Ustxtxb Obs 1969 08 01 Issue.Pdf
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August 1, 1969 Twenty-Five Cents A Journal of Free Voices A Window to the South The Texas Observer —Mary Callaway The Texas Water Plan • Biggest Boondoggle in History? I seeeroliaed `I/ate ;4941644e tle 7Piater aad4 Austin is bound to be too low (despite $500 handful of legislators fully understood After months of attempting to study the million permitted for increased costs due what they were voting on. Next time the so-called "Texas Water Plan," Observer to inflation), since the board used 1967 water issue comes up, they probably will editors have come to the conclusion that cost estimates. The plan does not take into not understand the issues much better. proposition No. 2 on the Aug. 5 ballot, the consideration the fact that the $3.5 billion The Observer is tried to gather to- $3.5 billion bond issue for water develop- bond issue would cost another $3.5 to $4 gether in this issue most of the valid ment, should be defeated, indeed, devas- billion in interest at prevailing rates. arguments againUl5assing the water bonds. tated. We are devoting a great deal of space to The "plan" is not really a plan at all, but The water board and some of the state's these arguments, basically because they a highly speculative, sometimes dishonest, biologists seem to disagree on the effects of have not been presented in the daily press. and always optimistic scheme for spending the giant canal system on the ecology of We also have tried to balance these criti- a monumental hunk of Texans' money, the state. Del Weniger in this issue charges cisms with answers from the head of the mainly to replenish the water supplies of that the plan would totally alter the Water Development Board and from Stuart West and South Texas irrigators and oil and ecology of Texas — for the worse. Long, the working owner of a Capitol news sulphur producers. These people have ex- Some scientists fear that a water plan of service and a strong defender of the water ploited their water resources, and now they the magnitude contemplated by the WDB plan. want the state and the federal government would cause serious climatological changes, If nothing else, these articles should to pump six trillion gallons of water for but, again, nobody really knows, because convince the careful reader that it is irrigation alone, uphill 3,500 feet over 800 the WDB has not requested a study of this premature to authorize the largest bond miles from the mouth of the Mississippi to subject. issue in history for the Water Development the High Plains, so that they can continue There are serious questions as to the Board's use. The board's vague water plan using water in the manner to which they condition the Mississippi River water will has provided the state with many more have become accustomed. But, despite be in by the time it reaches Texas. Howard questions than it has answers. what the Committee of 500 may say, what Boswell, executive director of the WDB is good for the state's big farmers and big (see interview, this issue) says it is assumed industrialists is not necessarily good for the that the state's Water Quality Board will people of Texas. make sure the water is clean enough for its It may be futile to criticize the water various uses. But the Observer has watched plan, because there are no assurances that the Water Quality Board since its forma- 174 arm it will be implemented by the Water tion, and our conclusion is that it basically Development Board if the bond issue is is an agency for licensing polluters. It approved. The WDB actually would be would be dangerous to leave the quality of rimeadateata receiving $3.5 billion to use as it pleases. the imported water in the hands of the Still, having nothing more substantial to go Water Quality Board. The Obseriieir recommends aye votes for on, we must look to the plan to get some the other eight racrnendments on the ballot clue as to what the money will be used for. on Aug. 5, particularly Amendment No. 5, raising the ceiling on welfare payments in M OST OF THE state's daily news- the state. THERE ARE some deadly serious papers have endorsed the water bond issue, Amendment No. 3 should be favored by questions to be answered before a compre- editorializing with great assurance that, those who wish improved service from hensive water plan should be approved, let although the plan is expensive, there is no their state government. Increased pay for alone funded. alternative if Texas is to have the water it legislators would mean we could have The Water Development Board's esti- desperately needs. Wrong. O'Rourke points full-time lawmakers, not just the service, mates on the amount of water Texas will out that Lyndon Johnson commissioned a primarily, of those who view state govern- need in 2020 may be much too high. They federal study of Texas' water needs in ment as sort of a hobby. Presently, most definitely are too high if one refuses to go 1958. Governor Daniel jettisoned the members of the Legislature are those who along with the theory that as the High study because he and others feared that the can afford, because of personal financial Plains goes, so goes the state. No one federal government would have control of security or having occupations from which actually knows how much water the state the program. The U.S. Study Commission they can take off for substantial periods of has, let alone how much it is going to need, — Texas came to some drastically different time. In other words, most people who because the hydrological studies made so conclusions concerning the state's water work 8-5 five or more days a week are not far are not thorough enough. needs. able to become legislators, not at $4,800 a The WDB's estimates on the number of The Committee of 500 assures voters year. people who will be living in Texas, espe- that it is safe to entrust the WDB with $3.5 Amendment No. 9, providing annual cially West and South Texas, in 2020 may billion because the WDB will have to get legislative sessions, would be another step be too high. the Legislature's approval before it floats towards modernizing Texas government, The benefit-cost estimates made by the any of the bonds. The Legislature had a and permit more adequate governmental board are misleading. (See hydrologist chance to debate the water plan this spring, administration from Austin. A persuasive Terry O'Rourke's article in this issue. The but it did not. The resolution bringing the argument in favor of this amendment are total cost estimate of $9 billion — or is it bond issue to a vote might have been a the 27 special sessions we have had since $10 billion? — in state and federal money resolution congratulating the Apollo crew, 1931, which in many cases have meant that for the amount of controversy it caused. we have had and needed annual sessions, 2 The Texas Observer The Observer doubts that more than a anyway. The Plan in Summary Austin oil from wells that have produced once but In addition, every river basin in the state Texas voters are being asked to consider must be reworked for additional produc- would be altered by construction of 32 a number of complex questions in deter- tion after a certain amount of oil is reservoirs, hundreds of miles of canals, and mining whether to authorize issuance of pumped out. The plan also promises to aid storage facilities. $3.5 billion worth of bonds to finance the the fishing and recreation industries, and to To pay off the $3.5 billion Texas share development of an extensive water plan to bring ample water to every major Texas of the plan, the WDB is now urging cities, meet the state's needs in the coming 50 city. But the key word in the plan is agricultural areas, and regions with similar years. Put simply, the plan is based on irrigation. economic interests to set up "master water taking water from the Mississippi River, districts" with taxing powers to contract and moving it across Louisiana to East M ORE THAN 7.5 million acre-feet with the board for purchase of the water Texas. In East Texas that water, plus what of water would be delivered annually for once the plan is underway. Federal costs of is termed surplus water that runs annually the project are estimated to be around $6.5 across that section of the state will be billion. collected in giant reservoirs (that will in- Mary Beth S Rogers "After paying almost $10 billion in state undate an area of Texas equal to the and federal taxes, we'll still have to pay the dimensions of Connecticut) for redistribu- cost of water delivery," said one West tion to agricultural West and South Texas. irrigation in north central Texas, the High Texan. "And the farther we live from the Those two regions are said to have a water Plains, and the Trans-Pecos area. This is original water source, the more we'll have shortage,* a shortage that is expected to enough water to cover all the irrigated land to pay." become more pronounced if certain as- in Texas today to a one-foot depth. More Since West Texans have always had good water supply, sumptions of the state's water planners are water would be delivered to the Coastal reasons to worry about their surprising borne out in later developments.