Tuesday afternoon the School Land Board (SLB) held a meeting in an Alpine auditorium about the proposed lease between Rio Nuevo, Ltd., and the General Land Office (GLO) of the state of Texas for water rights in far west Texas. (Link to MyWestTexas.com). A template for a lease agreement was approved by the SLB, and the public was invited to comment.
"The highest and best use of these lands would be to develop the water underneath them," [GLO Commissioner Jerry] Patterson said in a recent column. "Texas schools could earn millions of additional dollars for textbooks and computers." ...
Rio Nuevo is proposing to pump around 50,000 acre feet a year -- a little more than 16 billion gallons -- from area aquifers.
Rio Nuevo partner Robert Canon estimated the company could sell the water at around $1,000 per-acre foot, giving 10 percent royalties to the State Land Board. ...
Canon estimated mining the water would reduce the total volume of the aquifers by 7.3 percent over 50 years. ...
But the farmers and ranchers in the audience, who say they are watching their wells go dry and their water tables drop, questioned Canon's numbers. ...
"I'm concerned with everyone hitching their wagons to those numbers," said Teresa Todd, a Presidio County attorney and member of the Far West Texas Water Planning Group, of Canon's presentation, noting the scarcity of information on many of the aquifers that would be affected.
Let's do some back-of-the-envelope math on those numbers. The estimate of 50,000 acre feet a year production sold at $1,000 per acre foot would yield $50 million a year gross revenue. And a 10% royalty would amount to $5 million for the SLB leaving $45 million per year before taxes and expenses for the partnership. But, that's not all. The El Paso Times reports the partnership is also looking to lease an additional 300,000 acres of privately owned land. So, Rio Nuevo, Ltd., has the potential for making some big bucks.
The El Paso Times article contains a bit more about the opposition at the meeting:
Bill Addington of Sierra Blanca said many West Texans, including his family, oppose exporting water to other parts of the state."This is a desert, and now they want to take water from here, which is a scarce resource, and market it to the highest bidder," said Addington, who also represented the El Paso Sierra Club at Tuesday's hearing.
Some of the people, including ranchers with families dating back three to six generations, complained that they had little information and notice about the proposal.
"This is the Chihuahuan Desert. On a map, it's always depicted as brown," Marfa Mayor Oscar Martinez said. "Leave our water alone. We're dry enough."
Additionally, the El Paso Times article said that two counties, El Paso and Brewster, have been dropped from the original six leaving four, Hudspeth, Culberson, Jeff Davis and Presidio.
Common sense just begs for a hands-off-the-water approach. But, there simply isn't enough information currently available for the public to make a fair assessment. Hopefully, after they've gotten around to taking testimony from expert witnesses there will be a consensus opinion on just how the pumping of all of that water would alter the aquifer levels and what economic and environmental impact it would have on the area. And, will our taxes go up if the SLB doesn't get that revenue? Here's hoping that all the facts are known before a final decision is made.
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