Quote:
Originally Posted by mattdavis11
Jack, you only added facts to a thread my friend. I'll add a little more info that shouldn't move this to PARF, it is not debatable.
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Matt, you are absolutely correct, H20 is TX Achilles Heel and always will be. I well remember the great drought of the 50's growing up in the Abilene area. Most of the farmers (including my grandparents) would have lost their farms back then were it not for the construction of IH20 and Dyess AFB - few if any crops were produced for 5 years so many farmers went to work building the interstate and AFB and their wives got any job they could.
I lived in San Antonio for 35 years and am all to familiar with the continuing battles SA has had over the aquifer (one in particular is the group that more or less extorted $4M from the Bexar county water system over an artesian well).
As you well know, surface water rights are strictly controlled in TX while ground water rights are a free for all and are probably impossible to control given the historical context. Not long ago T. Boone Pickens was buying up water rights in the panhandle so he cold sell it the metro areas.
Perhaps if our legislature/governors had actually pushed to fund any of the measures in the 1997 water master plan things might be a little different.
The most sobering thought about another prolonged drought? TX population is the 50's was around 7M, I think it's about 4 times that now and growing.