The Natural Resources Committee is scheduled to meet Thursday to take up the Kinney County water wars some of you may have read about.
Jay Johnson of the West Texas Springs Alliance says:
We do NOT want companies like Hillco and Water Texas...or any other campaign contributing water marketing company or their lobbyist firms coming into our West Texas counties with more influence over the decision of the Texas Legislature than we the common grass roots folks have...just because they have more money to throw at politicians. Nor do not want them exploiting our aquifers and our springs with their "pipe dreams" of making billions of dollars in profits off of our quality and way of life. They somehow think water is like some kind of petroleum that they can buy up...and when that dries up...move on.
This water is the life blood of our part of the earth. If folks want to enjoy our waters...let them come out to West Texas and enjoy it in its natural state.
But what was really weird was this tidbit we got:
I have been informed by a most reliable source that Sen. Madla told a lobbyist NOT to have a lot of people testify this Thursday against the dissolution of the elected Kinney County Groundwater Conservation District and it's board. He definitely wants the SB1857 to pass so as to dissolve Kinney County. How's that for democracy?
Nice.
Madla is known for keeping public testimony short to help committees run more smoothly (i.e. so idiots don't blather on and on when the committee members are inclined to vote in favor of the "blatherer" anyway). Water politics in this state are nasty and cut across party lines... there's always more to these stories than meets the eye.
how can this bill be local? it affects sooooooo many more people than kinney county...all of the EAA counties and all of the downstream counties who gain river flow from the springs????
RSS
The Kinney County Groundwater District is the private slush fund of the County Attorney. His wife is the general manager of the district and they give water rights to friends and deny water to people they do not like.