Groundwater Rights

Recently the Texas Supreme Court made its much anticipated, by farmers, conservationist and state officials alike, ruling on groundwater rights.  It ruled that the landowner legally owns the groundwater under their property.  This is the same idea used with oil, if it is under your property it belongs to you.   The law also states that the landowner may be owed compensation if state or local authorities have gone or go too far on limiting the amount of water the landowner can use.  One of the problems with this law is it does not define what  "too far" means.   According to Mose Bucele’s article in StateImpact Texas, Tom Mason, attorney, believes that we should expect that this ruling will provoke a flood of lawsuits regarding groundwater and owner’s rights

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StateImpact Texas quotes Mason as saying, “Where you stand depends on where you sit I guess,” says Mason. “Depending on whether you’re a land owner who has a well who wants to sell water to a city that needs it, or if you’re a landowner who’s afraid that your well is going to grow dry, because your neighbors well is going to produce water that’s going to be sold to someone [else] during the drought.”  As you can this this issue is causing mix emotions among farmers and conservationist alike.

What does this ruling mean when Texas is in one of the worst droughts in its history?  J.O. Dawdy,   a farmer for 36 years, stated, “The aquifer is the lifeblood of this place,” “We’ve certainly got no interest in wasting it.”  However, conservationists are still concerned with the Supreme Court ruling and how it is going to affect Texas’ water supply.  Laura Huffman of the Nature Conservancy, was quoted by StateImpact Texas saying, “The state is counting in its water plan on 25 percent of the water to come from conservation.” she says. “Now, with groundwater, how do you incentivize private landowners to reduce their use of this resource?” 

Unfortunately, this is a double-edged sword.  I can appreciate that this is a farmer’s livelihood and they have ownership rights to the water on their property.  I also can see how local and state agencies are concerned about water conservation and what this means to all Texans.  Right now it is too early to know the effects of the ruling; we will have to wait and see and hope for rain in the meantime.