TX • Huntsville gains massive water rights

Allegations of fraud blow up water talks

APRIL 22, 2006| A massive water agreement reached in late March may have been sundered in mid-April when a water district official asked a city council - the two entities are parties to the agreement - " did the city enter into the contract in a fraudulent manner?”
The deal involves purchase of as much as 5.5 billion gallons (over the next two decades) by the city of Sugar from the Fort Bend County Water Control and Improvement District No. 1.
District board member Leon Anhaiser said the city is quietly challenging the district's rights to the water, and said the city is planning to ask the Texas Legislature for a measure which would allow it to annex and dissolve the water district.
City council members later said that they did have in mind the dissolution of the district, and felt compelled to negotiate with it. However, one said he understood that if the district were dissolved, the water rights would return to the state of Texas. [see Fort Bend Now, April 22.]

Are right fees, impact fees?

APRIL 4,2006 | Could it be that water right fees being proposed by a Texas utility actually nothing more than impermissible growth impact fees?
That's the question headed - via a request from Texas state Senator Eddie Lucio, D-Brownsville - for the Texas Attorney General, and scheduled for a formal opinion within about six month.
The question grew out of a complaint by members of the The Lower Valley Builders & Developers Association, who are building rapidly in the fast-growing area.
In the parched country, water is at a premium, and the Brownsville Public Utilities Board, which controls much of the water there outside of the city of Brownsville, charges for use of its water - $1,815 per acre; the money heads to a "water rights fund." That has meant a per-lot development fee about double outside the city compared to the rate inside (which is about $300).
The builders note that the water rights account has increased in size, but the utility has not purchased additional water rights. [see the Brownsville TX Herald, April 4]

Lower Guadalupe contract terminated

FEBRUARY 1, 2006 | The San Antonio Water System on January 25 announced that in conjunction with its partner, the San Antonio River Authority, it has signed and submitted a notice of termination to the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority, formally ending an agreement to develop the controversial Lower Guadalupe Water Supply Project.
The agreement - which named SAWS and SARA as purchasers of water supply rights and GBRA as the seller - would have required SAWS to make an $813,000 payment to GBRA in May if notice of termination was not given by March 31. Savings from termination of the project will amount to approximately $6 million for SAWS ratepayers in 2006. Long-term savings to rate payers are $971 million in capital funding. "When reviewing the Water Resource Plan last year, our internal SAWS task force re-evaluated all of our projects in terms of diversification, cost, risks, and technical feasibility," said SAWS President and CEO David Chardavoyne. "The Lower Guadalupe Project consistently ranked among the poorest for cost, risk, environmental impact, and technical feasibility. Feedback from both our Board and public meetings confirmed that we should withdraw from the project, and our Board directed its discontinuance.
Among the concerns of the task force were the potential impact to the endangered whooping crane and the statutory restrictions on water availability for the project. The Water Resource Plan Update 2005, mandated by the San Antonio City Council, is the latest iteration in the evolution of SAWS' Water Supply Plan. The results of ongoing feasibility studies, and the emergence of new water supply opportunities such as brackish groundwater desalination, helped lead to a reduction in the 2006 rate increase from a projected 17.1 percent to 4.8 percent, or approximately $33 million. Since 1992, San Antonio Water System has provided leadership in managing and developing water resources in the San Antonio region. Water and wastewater services are provided to more than 915,000 consumers in the San Antonio area through approximately 327,000 connections.
[ Contact: San Antonio Water System, 2800 U.S. Hwy 281 North, P.O. Box 2449, San Antonio, TX 78298-2449, phone 210.704.7297 ]

TAKING ON THE MEXICO CITY FORUM A guest opinion in the Cook County News Herald of Grand Marais, Minnesota, blasted the approach taken at the March Fourth World Water Forum in Mexico City which equated water rights with human rights.
"After the first day of the meeting, however, it became clear that the government and corporate agents were only interested in turning water management into a business opportunity, whereupon the NGOs and activists established an alternative forum intent on identifying access to clean water as a fundamental right . . . If we accept the position that water is a common good, and an inalienable right shared by all people, does that mean that folks in China or France have as much right to Lake Superior’s water as we do?
Perhaps we would be better served if we didn’t use the concept of human rights to justify our control of Lake Superior’s water, but rather, focused on Cibber’s observation that possession is eleven points in the law."