Landowners urged to be proactive with rights

A booming population and dwindling groundwater are issues facing Texans as they head into the 21st century.

That was the word from a panel of water experts gathered at the annual convention of the Panhandle Landowners Association in Amarillo Saturday to discuss the future of water rights.

Jack Hunt, CEO of the King Ranch, said the population of Texas will double by 2050 and the demand for water will go up accordingly. Water used for irrigation in Texas may go from 60 percent today to 40 percent or less by 2050, Hunt said.

Water plans called for by Senate Bill 1 are expected to cost $17 billion to implement, according to Hunt. Another $50 to $60 billion will be needed to renew water treatment facilities throughout the state.

“The general public is going to have to be better informed if we are to deal with these complex issues,” he said.

Paul Terrill, an Austin attorney, expects changes to the Rule of Capture in coming years that landowners need to be aware of.

The Rule of Capture stems from a 1904 state court decision, the East Case, which said that landowners own the water under their property. Terrill says the problem with the rule is that big cities can buy up water rights and drain the wells of neighboring landowners.

“The Rule of Capture, as it stands today, will not be around for long, and it’s important for rural landowners to be proactive,” he said. “The rule has served us well for 100 years, but these rights need to be defined so that they can be put down on paper, marketed, protected, and defended.”

Terrill suggested water rights might be based on a “historical use” method, on a pro rata method similar to oil and gas rights, or by a combination of the two.

The panel agreed that the best way for landowners to protect their interests was through local groundwater districts.

“We think the Panhandle Groundwater Conservation District (PGCD) does a good job of protecting landowners,” said PGCD general manager C.E. Williams.

Seventy-six percent of the state’s groundwater pumpage is coverage by water districts, but Williams says the districts face making difficult and unpopular decisions in the coming years. Already, the PGCD hope to see 50 percent of the water in the ground in 1998 still there in 50 years.

That goal is easier said that done. Proposals are already on the drawing board to pipe ground water from Roberts County and other counties in the northern Panhandle to large urban areas.

Steve Stevens, a representative of Mesa Water, Inc., said that company has purchased water rights on 150,000 acres in the northern Panhandle. Mesa originally offered the water to the City of Amarillo and to the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority, but both of those entities declined, Stevens said.

Now the cities of El Paso, San Antonio, and Dallas-Ft. Worth are interested in the water, he said, and if a pipeline is built to DFW, it would likely come through or near Clarendon.

The cost of 108” pipeline to El Paso would be $2.1 billion.

Williams said the PGCD is seeking fee authority for water leaving the district to look at and purchase recharge equipment and methods. Efforts to recharge the Edwards Aquifer down state have met with some success.

Another issue briefly discussed at Saturday’s meeting was the cloud seeding project being undertaken by the PGCD. Officials say they believe the project will increase rainfall over the district.

But opponents say the project could change weather patterns and cause the rain that might fall on their land to precipitate on someone else’s land.

The Panhandle Landowners Association has approximately 200 members. Clarendon’s Jack Craft is the incoming president of the group.