While Texans flock to water and the blistering summer heat sets in, we decided to take another in-depth look at the State of Water in Texas. Some lawmakers and lobbyists say they're optimistic this coming legislative session will be the one when they find a way to pay for the state water plan. But, with many Republicans signing Governor Perry's pledge of no new taxes, politics could delay funding it once again.
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Many of those in the know told us the longer the state waits to diversify its water resources, and fix some of the problems with the current system, the more our industries and overall growth will suffer. After all, people and businesses go where the water is.
Rep. Lyle Larson is among those who believe last year's drought highlighted the need for state lawmakers to finally address Texas' water issues, but it's really an alarm set at the turn of the century with the emergence of the state water plan, a comprehensive proposal that's never found a funding source.
“In the next legislative session, I don’t think there’s another issue that threatens the state’s ability to grow other than the water issue itself,” Larson said.
Larson sees de-salination plants purifying what's now unusable ground water as the wave of the future. One of those plants is under construction in San Antonio right now, with others planned around the state. Six months out from the start of the next session, Larson is attending hearings and meeting with community leaders, gauging water needs.
“You have 16 regions that are doing the planning and there’s not a lot of cooperation between those regions and the state needs to be directly involved. The only way they’re going to listen is if we take a financial interest in those projects to be built out across the regions,” Larson said.
He thinks the legislature should pull a billion dollars out the Rainy Day Fund and leverage it with public utilities. The obstacle: Governor Perry's pledge several Republicans signed not to raise taxes. Larson says he didn't sign it because he knows the water plan needs to be funded.
Russ Johnson, an Austin attorney who represents state water producers and landowners' interests during session, says the recent dry conditions mean more leaders are willing to make tough decisions on the issues.
“We’re looking at a crying need now and every session that goes by without a solution makes that even more of a problem,” Johnson said.
One of his clients is Ozarka, a bottled water company. Every session, it seems, lawmakers consider taxing bottled water as a way to pay for the plan. It never passes. While Johnson doesn't think it's the solution, he knows something needs to be done and soon.
'A Boring Natural Disaster'
The July issue of Texas Monthly is all about the state water crisis, with pages and pages dedicated to stories and photographs of last year's drought. The magazine also produced a special with KUT in Austin, and will host a symposium on the water shortage Thursday, July 12.
Editor Jake Silverstein joined us on "Capital Tonight" this week to explain what he calls a "boring" natural disaster.
"Last year we had the worst single year drought in the history of Texas and it kind of got people's attention," Silverstein said. "But the reality is that drought is something that's kind of always with us here in Texas and yet people don't tend to pay very close attention to it because it is kind of a boring natural disaster as natural disasters go. You don't see Hollywood movies about droughts. You don't have people running down the road screaming drought at the top of their lungs, it's one of those things that kind of creeps up on you."
A State with a Plan?
The 2012 State Water Plan's primary message is a simple one: in serious drought conditions, Texas does not and will not have enough water to meet the needs of its people, its businesses, and its agricultural enterprises.
Melanie Callahan is the Executive Administrator for the Texas Water Development Board, the group which compiles the state water plan from regional water plans. She said those regions have estimated it would cost $53 billion to implement a plan to provide enough water through 2060, with close to $27 billion coming from the state. Callahan acknowledges there hasn't always been the political will for that kind of spending.
"This has been an ongoing issue for quite a while, since 1997 they've talked about a revenue source, however that has yet to be. We're getting a lot of interest, we're getting a lot requests for different models. We've run different models depending on how much money is available, what that could provide, so there's a lot of interest right now," Callahan said.
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A Plan is Better than No Plan
Laura Huffman of the Texas Nature Conservancy and Charles Porter, a water expert from St. Edward's University, joined us for our Inside the Issues panel this week.
Hear from our experts in the video below.
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