Thoughts on Groundwater and Texas’ Future

I am a stakeholder on the Guadalupe River-San Antonio Bay-Basin Environmental Flows Stakeholder Committee as is your editor, Everett Johnson. Although I live upstream at the headwaters of the Guadalupe, I represent Texas Soil & Water Conservation Districts across the basin. My largely agricultural background fitted me for that slot. Everett thought this article about how excessive groundwater pumping in one region can affect rivers and then fresh-water flows into Gulf estuaries is important for all to recognize. Saltwater fishermen and coastal residents often come from upstream areas and maybe can influence what happens there. No one, whether a Texas farmer or a Texas fisherman, ever wants to hurt our resources.

Water is a given and will always be there, right? We just turn on the faucets or get the windmills pumping or turn on the irrigation pumps no big deal. I know from my work across Texas that this fallacy of taking water for granted is not just among city dwellers either. We all do!

Not always does the water flow, my friend! Hmmm, remember THE drought of the fifties, or even some of the short intense droughts in the 80s, 90s and more recently 2008-09? Water was not always there for all of us! The combination of population growth, high water use and drought all are working against us now. Many in Kerr County had to have water hauled to them in 2009 as wells and the Guadalupe dried up.

Well folks, if you have been involved in your regions' water planning which is on a five year plan rotation, then you are well aware of the impending population explosion occurring in our state. This morning I was reading the new AAA Texas Journey and almost choked on my coffee "More than a thousand people move to Texas every day." I guess that is just the legal immigrants... Wow! We may need a wall or fence all the way around us! Where will we get the water was my second thought.

Well, you with homes, farms and ranches across rural areas of our state better not think you are safe because you are hundreds of miles from a big city or you think groundwater (aquifer water) is your protected property right. Ask folks in the Panhandle, or around Ft. Stockton, or on the coastal rice farms or other areas how protected they feel. Or just ask East Texas farmers who in the 90s went clear to the Texas Supreme Court when their wells were pumped dry by a neighbor, Ozarka Spring Water Co. The farmers lost and groundwater was bottled and shipped off.

Read this section from a 2005 article in The Cattleman:

"The 101 year-old Rule of Capture provides that, absent malice or willful waste, landowners have the right to take all the water they can capture under their land and do with it what they please. Neighboring landowners have no legal recourse if the water supply under their ground is affected.

"First, let's get rid of a misconception about the Rule of Capture. The Rule of Capture does not 'give' anyone a right to do anything," says Greg Ellis, League City attorney and former Edwards Aquifer Authority general manager.

"The right to seek and capture groundwater, minerals and other property from land is granted through ownership of the land. The State of Texas adopted the English common law that included both the Absolute Ownership Doctrine (each landowner owns everything above and below their property) and the Rule of Capture (no liability to adjoining landowners for depleting minerals or water). So where property law gives everyone the right to seek groundwater, tort law (Rule of Capture) seems to prohibit anyone from protecting that right by filing a trespass lawsuit."

Still think this archaic Texas groundwater law protects your water? Well, maybe it did 100 years ago when there were fewer Texans and no one had the ability or need to pump huge amounts of groundwater. Well, that changed when we got more people, irrigated farms, big cities, large thirsty lawns, golf courses, swimming pools, vanity ponds and much bigger, deeper water wells. Water uses and "needs" shot up. The Rule of Capture in Texas became known as "The Rule of the Biggest Pump."

I hope you will want to read and learn more of other examples across not just Texas, but the nation. Years ago when working in West Texas, I attended a water meeting at nearby New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. A key speaker was Robert Glennon, a law professor at U. of Arizona who had just written Water Follies, discussing numerous case studies of water issues across the USA, including Texas. I could not lay the book down that night it was an eye opener even to me as a water professional. Seems Arizona is doing many very good things, including water! Buy a copy, give it as Christmas gift to family, friends, water utility managers or needy politicians it is reasonable.

Texas has lost most of its large springs, few by natural causes, mostly due to heavy groundwater pumping. Heavy well pumping dries up springs and then our creeks and rivers may cease to flow. Loss of river flow can affect drinking water for Texans hundreds of miles away from the groundwater pumping which lowered the aquifers, thus reducing or stopping spring flows. When rivers are dried up, reservoirs drop drastically or go dry. Think of the 2008-09 drought and how many central, west and north Texas lakes dropped to record low levels. What would a repeat of the long and intense 50s drought do with current or future population levels?

Low or dry rivers cause estuaries and bays in the Gulf of Mexico to become much saltier and this causes problems, including poor reproduction, up and down the food chain from micro-organisms to shrimp, oysters, crabs and fish. Recreation fishing and commercial fishing are damaged and not only does your local seafood dinner go up in price, but valuable jobs and income from the Texas Gulf coast suffers. Oil spills and pollution are not the only causes of coastal disasters sometimes the causes are hundreds of miles upstream on an over-pumped aquifer(s).

At the same time, valuable, high quality riparian or bottomland vegetation along rivers may dry up and cattle and wildlife lose forage. River and lake recreation and fishing goes downhill. Or maybe, river water for valuable farm crops downstream is not there and farms cannot irrigate, affecting not only farmers and rural communities, but the state economy as well.

Remember, all of our water is linked. Our well pumping can produce negative reactions we often never contemplated. It is not uncommon for waters in rivers and groundwater to move back and forth recharging each other.

As an old Pogo cartoon said, "I have seen the enemy and it is us!"