Officials look to protect Southeast Texas water rights but say statewide needs are political reality requiring accommodation
By SARAH MOORE
Beaumont Enterprise
A bill passed recently by the Texas House of Representatives offers protection to waterway ecosystems, proposes 19 new reservoir sites - and leaves junior water rights where they are.
Which is how Southeast Texas water officials want it.
Junior water rights give the basin of origin first dibs on the water that flows through it. Any contractual obligations to provide water to other regions are “junior” to the rights of the senior right holder.
In the event of a drought, junior water rights mean a region can refuse to deliver water until its own needs have been met.
This is more important than ever to Southeast Texas, where refinery expansions and a subsequent population increase will greatly increase the region’s water needs, water officials say.
Without these rights, the Legislature would have the power to determine the destiny - not to mention the destination - of Southeast Texas’ surface water, said Lonnie Arrington, Lower Neches Valley Authority legislative affairs chairman.
However, in a state where a dwindling water reserve is going to be serving the needs of a rapidly growing population, retention of senior rights by small regions means they’re going to have to play ball.
Junior water rights have been under attack every legislative session since 1997 and this session has been no exception.
Arrington and others said while in the past the region’s stance has been that the water is ours and we can do with it as we like, political realities demand that Southeast Texas be a team player.
“Texas has water shortages; we have excess water. We have to be willing to be proactive and help - it’s just that it’s not a free ride,” he said.
The bill offers protection to Texas wetlands by taking into account adequate freshwater inflows to bays and estuaries when parceling out water for various needs.
“Now these downstream flows are part of the formula used when diverting water for municipal and industrial needs,” state Rep. Allan Ritter, D-Nederland, said.
He and others say this is important for the health of Texas waterways.
“This will keep our bays and estuaries the way our good Lord wanted them to be - as a nesting ground for all our fish, shrimp and the like. Those have to be protected,” Ritter said.
The reservoirs are the most controversial aspect of this bill, he added.
Of those that would be considered under the bill, sites in Anderson and Cherokee are closest to Southeast Texas.
Others are in Freestone, Fannin, Red River, Franklin and Titus counties, according to the text of the bill passed by the house.
“There’ll be a whole long fight about flooding the dam to build the lake,” Ritter said. “We’ve had those fights a few times in East Texas.”
However, that part of the bill is only a recommendation, Shaun Davis, Ritter’s chief of staff, pointed out.
No funding has been allocated and no definite decisions have been made.
“These are the sites that should be considered,” he explained.
The sites of future reservoirs are still open “to be discussed and debated,” Arrington said.
The bill, known as Senate Bill 3, now is in a Senate committee, and Ritter expects it to pass the full Senate.
Another bill, authored by William Callegari, R-Katy, also takes a jab at junior water rights as a way for regions to control their own surface water.
Callegari says junior rights discourage water transactions from region to region.
However, others dispute this.
The real obstacle to water transactions is having the infrastructure to move the water in a cost-effective way, Ritter said.
House Bill 911 (aptly named as it is a terrorist action against junior water rights, Arrington joked) would eviscerate junior water rights.
Arrington believes that HB 911 won’t make it through the Legislature, but he said it still is important for residents to support their elected officials in the battle.
He gave good marks to Southeast Texas’ congressmen, who he said “marched in lockstep” on junior water rights, defending them ably so far.