Groundwater dispute persists after special sessions

TYLER – Although the Texas House and regular special sessions have ended, the fight for Texas Groundwater hasn’t ended, according to our news partner KETK.

“This is my number one priority, without question. And it will be going into next session as well,” State Representative Cody Harris of Palestine said. Harris, along with several water conservation groups, continues to push back on a proposal to drill dozens of high-capacity groundwater wells in East Texas.

“Yesterday afternoon, we had a water workshop that was really for our water supply corporations,” Harris said. “It also turned into a discussion on groundwater and what’s going on with the Pine Bless and Red Town Ranch proposal.”

Those projects could potentially pump up to 10 billion gallons of groundwater to other parts of the state. Harris says part of the fight is getting Proposition 4 approved.

“It creates a $20 billion fund over the next 20 years for new water supply and to help fix existing infrastructure,” Harris said.

The proposition comes at a time when our state is experiencing record-breaking demand on East Texas Lakes and groundwater.

General manager of the Angelina and Nature River Authority, Kelly Holcomb, said these updates are a dire need.

“You’re in the millions of gallons of water per day across the state, leading up to two and a half to 3 million feet of water per year by some estimates, that is lost due to leaky pipes,” Holcomb said.

If voters approve Proposition Four, it would set aside $1 billion each year over the next two decades, paying for critical water infrastructure projects that otherwise would go unfunded, like replacing the leaky pipes that plague many towns in East Texas.

“The communities in East Texas that need this the most are the poorest, some of the poorest in the state and can’t afford it,” Holcomb said.

Harris said the money could also help expand the state’s water supply by looking into new processes that would otherwise be unattainable.

“Desalination, seawater desalination, brackish groundwater desalination and importing water from other states,” Harris said. “If we don’t provide the funding mechanism to go do those things, then it is a guarantee that the big cities are going to come and take both our groundwater and our surface water because they have no other option.”