Texas water marketers see future demand

Texas water marketers see future demand

	Published : Fri, 15 Jun 2007 09:13 By : Agencies Print this Story

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) - In the five years since billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens started trying to sell water from beneath the vast empty spaces of West Texas, he hasn't had any customers.

Not one city or agency has signed on, even after years of drought conditions and soaring water use by Texas' booming population, which is expected to more than double by 2060.

However, officials at Pickens' company aren't concerned. And studies indicate they shouldn't be because, quite simply, the second-most populous state in the nation is running low on water.

By 2060, water demand is expected to increase by 27 percent while supply is expected to decrease by 18 percent, according to the Texas Water Development Board. If Texas doesn't conserve water and develop new sources, the board says, about 85 percent of the population won't have enough water during drought conditions.

There are similar concerns nationwide. In 10 years, 36 states expect shortages, a number that leaps to 46 during droughts, according to a 2003 Government Accountability Office report.

'There's a lot of water marketers out there, but (Texas municipalities) are going to be paying a heck of a lot to get that water,' said Gabriel Eckstein, a water law professor at Texas Tech University's Law School.

Pickens and about 15 other water marketers in Texas are working on projects that would allow them to pump rural groundwater and ship it to urban areas, said water developer and consultant Lynn Sherman.

No large cities currently go to marketers to get groundwater -- which comes from aquifers and makes up about 60 percent of Texas' water supply -- but the marketers are gearing up by getting pumping permits in order and buying water rights.

Mesa Water Inc., Pickens' group, hasn't pumped water because it has yet to find a buyer, said Robert Stillwell, Pickens' general counsel at Mesa. But he said discussions are ongoing with potential buyers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

'Those people are in the process of analyzing all their options,' he said. 'This is a slow-moving process, and we are happy to still be in the game.'

State officials are taking actions to avoid a shortage, recently approving possible sites for about 20 new reservoirs and an advertising campaign to stress conservation.

But groundwater is critical to the state's water needs because Texas has few surface-water options, Sherman said. And officials are concerned about the water supply in some of the state's nine major aquifers.

In the Ogallala Aquifer, the world's largest aquifer system, which spans eight Plains states from Texas to South Dakota, water levels have dropped more than 300 feet in some areas in the last 60 years.

The Ogallala recharges slower than most because of a confinement layer of clay above it.

The Gulf Coast Aquifer, which runs along almost all of the Texas coast, is projected to drop 12 percent between 2010 and 2060. The aquifer once provided water to all of Houston but now supplies only some of its suburbs.

Many local water districts are adding regulations for pumping groundwater, but that could present legal problems down the road.

Legal experts say the districts can't modify rules to the extent they affect the state's rule of capture law, adopted more than 100 years ago. The law allows property owners to withdraw virtually unlimited amounts of water from beneath their land.

Local restrictions could spawn lawsuits under the takings clauses of the U.S. and Texas constitutions, which bar the government from taking of private property unless it's for the public good.