickly.

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Building more stormwater retention basins over the recharge zone would help that tremendously.

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When i lived in AZ, we built a lot of dry wells who's purpose was to facilitate recharging the aquifer during rain events.

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The beauty of the hill country is that you don't even need to build the dry wells in most places because the karst geology has already created the pathways to allow the recharge to occur. There are huge openings in the bed of Cibolo Creek on the north side of Camp Bullis that recharge almost directly into the Lower Glen Rose Formation. When we would get a big rainfall event that would cause significant flow in the Cibolo, we could GW elevation changes of 60+ feet within a few days in our wells a couple of miles south of the Cibolo. The lower Glen Rose in that area is directly connected to the Edwards Aquifer just a few miles to the SE of there by the faults in the Balcones Escarpment.

During a dye tracer study out at Bullis, we had a big recharge event like that and saw dye that we had injected at about 140' below ground surface transported into wells that were screened about 40' bgs. Just imagine if they put a few small dams along the Cibolo to enhance that recharge even more instead of letting it all flow downstream. Not talking about big reservoirs...just something that would hold back a portion of the water coming through long enough to enhance the infiltration.

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On a mini scale, we live right off the Guadalupe River and have a hole in our back yard that you could stick a water hose in and run for ever. A large portion of ours and two neighbors rear properties west of us run into it in heavy rains. Our house must be built over a cave because during 4 heavy long term rain events in the 25 years we've been here we've had a water spout about a foot tall shooting out of the ground and air bubbles coming up on about a 5 by 5 square of ground. The first time it happened MzR called me out and says "What's this?" I said there must be a cave down there that's filled up with water and it's coming out. Don't stomp too hard or I might not ever see you again

txags9 said:

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The beauty of the hill country is that you don't even need to build the dry wells in most places because the karst geology has already created the pathways to allow the recharge to occur. There are huge openings in the bed of Cibolo Creek on the north side of Camp Bullis that recharge almost directly into the Lower Glen Rose Formation. When we would get a big rainfall event that would cause significant flow in the Cibolo, we could GW elevation changes of 60+ feet within a few days in our wells a couple of miles south of the Cibolo. The lower Glen Rose in that area is directly connected to the Edwards Aquifer just a few miles to the SE of there by the faults in the Balcones Escarpment.

During a dye tracer study out at Bullis, we had a big recharge event like that and saw dye that we had injected at about 140' below ground surface transported into wells that were screened about 40' bgs. Just imagine if they put a few small dams along the Cibolo to enhance that recharge even more instead of letting it all flow downstream. Not talking about big reservoirs...just something that would hold back a portion of the water coming through long enough to enhance the infiltration.

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There are already several of these for the Edwards.

Seco Creek recharge

I have seen this one level full, much higher than in the pictures.

There is another on San Geronimo creek on the west side of SA just off 211 and 471.

There are many other places these could be used with little resources and not much effect downstream as they are designed to only take flood stage waters, not normal flow.

Example of a big hole from 2016.

San Antonio is at least trying to do something long term with the EAPP. Buying conservation easements on private land preventing mass development in key geographic and hydrographic areas in the Edwards contributing and recharge zones is slow in execution but effective.

If you have land in their area and you want to get paid to make sure it looks exactly the same in 100 years as it does today then you should reach out to them.

HumbleAg04 said:

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San Antonio is at least trying to do something long term with the EAPP. Buying conservation easements on private land preventing mass development in key geographic and hydrographic areas in the Edwards contributing and recharge zones is slow in execution but effective.

If you have land in their area and you want to get paid to make sure it looks exactly the same in 100 years as it does today then you should reach out to them.

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while encouraging constant growth in an area that can't support it's own water needs and must encroach on other areas where the inhabitants may need that water for their own needs. Let's give them a big pat on the back for their foresightedness.

And buy up all the downstream water rights users and keep it for the big cities and housing developments, because who cares about downstream users? Screw rural and small town Texas, San Antonio and Austin are thirsty, and there's a bunch of new 4,000+Sq ft homes in the hill country who need fancy landscaping growing on top of the solid rock.

TarponChaser said:

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I forget the guy's name but I know what you're talking about. Wealthy dude who has spent tons & tons of money returning his ranch to basically what the Hill Country was like before the cedars took over.

And he has the resources to battle the environmental whackos more worried about the golden-cheeked warbler than the bigger picture.

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H. Ross Perot may be your huckleberry.

duffelpud said:

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TarponChaser said:

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I forget the guy's name but I know what you're talking about. Wealthy dude who has spent tons & tons of money returning his ranch to basically what the Hill Country was like before the cedars took over.

And he has the resources to battle the environmental whackos more worried about the golden-cheeked warbler than the bigger picture.

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H. Ross Perot may be your huckleberry.

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Bamberger.

SWCBonfire said:

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And buy up all the downstream water rights users and keep it for the big cities and housing developments, because who cares about downstream users? Screw rural and small town Texas, San Antonio and Austin are thirsty, and there's a bunch of new 4,000+Sq ft homes in the hill country who need fancy landscaping growing on top of the solid rock.

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This is why I suggested the projects I did. When designed properly, they only skim the "flood stage" water while allowing normal flows to continue. It actually helps decrease the destruction of floods by taking some of that volume away. This is how the Seco Creek project works. It holds the first 9 feet behind a dam and the rest is channeled to the "sinkhole" shown in the picture.

In my Soils 301 class Dr. Murray Milford '55 said the Texas climate can be characterized as such:

"Persistent drought interrupted by infrequent severe flooding events."

If we can take the edge off of the severe and maintain "normal" flows when not flooding, I believe you have the best of both worlds.

BrazosDog02 said:

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CS78 said:

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Sounds like more reservoirs on the west TX rivers will be the only long term solution. Theyll tax the users to cover the crazy immanent domain cost to acquire the land. Can only imagine the hissing and gnashing of teeth that will entail. The sooner the better though.

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We've coasted along as a species for a long time. We've had the luxury of resource availability far outpacing our need. Funny thing about exponential population growth though. Our resources don't do that. This whole human race experiment will sort itself out eventually, but we will kick and scream to 'fix' it. We will kick the can down the road via eminent domain, but it won't fix anything without a serious population correction. It's funny to watch stuff like this as if THIS will solve the problem...yep yep yep. When in reality, we just push it down the road a little more until it becomes someone else's problem.

This entire situation is exactly why civilizations don't last long and why we will never know if there is other life outside of this planet.

We will see the same thing with food because its way better to have a 300 acre shopping mall than it is to have a 300 acre crop. 500 acre pasture...F--- NO! Let's cut that beetch up into 1/8 acre lots and slap some houses on it (and then complain about water shortage and send nasty emails to people because their yard is brown).

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The "population bomb" myth just won't die I see. You vacillated between macro and micro issues here, but water issues are micro and solvable with human ingenuity and economic rationalization. Any food shortages in 2022/2023 are caused by politics, not overpopulation. We have ample supplies for the population, as it will decline naturally from around 2070-2100 as demographics age and mass urbanization continues. There will be locations that win and lose, and humans will migrate as they always have. Tale as
old as time.

There is not a population problem. if you allot 900sf, which is the size of a small apartment, to every living person on the planet, they will all fit within the borders of Texas. 8 billion people, 268,597 square miles in Texas

Everyone from Europe, India, China, Africa, the Americas, South Pacific, Japan and everywhere else. The entire world empty of humans except Texas and here everyone has 900sf. Think about that. As a race we have political problems of all kinds, but not over population.

txrancher69 said:

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There is not a population problem. if you allot 900sf, which is the size of a small apartment, to every living person on the planet, they will all fit within the borders of Texas. 8 billion people, 268,597 square miles in Texas

Everyone from Europe, India, China, Africa, the Americas, South Pacific, Japan and everywhere else. The entire world empty of humans except Texas and here everyone has 900sf. Think about that. As a race we have political problems of all kinds, but not over population.

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Space isn't the issue. It's how can you support 8 billion people SUSTAINABLY.

(I think that's a word anyways)