Hear speakers from: The Dixon Foundation, Botanical Research Institute of Texas, The Nature Conservancy and others talk about water management, preserving your land, rare species, working with oil and gas companies and much more. Then stay for the cocktail reception.
For the full agenda, visit here.

2008 Photographer/Landowner Symposium: Ranch Nature Photography For Fun And Profit
Images for Conservation Fund (ICF) and Texas Agrilife Extension, in conjunction with Texas Parks & Wildlife Department present Nature Photography Symposium: Ranch Nature Photography for Fun and Profit to unite landowners and photographers in the new enterprise of Private Land Nature Photo Tourism for Conservation. The Saturday, March 29th Symposium will be held at Texas A & M Kingsville.
For more information www.imagesforconservation.org/pro-tour/events

Holistic Management Financial Planning Class, April 10, 10:30am to 5pm at Homestead Heritage Farm, Elm Mott, TX
Would you like to get a handle on your finances and time? Learn how to prioritize your expenses and time management so you live the life you want.

Holistic Management® Financial Planning is much more than budgeting. It helps you learn how to say NO to things or people who don't improve your quality of life and YES to a value-centered life. This course will help you take the stress out of financial planning as you learn techniques on how to prioritize expenses, increase income and profit, and keep on track. This course is for anyone who would like more time and money to improve their life, their community, and the land. No experience with Holistic Management necessary. Dr. Ann Adams, Certified Educator from holistic management International, comes to us from Albuquerque to teach this advanced class you have been asking for. Cost of the class is $75 for HMI-Texas members / $90 for non-members, $135/$165 couples price. Register by April 1, online or with Jeanie Dreinhofer (jdreinhofer@hrm-texas.org or 325-348-3014).
For more information

Holistic Management -What it can do for You, April 10, 1 to 5pm at Homestead Heritage Farm, Elm Mott, TX
A four hour session led by Peggy Maddox, Certified Educator from HMI West Ranch in Ozona, Texas, will focus on Holistic Management and its benefits for you and your family. Participants will learn how Holistic Management deals with social, economic and environmental challenges simultaneously. Listen, experience, and learn how to get control of your life and make decisions in a sustainable way. Cost of the class is $45 for HMI-Texas members / $55 for non-members, $80/100 couples. Register by April 1, online or with Jeanie Dreinhofer (jdreinhofer@hrm-texas.org or 325-348-3014).
For more information

Value Added Living-In Community, the April 11-12 HRM Annual Meeting at Homestead Heritage Farm, Elm Mott, TX
Did you ever think a farming community from the early 1900's had it right? Strong values of family and community working together in peace and harmony to grow the healthiest food and honor the Earth and the Creator with handiwork so lovingly honed it makes you gasp. Homestead Heritage Farm is living this ideal of a sustainable community of sustainable family farms held together by what they call "traditional values" and faith in the Divine order shaping their lives.

We have asked this community to host us for our 2008 Annual Meeting so we can see this holism in action, learn how values can lead to a Quality of Life, to Forms of Production and a Sustainable Resource Base that side-steps many aspects of our modern American culture seen as not congruent with these values. In addition we will be introduced to some of the lost arts of sustainable agrarian life.

Thursday workshops in Holistic Management Financial Planning and What Holistic Management Can Do for You, provide the setting and the understanding of holism. The Thursday evening social, 6 to 7:30pm at the Fairfield Inn& Suites, Waco North offers our yearly networking and connecting opportunity for members and others interested in the mutual support of this not-for-profit organization.

Friday offers an exploration of the role of community, values and agrarian skills in sustainability. Homestead Heritage Farm’s Butch Tindell will give the foundations of the community and present some real life examples of holism within the community and within individuals.

We will form small groups to take each of 4 different tours of this most amazing farm made up of little family farms in a sustaining community. Tours include: a walking tour of the working demonstration homestead; a horse-drawn hayride tour of the upper land with a stop at the scenic overlook of the Brazos River bottom where they farm with horses; a craft village tour of the woodworking/furniture shop, pottery shop, blacksmith shop, restored barn (circa 1760) which serves as a retail shop for our handmade crafts, deli and bakery and the restored gristmill (circa 1750); and a tour of the restored historical buildings, explaining the history and the historical construction methods of each building.

Lunch and supper on Friday and lunch on Saturday are included will be created onsite with home grown grass-fed meats and other goodies. There will be time for shopping in the craft store before supper.

After supper Friday evening Holistic Management International’s Executive Director Peter Holter will take our concepts of community global with stories of holistically managed communities, farms and ranches all over the world. Some use modern technologies to create sustainability and others use traditionally low-tech methods. you will feel connected to a worldwide movement to create healthier lands for a sustainable future.

Saturday morning is a time to come together as the HRM community. We will have our annual business meeting, elect new directors, hear the plans for the future and participate in envisioning our path for the years to come.

After lunch small groups will re-form to choose four different short classes in some of the introduced to some of the lost arts of sustainable agrarian life such as: beekeeping, orchards and vineyards, cheese-making, spinning & weaving and home schooling. We will adjourn about 4pm.

Costs for the 2-day program, including 3 meals, are: $140 for HMI-Texas members / $160 for non-members, $260/$300 couples. Register by April 1, online or with Jeanie Dreinhofer (jdreinhofer@hrm-texas.org or 325-348-3014).
For more information

From Policy to Reality: Advanced Urban Water Conservation in Texas
Friday, April 18th, 2008 at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Austin, Texas $35 registration fee includes lunch and conference materials.

Planners predict Texas' population will more than double over the next 40 years. Supporting this growth and keeping our state's natural water resources viable into the foreseeable future will require that we increase our emphasis on advanced water conservation and better water efficiency in all urban sectors. A number of cities around the country - including a few in Texas -are already pushing the envelope on "standard" conservation strategies. It's time to learn from these efforts and advance beyond the standard.

Join us at our 8th Annual State-wide Water Conference as we dedicate the whole day to discussions on Urban Water Conservation. We'll hear about what the future may hold for conservation policy in Texas but ground it in some real life examples from cities, industrial, and commercial leaders who are making it happen now. Join us as we: •Explore energy-efficiency trends that translate into water savings

•Hear how current and emerging technologies in the high-tech sector will benefit our water supply

•Learn about water conservation innovations in the commercial sector

•Delve into how standards developed within the Green Building Movement add to urban water savings

•Discuss how to move conservation policy into implementation

For more information: www.texaswatermatters.org/state_water_conference_2008.htm

FORECAST: CLIMATE CHANGE Impacts on TEXAS WATER
April 28-30, 2008 at the Texas State Capitol Extension, Austin

This timely conference will take a look at what we know about climate change and what we need to know to prepare for the effects on Texas water availability, and on the communities, both natural and human, that depend on reliable sources of water.

Over the three days, Forecast: Climate Change impacts on Texas Water 2008, will highlight national climate change scientists who have conducted cutting-edge work in the prediction of global warming and the impending changes on the earth’s climate. It will also highlight climatologists and scientists who are working to understand what these impacts mean to Texas and our water resources.

We will examine our current body of knowledge and ask the hard questions: How do Texans address the uncertainties regarding regional and state-wide climate change and associated impacts? With all the progress Texas has made thus far in water resource planning, have we done enough?

What do we currently understand of the vulnerabilities of Texas’ water supplies and the biological systems which depend upon its availability? What are the agricultural and economic impacts on various regions within the state? What tools do we need to better understand future impacts? What actions do we need to take to face the climate change impacts to Texas and to ensure our water’s future?

We invite you to join us in the most comprehensive look yet into climate change and its impacts on Texas water resources. The future is uncertain - water is at stake.

This conference is sponsored by River Systems Institute Texas State University - San Marcos and co-sponsored by Environmental Science Institute and Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, Texas Water Resources Institute, Texas A&M University, Guadalupe - Blanco River Authority, Lower Colorado River Authority, Magnolia Charitable Trust, Meadows Foundation, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, United States Geological Survey.
For more information: www.rivers.txstate.edu/CCTW/CCTW08index.htm

Kids on the Land - May 2-8, and 14-15, 2008 at the West Ranch, Ozona, TX
Elementary Educational Opportunity at a Holistic Management Learning Site!

Interested in working with children? Join us for the second offering of Kids on the Land. Develop our future resource base--KIDS! Get your hands dirty! Become a LINK (Learning In Nature with Kids) and share Holistic Management with Kids on the Land!

This valuable field experience at the West Ranch, in Ozona Texas, begins with two days preparing the field experience instructional delivery, and 4 fun-filled days with students. A practitioners’ guide for taking Kids on the Land to other places is being developed. Peggy Maddox, Director of Education at the West Ranch, is seeking interested individuals, especially those passionate about working with kids. Room, board, and some travel stipend provided. Please call soon, as space is limited. Date is May 2-8. With additional opportunity May 14-15. Contact Peggy at 325-392-2292 or westgift@hughes.net. Read article from 2007.
For more information

Riparian Assessment Workshop In Uvalde May 6
The Nueces River Authority with support from the Dixon Water Foundation and in cooperation with the Natural Resources Conservation Service is sponsoring a free workshop on Assessing the Proper Functioning Condition (PFC) of Riparian Areas.

This will involve one day of classroom instruction followed by one day in the field applying the methodology. Technical references and other course material will be provided. Register today!! For more information: www.texas-wildlife.org/PDFs/2008Riparian%20Workshop%20Announcement%20Uvalde.pdf(pdf)

Windmills Anyone? HRM field day June 21 at the 69 Ranch, Maryneal, TX
Spend the day with us at the beautiful 69 Ranch in Maryneal, Texas (in Nolan County, south of Sweetwater) from 10 am to about 3 or 4pm. We will visit the wind towers and get the feel of what it is like to be around them. We will gaze at their controversial contribution to the landscape visuals. Then we will sit down with Sweetwater mayor and executive director of the West Texas Wind Energy Consortium, Greg Wortham.Greg is internationally known as the man to go to for information on wind energy, lease agreements and any other concerns you might have. Wortham was keynote speaker at the Germany-USA wind energy conference Feb. 14 in Berlin, Germany. The event hoped to recruit German companies to the U.S. and specifically to Texas. “This is a tremendous opportunity for Sweetwater, Nolan County, and West Texas,” Wortham said. “West Texas already ranks as the fifth largest 'nation' for wind energy operations, and Nolan County ranks as the seventh largest 'nation' by itself… home to the three largest wind energy projects in the U.S.,” Wortham said, “including the largest project in the world. West Texas is by far the most intensive development region on the globe.”

After a catered barbecue lunch from Big Boys Barbecue of Sweetwater, our host, Kathy Dickson will tell us the colorful history of this wonderful land on the headwaters spring of sweet water. The land has been in her family for many generations. Kathy will show us her landscaping with native plants and native rocks, her late husband Temple Dickson’s amazing meandering rock walls, his cedar mulching process and the cattle operation of about 450 mama cows. Don’t miss this opportunity to experience the presence of the big wind turbines on this peaceful ranch and ask Greg and Kathy all your burning questions.

Fees to attend are $25 for HMI-Texas members, $35 for others. Register by June 16 online or with Jeanie Dreinhofer (jdreinhofer@hrm-texas.org or 325-348-3014).

For more information

We got lots of flack about offering our windfarm field day. We want people to be able to see for themselves the pros and cons of the windfarms. Criticized for this appearing to be a pro wind farm day, we will do some additional planning to balance the day and we invite your advice and questions. -Peggy Cole, HMI-Texas program director

See wind articles below to balance the beam.

In the fall - October 25, 2008 - Mob grazing, October 26-27, 2008 - Holistic Management Land Planning, October 28-29, 2008 Holistic Management Biological Monitoring. Watch for info - Decatur area

Brown County Judge Ray West and Brown County Commissioners:

Ray, as you know, I was born and raised in Brown County. My Dad's ancestors and the Cook family have owned land and lived in northwest Brown County for ~125 years. My wife and I recently retired and moved from Austin back to Brown County, however, we have personally owned land and paid taxes in the May ISD in Brown County for over 30 years. In addition, we now own a home and live 2 miles southwest of Brownwood off the Brady Highway.

I appreciate the difficult decision that the wind farm tax abatement issue has thrown into the lap of the Brown County Commissioners Court. Regarding this matter, I would like to make the following points:

First, I respectfully take this opportunity to state my complete and total opposition to the Brown County Commissioners Court providing tax abatements to the companies building these wind farms. I believe it is totally uncalled for, unjust, and does not provide for the good of the residents of Brown County. Please do not provide tax abatement for the wind companies to build in Brown County. These companies will be using our roads, utilities, services just like the rest of the citizens of Brown County and should pay their own way.

Second, as you are aware I recently retired as the Executive Director of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD), and by profession, I am a wildlife biologist. I have followed the controversy of wind farms across the state of Texas and the nation very closely and while I was the Executive Director at TPWD our science staff working closely with landowners, wind farm companies, and several conservation organizations to create voluntary guidelines regarding the site selection of wind farms to reduce the negative impact of wind farms on wildlife, especially birds. Please note that I said "reduce", not "eliminate"; wind farms kill birds. There have been several wind farms across North American that have been documented to have killed thousands and thousands of birds annually. There is no question that wind farms kill birds; lots of birds. However, in view of the strong political support bought by lobbyists hired by the wind farm companies, there currently is insufficient data to stop the construction of wind farms on a biological basis, and, as you know, there are no regulations to protect wildlife, or the "view shed", or the neighbors negatively impacted by wind farms. Regulations on wind farms are badly needed and they will come in time. Our state elected officials are remiss in that they have not already provided needed regulation of the wind farm industry. Hopefully, our state elected officials will address this issue ASAP in the upcoming Legislative Session.

Finally, this business of the "view shed" is very important to the vast majority of the citizens who will receive no benefit from the wind farms. By site location requirements, wind farms are highly visible to the citizens of Texas. However, people just do not want to see them on the horizon; they do not want look at them! I believe this is especially true if the County Commissioners Court provides tax abatements to the wind farm companies…which means that all those citizens who receive no benefit and who do not want to look at them are required to make up the difference in their taxes to pay for roads and county services which the wind farm operators use daily...and they have to look at them everyday. In addition, it is apparent that property values of surrounding lands from which wind farms are visible are significantly reduced. Brown County is blessed in that it is a scenic, beautiful landscape with numerous beautiful vistas. Please do not encourage/support the construction of wind farms, which, in many folks' opinions, will ruin those beautiful vistas and reduce property values.

I am a strong supporter of private property rights. If a landowner wants to built a wind farm or a single power generating propeller on his property, I support him having that right to do so as long as it does not harm his neighbors or the citizens of the county, or the environment/natural resources...and as long as it does not cost me additional money for him to do it.

I respectfully request that you DENY any/all tax abatements for wind farms in Brown County.

Thank you.
Robert L. and Maria Cook
Brownwood, TX

Once I thought that with proper laws and setbacks wind turbines could play a limited role in our area, but now I see the true wind damage: eminent domain, the poster child for wind power. Property rights are the heart of the issue. Can rights to profit of a few trump the rights of many? Do wind power supporters sanctify the seizure of people's private property to make a project feasible?

Transmission lines will be needed for the Galloo and all the proposed wind projects. Seems that in making a project feasible, energy companies get a legal right to confiscate your land against your will for transmission lines. This gives them total power over our property rights and our private property.

Eminent domain could be used for turbine placement and total number of units, all in the name of feasibility and "the public good." Local laws, no matter how restrictive, will be irrelevant once eminent domain is unleashed.

All three levels of government seem unable to deal with the issue fairly. The state is bent on producing 25 percent green energy at any cost, not protecting rural citizens' safety and individual rights. The county cares only about the money, how much they get and who controls it without any responsibility for health, quality of life and property rights of all taxpayers. Local governments (some) try, but are no match for billion-dollar companies promising thousands of dollars to landowners as fast as they can.

Seduced by money that's lavished on them, some officials and landowners ignore problems while trying to railroad through projects before anyone knows what's happening. Some local officials are attempting to fix or create laws protecting all our rights, not giving them away, but eminent domain overrules them all.

I do understand the right of people to profit from their land, but do a few property owners have a right to permanently change all of our land? I can't dam my creek and flood another's property because there is no inherent right to affect, alter or damage another's property on the grounds that you've a right to do whatever you want with yours.

Believing the public good is served generating profits for energy companies, money for a few landowners and tax revenues is just wrong. It is no justification for turning our entire area into an industrial zone, assaulting our property rights and values, dictating our quality of life and even taking our land under threat of prosecution.

Ken Knapp

Wind energy offers many advantages, which explains why it's the fastest-growing energy source in the world. Research efforts are aimed at addressing the challenges to greater use of wind energy.

Advantages

Wind energy is fueled by the wind, so it's a clean fuel source. Wind energy doesn't pollute the air like power plants that rely on combustion of fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas. Wind turbines don't produce atmospheric emissions that cause acid rain or greenhouse gasses.

Wind energy is a domestic source of energy, produced in the United States. The nation's wind supply is abundant.

Wind energy relies on the renewable power of the wind, which can't be used up. Wind is actually a form of solar energy; winds are caused by the heating of the atmosphere by the sun, the rotation of the earth, and the earth's surface irregularities.

Wind energy is one of the lowest-priced renewable energy technologies available today, costing between 4 and 6 cents per kilowatt-hour, depending upon the wind resource and project financing of the particular project.

Wind turbines can be built on farms or ranches, thus benefiting the economy in rural areas, where most of the best wind sites are found. Farmers and ranchers can continue to work the land because the wind turbines use only a fraction of the land. Wind power plant owners make rent payments to the farmer or rancher for the use of the land.

Disadvantages

Wind power must compete with conventional generation sources on a cost basis. Depending on how energetic a wind site is, the wind farm may or may not be cost competitive. Even though the cost of wind power has decreased dramatically in the past 10 years, the technology requires a higher initial investment than fossil-fueled generators.

The major challenge to using wind as a source of power is that the wind is intermittent and it does not always blow when electricity is needed. Wind energy cannot be stored (unless batteries are used); and not all winds can be harnessed to meet the timing of electricity demands.

Good wind sites are often located in remote locations, far from cities where the electricity is needed.

Wind resource development may compete with other uses for the land and those alternative uses may be more highly valued than electricity generation.

Although wind power plants have relatively little impact on the environment compared to other conventional power plants, there is some concern over the noise produced by the rotor blades, aesthetic (visual) impacts, and sometimes birds have been killed by flying into the rotors. Most of these problems have been resolved or greatly reduced through technological development or by properly siting wind plants.

Learn more about wind energy at www1.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/

Carlos Guerra, San Antonio Express-News, 03/18/2008

In the Rio Grande Valley, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sued dozens of individuals, local governments and agencies for refusing to grant it "access" to their land so it can take it for the border wall.

After refusing access to her 3-acre plot, Eloisa Tamez was sued. She countersued and a federal judge has ordered DHS to negotiate with her in good faith.

Hundreds of miles north, in one of the Hill Country's most pristine ranches, Martha, Mary and Bebe Fenstermaker are girding for their fifth legal battle since 1989 to keep their land.

The city, Bexar County and the San Antonio River Authority want it for a dam to control flooding downstream by flooding the sisters' modest home sites, and much of the rest of their ranch, a federally registered historic district dotted with 19th-century limestone structures.

Then, there are the thousands who have found all or parts of their farms and ranches under thick lines on Texas Department of Transportation maps. TxDOT wants their land for the Trans-Texas Corridor, which will take as many as 8,000 miles of land in 1,200-foot-wide swathes for privately operated utility easements, multi-lane toll roads and railroad tracks.

These are just a few of the reasons "eminent domain" is appearing more often in Texas news reports. And as we get more Texans — but not more land — expect to hear more about governments using eminent domain to fix earlier mistakes — and for less noble purposes.

Governments' seizure powers predate our nation. Based on the notion that the sovereign owns all its territory and landholders own only an interest in the land's use, Common Law empowered monarchs to take whatever they wanted.

When America's colonies gained independence, they assumed eminent domain powers by proclaiming themselves the new sovereigns. In 1791, the U.S. Constitution was amended and eminent domain was implicitly recognized — but also limited — in the Fifth Amendment, which states, "nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation."

By 1829, however, the U.S. Supreme Court redefined "public good" by allowing states to empower private railroads to seize land. By 1954, this relaxation led the high court to let the District of Columbia take properties that were not blighted along with others nearby that were and hand them all to private parties for profitable redevelopment.

And in 2005, the court allowed New London, Conn., to seize a totally unblighted neighborhood and sell it to a private developer for a project city fathers believe will bring the city greater tax revenues.

Other eminent domain issues that are emerging involve local jurisdictions that, increasingly, are using eminent domain to provide infrastructure improvements — such as new schools, wider roads and drainage projects — that have been made necessary by uncontrolled development and low impact fees.

While the courts have, on the one hand, given governments greater latitude to use eminent domain to help private developers, they have also held that at times, "just compensation" is also due when governments' actions diminish the value of land that has not been seized by, for example, making it less desirable or less accessible.

In 2007, the Texas Legislature addressed this very issue with HB 2006, which allowed landowners to sue for "diminished access" to their property, instead of having to show "material and substantial damages" before seeking compensation. It passed but Gov. Rick Perry vetoed it.

As growing populations make land-use restrictions more necessary, we are going to face more policy questions that will revolve around eminent domain.

It is clearly time for Congress and the Legislature to rewrite laws to assure that eminent domain powers truly serve the public good — and aren't just used to fatten private wallets.

To contact Carlos Guerra, call (210) 250-3545 or e-mail cguerra@express-news.net

Understanding Eminent Domain: Texas Landholder’s Bill of Rights
by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott

Since Stephen F. Austin first helped settlers establish new roots west of the Sabine River, Texas has always been a place that respects private property rights. With three times more privately owned land than any other state, Texas leads the nation in private property ownership. From the Panhandle to the Piney Woods, Texas is a place where citizens—not the government—own the land.

The distinction matters because private landownership lies at the heart of our democratic, free-market system. Recognizing this important principle, President William Howard Taft once observed, “Next to the right of liberty, the right of property is the most important individual right guaranteed by the Constitution.”

To ensure that Texas landowners are informed about their rights as private property owners, the state Legislature asked my office to draft a Texas Landowner’s Bill of Rights. As Attorney General, I can neither make new laws nor change existing law; the Texas Legislature has that exclusive authority. The ultimate goal of the Texas Landowner’s Bill of Rights is to make existing laws accessible by explaining complicated legal concepts in a manner that can be easily understood.

The central focus of the Texas Landowner’s Bill of Rights is eminent domain. Although both the U.S. and Texas Constitutions both contain protections for property owners, some governmental and private entities have the ability to take private property for public use under certain circumstances.

For example, when a local power company needs to build a new power line, it can acquire private land to house infrastructure that serves the public interest. But when even the most narrow sliver of land is taken for a public purpose, the landowner must be adequately compensated for their property.

Under Texas law, eminent domain is the legal authority to take private property for public use. The takings process itself is called condemnation. Effective February 1, 2008, Texas property cannot be taken unless the condemning authority first provides the Landowner’s Bill of Rights to the affected property’s owners. All rights outlined in this document apply every time any entity uses eminent domain to take a Texas landowner’s private property.

The Texas Landowner’s Bill of Rights consists of 10 basic principles:
1. You are entitled to receive adequate compensation if your property is taken for a public use.
2. Your property can only be taken for a public use.
3. Your property can only be taken by a governmental entity or private entity authorized by law to do so.
4. The entity that wants to take your property must notify you about its interest in taking your property.
5. The entity proposing to take your property must provide you with an assessment of the adequate compensation for your property.
6. The entity proposing to take your property must make a good faith offer to buy the property before it files a lawsuit to condemn the property.
7. You may hire an appraiser or other professional to determine the value of your property or to assist you in any condemnation proceeding.
8. You may hire an attorney to negotiate with the condemning entity and to represent you in any legal proceedings involving the condemnation.
9. Before your property is condemned, you are entitled to a hearing before a court-appointed panel that includes three special commissioners.
10. If you are unsatisfied with the compensation awarded by the special commissioners, or if you question whether the taking of your property was proper, you have the right to a trial by jury.

The Texas Landowner’s Bill of Rights, along with an explanation of the condemnation process, is available www.texasattorneygeneral.gov.

Texans should always consult the Texas Landowner’s Bill of Rights when their property faces condemnation. In a state whose citizens have a storied relationship with the land, where 95% of the property is privately owned, it is critical that residents know and understand their legal rights as private property owners.

By Kenneth Dierschke, TFB President, Friday, March 7, 2008

As Texas Farm Bureau leaders, we have many issues that can occupy our time. With that said, I have been asked, "Why all the focus now on eminent domain reform, which won’t be decided until the Legislature meets next year?" It’s a fair question.

In 2007 we scaled a difficult obstacle in getting House Bill 2006 through both houses of the Legislature by overwhelming margins only to face the heartbreak of a gubernatorial veto. We have felt the highs and the lows on this issue.

Our objective remains the same. We intend to pass a bill identical to HB 2006, early in the session, with veto proof margins. To do so, we must keep the issue of eminent domain alive in the collective mind of Texas citizens.

Some city and county government officials have managed to keep a low profile on the issue. One of the things that must happen if we are to be successful is that eminent domain reform must become the local issue that it rightly is.

The good reasons for eminent domain reform are apparent to anyone who takes the trouble to look. There are thousands of entities with the power to take property for the public good and as things stand now, they can do it fairly easily and not always at a fair price. The condemning entity is not even required by law to make a good faith offer.

Then there is the issue of diminished access. For decades in this state, if a portion of property was taken and that taking reduced your access to the remaining property, then you were rightly compensated for this lost access. This was done without breaking the condemning entities.

Texas property owners lost compensation for diminished access in the Schmidt case of 1993 that was decided by the Texas Supreme Court.

Compensation for diminished access was fixed in HB 2006. This was the reason given for the veto, along with some outlandish claims about what it would cost the state.

There are hundreds of local officials who are sympathetic to eminent domain reform, and they deserve credit for that. Others were very quiet publicly as they encouraged the governor to veto HB 2006.

County Farm Bureau leaders have been surveying their local elected officials, distributing a five-point questionnaire. We intend to find out exactly where our local officials stand. When this process is complete in May, Texas Farm Bureau will publicize the results, including posting of all the responses, on the TFB website. We will succeed in making this a local issue and in keeping the issue foremost in public debate.

I am very proud of the county Farm Bureau leaders who have participated in this important project. They are surveying county judges, county commissioners and city officials in some of the towns and cities in their counties.

We need high levels of participation. We definitely need the help of County Farm Bureau leaders that have not yet surveyed their local officials. For any assistance needed on this project, contact Regan Beck in the Austin Legislative office. Regan’s phone number is 254-399-5085. His e-mail address is rbeck@txfb.org.

Achieving eminent domain reform is the top legislative priority for Texas Farm Bureau. Together, we will be successful in this important policy goal.

Texas Farm Bureau
www.txfb.org/

Anne MacKinnon, Wyoming Livestock Roundup, www.wylr.net

New subdivisions are popping up on the fringes of many Wyoming towns. How can we take on growth so that Wyoming will have a strong economy and still be a place where we all want to live? How can we keep the reasons to live here " the ranch and farm lands and people, the small towns, the chance to be part of a community the plains, the mountains, the rivers, the forests, and the open views?

We have to work to create more attractive choices for everyone who is part of the market that is spurring residential development here. We have to make the market reflect the real costs and benefits to Wyoming of each choice made in residential development.

The people who make choices are in all parts of the market. They are landowners, developers, housing consumers, and current residential owners.

They all need better choices. Landowners, however, especially need better choices. Their need doesn’t always get the attention it deserves. So in this column, let’s concentrate on landowners.

Wyoming ranchers and farmers are key players in what residential development occurs, and where. Of all those who love this state, ranchers and farmers also have some of the greatest passion for the land and water and open spaces of Wyoming. They don’t often relish seeing the landscape eaten up by ranchettes.

Right now, though, Wyoming ranchers and farmers have to work in a market that works in favor of ranchette-ization.

The prices offered to turn ranch and farm land into subdivisions get higher and higher. In those prices, agricultural families can’t help but see a rare opportunity. Finally, they have a chance to be paid top dollar for the generations of blood-sweat-and-tears that they’ve put into a place. And, for many, it’s a chance to get out from under bank debt that puts heavy pressure on both them and their land.

Particularly if the prices for their livestock, hay or row crops are low, or if there’s no one in the next generation that wants to take over, Wyoming ranchers and farmers are encouraged by the current market to sell their family place for subdivisions. Even a buyer who wants to keep a ranch as a working place can’t match what sub-dividers can offer.

What about changing the economic equation for Wyoming ranchers and farmers? Perhaps if there were another factor weighing in, more ranchers and farmers could make different choices, and all of Wyoming could benefit.

That other factor might be simply making sure that Wyoming ranchers and farmers get paid for what they really do. If there were more money coming in from running the place as an agricultural operation, it might well be that not as many families would feel their only choice was to sell to a sub-divider. They might be able to pay down the debt. And more young people might feel they had a chance of taking on a place and making it pay as a working operation.

This isn’t going to be a harangue on commodity prices. The idea here is something different: to take a serious look at the non-commodity products of Wyoming ranches and farms.

Wyoming ranchers and farmers don’t just raise hay and livestock or some row crops. They do a lot more. They do a lot that sustains this place we all love. Take a look at water, for instance: well-managed ranch and farm operations maintain clean water, live watersheds, fish habitat, wildlife habitat, and running streams kept alive into late summer by return flow from irrigation.

Basically, Wyoming ranchers and farmers can maintain the spaces, the wide-open views, the whole feel of a Wyoming working landscape that is the core of what developers want to sell. “Your Home on the Range,” the ads say. That landscape is also what the people at the governor’s recent conference, Building the Wyoming We Want, said they want to save.

Then why can’t Wyoming ranchers and farmers be paid for doing something so valuable? Why is selling off their places the only way for them to realize the value of those places? That is something we can try to change. Working together, perhaps Wyoming people can figure out a way to document what ranchers and farmers are doing to sustain the physical environment—the environment that we cherish, that people come from all over to see, and that too many want to buy.

We could set up a system that measures and pays ranchers, farmers and other landowners properly for management activities that sustain and improve that environment. It should be done by and through local organizations " perhaps the conservation districts " with funds that might be held, accounted for, and possibly matched by the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resources Trust Fund. Done right, it could make a difference.

Or it might. It also might not be enough to make a difference; or it could be fool-hardy to fight the tide of change, perhaps turning it in new, unexpected and equally unwanted directions. But it could be important to take this first step towards putting a value on and paying for management that produces such things as clean water and healthy riparian areas.

Meanwhile, another way to change the economics that ranchers and farmers face is to help irrigation districts become active advocates for rural Wyoming life and its infrastructure needs.

Right now, irrigated lands seem to be magnets for new houses " and the new houses are most often a headache for irrigation districts. But if irrigation districts can be helped to acquire the technology and know-how to adapt to a changing world, they could manage that new housing and turn it into a good new source of revenue that would relieve the assessment burden on traditional irrigation district members.

Irrigation districts need to gear up to serve the housing on their projects with raw water for lawns, gardens and pastures, and charge enough to make good money on it. Then the districts could afford to rehabilitate, maintain and upgrade their dams and delivery systems, without overburdening the agricultural irrigators. They could become a much stronger rural voice in discussions with county officials as to whether, where and how new subdivisions will be built. Making this possible could require some changes in federal rules affecting Wyoming districts, and some aid for new expertise among districts through the Wyoming Water Development Commission.

Finally, if ranchers and farmers do decide to sell their land for subdivision, they should have a new option for how they do that. They should be able to shape the new residential
development themselves, to preserve and perpetuate what they care about most on their land.

There are efforts being made in Wyoming to do what is called “cluster development” to design small community groups of houses that cluster around a core of land, often the majority of the original place, that remains working ranch- or farmland. That kind of development can also make the most effective use of space and money, so that roads and water supplies and other services can be built and sustained by the project.

Doing that requires time and money; it’s only possible if the landowner can stay in the process through the development. Then the developer in turn then has an option rarely available now: an alternative to making the big upfront investment in buying the whole ranch right off, to taking on the high capital cost that pushes developers to cut up that land for housing as quickly and cheaply as possible.

Right now cluster development is possible under Wyoming law, but it’s not easy. The easy thing is to slice up the land and sell it without a whole lot of thought, effort, or investment. The Wyoming Legislature’s committee involved in subdivision law needs to take on the task of creating a bill for the 2009 session that would make cluster development the more attractive option.

There is a lot more to talk about: how to give housing consumers and existing residents more choices, for instance. Both those groups need more options than today’s too common stark grids of ranchettes that create debt and tax burdens, and eventually may demand state aid for water systems, but don’t really create communities.

How about incentives for model cluster developments? Or perhaps up-front state financing of key infrastructure - including water and sewer systems - for the kind of development that county officials and local residents endorse? And especially for in-fill projects in town, to keep houses from sprawling across the landscape?

But let’s start with the landowners, and see if there’s a wise way to give them some new options. Wyoming can do it. Now is the time, when we’ve got the energy and enthusiasm that come with prosperity, to figure out how to grow our own way.

Anne MacKinnon, Casper, is a consultant in public discussion of natural resource policy, an adjunct professor for the University of Wyoming's Helga Otto Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources, and a member of the Wyoming Water Development Commission.

By Colleen Schreiber, Livestock Weekly, March 13, 2008

KERRVILLE ˜ The Texas Water Symposium, created through the partnership of Schreiner University, Texas Tech University and Texas Public Radio, finished a four-part series a couple of weeks ago in which key stakeholders offered their perspectives on the complexity and challenges the state faces in providing water for the already burgeoning Texas population.

In the final program the discussion focused on planning, policy and politics.

Myron Hess, legal counsel and director of Texas Water Programs for the National Wildlife Federation, led off the discussion by citing the usual population growth statistics, specifically that the population of Texas is projected to double by about 2060.

“The population of Texas in 1850 was about 200,000; in 1950 it was 7.5 million; and projections by 2050 are that it’s going to be more than 40 million people,” Hess told listeners. “That kind of growth rate is pretty phenomenal when you think about the challenges that come with that.”

He noted as well that the growth will not be evenly distributed. The majority of the growth is expected to center around the I-35 corridor, and not so much in the urban areas but rather the suburban areas.

“Bexar County is projected to grow by about 75 percent in the next 40 to 50 years. So counties near those urban areas, counties like Kendall and Bandera County, are projected to have over 300 percent growth during that same period,” Hess said. “As that growth happens, we will be paving over the areas that supply our aquifers, that supply our rivers, and that affect water quantity, water quality and also our flooding issues. Those are huge issues in their own right.”

In addition to that, there’s the issue of supply to meet the growing demand, and Hess reminded those listening that often the water supply isn’t where the growth is occurring and expected to continue to grow.

“That water is going to have to come from someone else or somewhere else, and for everyone involved it has value where it is now. So redistributing that water, even on a voluntary basis, is a very tough and sometimes painful process.”

Hess pointed out that it is drouth and water availability during drouth that drives the state’s water planning and water availability decisions.

“In water planning, what we’ve always done is base our planning on the idea that the next 50 years of rainfall are going to be the exact repeat of the last 50 years of rainfall. We know that won’t happen exactly.”

He told listeners that he’s a firm believer in global warming. He admitted that the models have significant uncertainty, particularly when it comes to trying to predict precipitation down to the level of even a state the size of Texas, but he noted that the models say that in the western part of the state the rainfall is probably going to decrease slightly on average, and in the eastern part of the state it may increase slightly.

“Another prevailing view is that it’s going to be more episodic, meaning the overall annual average may not change dramatically, but it’s going to come more in huge rainfall events and long, hard drouths. The most sobering realization for me is that even if the rainfall amounts basically stay about the same, with an increase in temperature, the net effect is less water.”

Hess next discussed the issue of environmental flow protection as it relates to the hill country, and finally issues relating to water conservation and drouth management, specifically the challenges in implementing effective policy.

“Environmental flow is just the fancy term for recognition that the river and stream is better off with water in it rather than without water in it, and coastal estuaries need fresh water flowing into them. It’s sort of that simple,” Hess told listeners. “In the hill country it is particularly important because the beauty and the health of the rivers and streams are increasingly important to the economy of the hill country,” he opined. “Lands with streams flowing through them are valued a heck of a lot higher than those without them.”

Hess also pointed out that until recently, the state’s water rights system did not recognize the value of environmental flows.

“Fortunately, last year the legislature created a program which said they were going to try to quantify how much water we need in our rivers and flowing in our estuaries to keep them healthy and productive, and also they initiated the process of trying to provide that water to meet those needs. That’s a huge step,” he insisted.

The process calls for stakeholder groups and scientists to make recommendations on how much water is needed for environmental flow in a particular basin. That recommendation is supposed to be based on a combination of sound science and policy.

The process for the first two basins in Texas—the Neches-Sabine basin and the Trinity-San Jacinto Coastal Basin—is to begin in the next few weeks; the process in the Colorado and Guadalupe basins, he said, is scheduled to start in September.

“That process is only going to be successful if the stakeholder groups really have balanced representation of all the interests. If that doesn’t happen, the process will lose its credibility.”

He encouraged everyone to get involved, to become a stakeholder in the process.

The issue of conservation and drouth management, Hess said, is about being smarter about how water is used—getting more done with the same amount of water.

Conservation mechanisms involve common-sense measures such as low-flush toilets and high-efficiency sprinkler systems.

“There are a lot of people who say water conservation is a great thing and that we need to do more, but they also recognize that we’re not going to solve our water needs with just conservation. I don’t disagree, but it can do a lot, and it can do a lot more than we are doing with it now,” Hess insisted.

He said part of the reason water conservation measures are not voluntarily practiced is, because cheap water does not provide an incentive.

Another reason is because utilities make money by selling water. Less water sold due to conservation puts utilities in a difficult position of either raising rates or operating with less income.

“So what is it going to take to get us to get serious about water conservation? We talk about it; it’s in our planning documents, but are we doing it? How do we get to the point that every water user is using water as efficiently as possible? Is it going to take incentives? Is it going to take government regulations? Is it going to take requiring these new users who come in to pay for water conservation for existing users so they can get some of that water? I think it will require all that and a lot more inventive things as well. We really have to get serious now about moving beyond planning and talking and get to implementing,” Hess stressed.

Drouth management, he added, is much less commonly talked about in water circles.

“Drouth management is a tougher sale. It involves more sacrifice, frankly, than water conservation. It may mean restricting refilling private swimming pools during drouth or restricting lawn water to the extent that lawns really do suffer during drouth,” he remarked.

Another option, Hess said, might be what he termed a “dry year option” whereby someone pays an irrigator not to irrigate, which then makes that water available for some other use during those drouth years.

“We have to decide during these periods of drouth and water shortages what uses are most important. Is it most important to put it on lawns or to keep it in rivers? We have to make those decisions, and then we have to have a management system that allocates that water in some manner.”

State Representative Robert Puente, chairman of the House Natural Resource Committee, who recently announced his retirement, followed up with some additional thoughts. “When people give water talks they always like to talk about how important water is. Great adjectives often used are ‘lifeblood of the economy‚’ or ‘lifeblood‚ itself.’ but I always add a second part, that water is very, very important but only after a drouth, and only when there is a budget surplus in the legislature. Other than that, we don’t really treat water the way we should legislatively— politically,” Puente said.

He went back to a point made by Hess with respect to anticipated huge growth. Puente reminded listeners that 2011 will be another redistricting year, and with the huge growth along the I-35 corridor, the rural areas—where the water is located, in many cases—will lose representation again.

Puente said one of the issues that will likely come up in the 2009 legislative session will be interbasin transfers. SB 1, he noted, essentially prohibited such transfers.

“It allows it to be done, but there are about 25 different obstacles that you have to go through to get that permit approved by TCEQ,” he said.

He predicted that there will be legislation to alleviate some of the obstacles to interbasin transfers during the next session.

He also predicted that there will be a push for more regionalism within the groundwater district scheme.

“In many cases we have single-county groundwater districts, but aquifers don’t respect county lines. We have been trying to get districts formed not on county line boundaries but rather on a region by region basis.”

He pointed to legislation passed by Representative Robby Cook, which mandated cooperation between groundwater districts over the same aquifer, as a positive step forward. The idea, Puente said, is for these districts which share a common aquifer to at least have similar rules and regulations so that no one district takes advantage of another.

He also discussed the ongoing process by the groundwater districts to come up with a desired future condition for their respective aquifer or aquifers.

“We’ll likely see regional fights about what that number should be, what that desired future condition should be, and within the district itself you’ll have some of those fights as well, because some landowners are realizing that they can make more money by selling the water rather than using it to farm or ranch,” Puente remarked. “If we respect private property rights, why should an individual not be allowed to do that?

“Others in a district might argue that it’s a community interest; that it’s a resource for the entire community, and if you export all of the water, that particular farming community may not survive. So we’ll continue to see these inner fights. Invariably, the loser goes to the courthouse or the statehouse to try to change the rules.”

Other issues which are being argued over now include such things as who owns the wastewater.

“When I first started in the legislature back in 1991, people didn’t want their wastewater; they just wanted a place to dump it. Now it’s something they want to keep. So once you use the water and it becomes wastewater and you want to put it back in the stream, whose does it become? If it was yours originally and it was groundwater and you still retain it, the law says it’s still yours. However, if it’s surface water and you’re using it and you put it back in the stream, is it surface water again, and if you capture it can you pick it up again downstream? These are some of the rules the legislature will have to look at.”

Water conservation has always been one of Puente’s pet legislative projects. He noted that it is becoming a more accepted practice.

“Some of these conservation measures used to be considered a green idea or an environmental idea, but it’s not like that anymore. People are now realizing that there is money to be made by water conservation.”

He added, however, that for smaller communities, implementing extensive water conservation measures is a more difficult task, simply because the tax base is smaller.

“Those who live in San Antonio only saw a small increase in their water bills to cover these things because there are more people to absorb these costs. It’s much more difficult for smaller communities.”

Puente concluded by telling listeners that the state’s water policy is something that will require constant improvement and constant vigilance. And, he said, it requires that the general public be involved in the politics of forming and implementing the right policies for all stakeholders.

Laura Marbury, senior water analyst with the Texas office of Environmental Defense, closed out the panel discussion.

“Oftentimes I feel like we’re looking for the Holy Grail or the silver bullet that’s going to answer all our problems when it comes to water issues,” Marbury commented. “When there was the moratorium on interbasin transfers, the focus shifted to groundwater. Then for a while, brush management was all the rage. Don’t get me wrong; it does work. It has use in the right circumstance, but it’s not going to free up all the water we need to support this growing population.”

She noted, too, that desalination is also now a hot topic, both for saltwater and brackish groundwater, but again, she stressed that it won’t solve all the state’s water problems.

She focused most of her comments from that point forward on something she said should be a top priority, that of water availability and interconnectivity.

“An important part of managing any resource is you have to know how much you have—how much is available.”

However, she told listeners, making that determination is no simple scientific matter. There are several different ways to interpret what’s really available.

“Perhaps availability as far as management and planning is concerned is some volume less than what’s fully recoverable but not so great that you impact important or essential uses now or in the future,” Marbury told listeners.

Where it gets sticky, she went on to say, is in determining what those important, essential uses or outputs are.

She also noted that for now the state has left the policy decisions about availability in the hands of individual groundwater districts.

“They’re allowed to regulate and control groundwater usage within their boundaries and to set that availability and keep the volume of water they want in the aquifer there.”

She also noted that more than 90 groundwater districts currently manage some of the state’s nine major aquifers and 21 minor aquifers. Some, she said, are effectively managing groundwater. She pointed to two hill country districts, the Headwaters Groundwater Conservation District in Kerr County and the Cow Creek Groundwater District in Kendall County, as examples of groundwater districts that are trying to do it right.

“The Cow Creek district just put a moratorium on any new well permits so that they can actually have a break and figure out what that availability issue is before they over-permit the resource. Not all the districts in the state are that advanced. Many are underfunded, or maybe they’re not communicating with the district next door that’s managing the same aquifer,” Marbury told listeners.

She talked, too, about the move toward a more regional focus for groundwater management. There are 16 groundwater management areas in the state, and the districts in their specific GMA are now required to share management plans, but their big charge, Marbury said, is in the adoption of desired future conditions.

“In essence, what the state is asking them to do is sit at the table together and decide what they want their aquifer to look like in the future.”

Like the other speakers, Marbury encouraged everyone to get involved in their respective areas so they can have a say in the overall process. She encouraged listeners to get to know those who sit on the board of their groundwater district.

“They’re making these decisions on your behalf, and it’s important that everyone’s voice is heard.”

With respect to the interconnectivity issue, Marbury told listeners that many districts simply don’t have the science necessary for making management decisions.

“We don’t know how interconnected the aquifer is with the creeks and rivers or how interdependent one aquifer is with another. There’s been this disconnect between surface water law and groundwater law. Because of this disconnect, I think we’re a little bit behind on the science.”

And to get that science, Marbury said, greater emphasis must be placed on funding so the groundwater districts can develop the science at the local level.

“What I hope we’ll see more of in the future is the realization among groundwater managers and the legislators that these outflows, the spring flows, are not an environmental issue at all. It’s a downstream surface water permit holder issue. It’s a coastal fishery issue; it’s everybody’s issue because it’s so interdependent. It’s an amazing dynamic relationship, and we need to plan accordingly.”

Marbury predicted more widespread use of comprehensive land and watershed models and the role that land stewardship plays in water resource management. She also commented that because most of the land in Texas is in private hands, landowners will have a greater role in the future and therefore must be involved in the decision-making process.

“The plain truth of the matter is there is no easy, magical answer about water resources,” Marbury concluded. “Its something that we’re all dependent on, and we’re going to have to figure this out.

“You need to let your voice be heard,” she reiterated. “This is a resource that we all depend on, especially in the hill country, where your economy, your livelihood is so dependent on the resource, and we need to make sure that value is also part of the equation when we’re figuring out the value of water.”

During the question and answer session a question arose about desalination and the role it will play in the future.

“It’s still cost-prohibitive, though each year it becomes less so because of the rising cost of water,” Rep. Puente responded.

The City of El Paso, he noted, has had a desalination plant for brackish groundwater for quite awhile, and they’re seeking to expand that. The City of San Antonio has one on its planning horizon. However, he told listeners, Gulf Coast water is still in the conceptual stages, and in fact, there’s not much planning going on at all.

Another participant asked the panel if there would come a day when groundwater would be regulated.

Puente reminded the audience that groundwater is already regulated to some extent by groundwater districts.

“If you want to talk about groundwater policy, look at the Edwards Aquifer Authority. Everything that can be done is being done right there. The rule of capture is gone and water markets have been created. There’s bidding, banking, leasing. SAWS (San Antonio Water System), for example, leases some farms. They allow the farmer to continue dryland farming, but SAWS gets credit for the water. The water is not physically transferred, but they get credit for that water.

“There are rules and regulations that protect the rural counties,” he continued. For example, one acre-foot of water has to stay with the land.

“So if the state wants to truly start regulating groundwater there’s a test already in place in the Edwards Aquifer.”

Hess also pointed out that a lot of the western states have moved to more of a coordinated, unified system of operation.

“They’ve faced up to the fact that you can’t really do a good job of regulating either surface or groundwater if you don’t regulate it in some sort of conjunctive manner,” he told listeners.

“Eventually, I think we will get there through some form or another. I think the Edwards example—it was so stark—it was clear that we couldn’t do it the way we had done it traditionally.”

“We talk about the district’s being able to modify the rule of capture, but there’s 20 percent of the state that doesn’t even have a water district and it’s not areas that don’t have water,” Marbury added. “An example is Val Verde County. There’s a large volume of water there and they don’t have a district.

“I think next session we will see a push to bring the rest of those areas into some kind of management scheme. I also think we will see a movement toward more regional control. I don’t know what form that will take or how soon that will happen, but I think that’s where we’re moving. For now, though, these districts through the GMA process have a chance to show the policymakers what they can do, that they can do it without that hand of Austin telling them what to do.”

There was a question about T. Boone Pickens’ idea to transport water from West Texas to some thirsty metropolitan area—the latest is Dallas.

“There a lot of people that feel what Pickens is doing is not a problem,” Puente responded. “All of the ranchers who have signed leases with him do not think it is a problem. They look forward to selling their water.

“Right now the profit portion of the equation is stopping Pickens,” he continued. “He hasn’t found the market that is willing to pay the price that it will take for him to withdraw the water and pipe it to the market. He shopped it to San Antonio and it was too expensive, and luckily, SAWS has a philosophy that they’re not going to get into a water project where it creates a win/lose situation. They want a win/win. Dallas-Fort Worth, I think, is going to look at existing reservoirs for their future water supply, so I think Mr. Pickens is still caught in the free enterprise system in that he has something but he has no market for it. For right now that’s what’s stopping him.”

There was another question about the Barnett Shale development in North Texas with the respect to the amount of groundwater being used to fracture the wells. Some in the area are reportedly already beginning to hurt for water.

Marbury told listeners that a district incorporating Parker and Wise Counties was created during the last legislative session in an attempt to manage the aquifer where the Barnet Shale recovery process is going on.

“I hope we’ll see a strong district there that can work with the local landowners and the people in the area and the gas industry to figure out how to deal with this issue,” Marbury said.

Hess followed up with a comment about how exempt wells can complicate management for the groundwater districts. He cited as an example new subdivisions in which each tract of land has its own private well.

“That can be a huge drain on these aquifers, and that further complicates the ability of these groundwater districts to meaningfully manage the aquifer because there are these exempt uses that they can’t regulate.”

Another attendee asked Puente about his thoughts on whether or not unincorporated counties are ready for more land use planning authority.

Puente responded that land use planning is important, but that the problem, as alluded to by Hess, is that the high growth areas are outside the city’s ETJ. Therefore, the city cannot regulate the development and the counties, Puente said, have very little regulatory power.

“Every session a bill is filed to give counties more regulatory power and every session it fails, and it usually fails because the people in the counties want it that way. They don’t want to be regulated. That’s why they live in the county, not the city.

“Lots of times there are mixed signals sent to the legislature that the counties want some regulations but not this type of regulation, so what regulation they do have has been piecemealed together. For example, the counties have the ability to regulate septic tanks.”

In the past with respect to the creation of municipality utility districts or public improvement districts, Puente said he always asked that some type of agreement be in place that allows for how they‚re going to get water, what’s going to be done with the waste water, the size of the lots, etc. before coming to the legislature.

“An example of that is going on in Boerne right now. There was legislation that came out of Austin that said there had to be an agreement between the city and the developer on how they’re going to develop that subdivision. So the city has some control even though it’s outside their area,” Puente noted. “Unfortunately, the state’s not giving the counties very much authority to do much about these kinds of things.”

Another comment from the audience pointed to the lack of funding that the groundwater districts have to perform their jobs. The question that came forth was whether or not there was any consensus building in Austin to do more about funding.

“We do need more money to get the right kind of science,” Puente remarked, “but we as a state don’t even adequately fund public education; we don’t even adequately fund health and human services. So it’s not going to come from Austin, to be very frank, because there’s this belief that we shouldn’t pay for anything.”

Another participant asked about the possibility of including water stewardship under the realm of the ag exemption rules.

Hess responded by reminding listeners that several years ago the wildlife exemption came into being. He noted, too, that it hasn’t been without controversy.

“It’s (land stewardship) the sort of issue that we need to start talking about. To sell it, though, I think we need to be able to make the case that we really are providing benefits to the public. We have to have the facts to sell the case, and I’m not sure we’re there yet. I do think land stewardship will be a promising area in the future,” Hess remarked.

Puente added that such ideas take two to three sessions to get through.

“The wildlife exemption didn’t happen in just one session.”

“I think we‚re going to start seeing more incentives,” Marbury added. “I think there will be more cooperative efforts with river authorities and groundwater districts to develop some sort of incentives to help aid that relationship with landowners. I think we’ll see that a lot quicker than something out of the legislature.”

Former state Rep. Puente lands job with SAWS as a consultant

Jerry Needham, San Antonio Express-News, 3/5/2008

Robert Puente, who stepped down last month after 17 years as a state representative, the last five as the powerful chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, was hired Tuesday as a consultant for the San Antonio Water System.

"It's an opportunity for us to access former Rep. Puente's extensive knowledge and experience," SAWS board Chairman Alex Briseño said.

"He was very influential in water legislation passed by the Legislature," said board member Doug Leonhard, who said Puente would serve as a consultant on issues related to regional water projects. That would include legal and legislative analysis and outreach to elected officials and the community, he said.

The board resolution allows the panel's designated representative to negotiate and execute the contract with Puente, whose compensation would be "in the same range as the system's other legislative consultants," Leonhard said. The other three lobbying contracts SAWS maintains average $170,000 for two years.

Leonhard noted that Puente last year was able to help shepherd through legislation that finally settled Edwards Aquifer water rights issues, firming up the utility's allocation from the water source.

Puente, who was not at the board meeting, could not be reached for comment.

In other action, the board put off until next month a decision on locating the utility's proposed brackish water desalination plant but determined that the design-build option is the preferred method to construct the plant.

The utility's staff had recommended the purchase of a 233-acre tract of land near Englehart and Trumbo roads in South Bexar County for construction of the plant, which would produce 25 million gallons a day. But trustees had questions on the $1.9 million purchase and voted to delay a decision until their April 1 meeting.

The staff looked at 11 sites, including its 3,200-acre Twin Oaks Aquifer Storage and Recovery property, for locating the plant. The staff chose the 233-acre site over the Twin Oaks location to avoid having water facilities grouped together for security reasons and to have the two facilities on different power grids in case of a power failure.

But some board members — two were absent — wanted the staff to look into the possibility of CPS Energy routing power from a different substation to the Twin Oaks property to serve the desalination plant.

Trustees also learned that the estimated costs for the desalination project have doubled to $300 million, bringing the annual cost per treated and delivered acre-foot to $1,375 — about twice what was estimated a year ago.

Janelle Okorie, vice president of strategic resource and business planning, cited among the factors driving up the costs that the source water well fields are spread across three counties and that engineers have determined that the treated water should be piped miles to the northwest to be integrated into the SAWS distribution system.

The design-build delivery option, a construction method authorized by the Legislature last year, would allow SAWS to bundle the design and construction of the plant into one contract to save money.

By Asher Price, Austin American-Statesman, March 03, 2008

For decades, the Lower Colorado River Authority has insisted that it is obliged to sell its water to all comers as long as the supply in the river and the Highland Lakes holds out.

"If the water's available and we refused to provide it, I think we'd be derelict in our duties," L.C. Meyer told the American-Statesman in 1981, when he was assistant general counsel at the LCRA.

"We have a legal obligation to provide water on an indiscriminate basis," Tom Mason said when he became general manager of the LCRA in November.

But does it? The question is fundamental to the issue of growth in Central Texas, where it will go and how ˜ or whether ˜ it will be managed.

It turns out that the answer depends on what kind of water the LCRA is selling. Traditionally, the vast majority of its water is sold "raw" ˜ untreated ˜ and in large quantities to cities such as Austin, developers, industrial plants and farmers.

Since the 1990s, the LCRA has also treated and sold water on a retail basis to subdivisions, country clubs and the like, delivered by water lines from the river authority's treatment facilities, now scattered over 11 counties. Because some feed suburban sprawl, these systems are the LCRA's most controversial water enterprises.

They also might be the least defensible. Although the river authority's obligation to make raw water available when possible has historical and legal precedent, less basis exists for delivery of treated water.

Austin water lawyer Mike Booth says there's no case law on whether the LCRA is obligated to build the infrastructure to treat and transport water to serve developments in its basin.

"If LCRA has this water, can you compel them to build a treatment plant?" he asked. "I would probably argue that you can't. But if they had a treatment plant, (the courts) could require them to make the water available."

Regardless of what the courts say, the state could step in. "The Legislature would feel that if this area needed water and the LCRA could afford it, they would compel them to do so," Booth said.

'May' vs. 'must'

Some question whether the LCRA is legally bound to sell any water to anybody. "I don't believe any river authority is legally obligated to enter in any water supply contract with any entity, public or private," said Ron Kaiser, a Texas A&M University professor and author of the "Handbook of Texas Water Law."

The specific language in the LCRA's enabling legislation ˜ the use of "may" rather than "must" ˜ appears to give the river authority some choice in the matter. According to the Texas water code, "the authority may control, store, and preserve" Colorado River water, and it "may use, distribute, and sell those waters."

Both Booth and Mason point to another section of the code that entitles "any person" who is denied water from a supply "not contracted to others" to complain to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which could order that the water be provided.

Kaiser says river water sales are usually motivated by economics.

"Most river authorities are in the business of being water marketers, as a wholesaler of water," Kaiser said. "They make money off of it. If they just sit there and hold that underlying water right, they're not making any income off that."

Though the LCRA's retail water and wastewater utility brings in $44 million annually, it operates in the red. "Water is not a commodity," Mason said. "We're not in the water business to make money."

But the pursuit of that business ˜ following development whenever and wherever it leads, instead of using its power over the tap to nudge where it should go ˜ riles those who seek more land-use controls in Hill Country watersheds.

"You want them to be able to plan growth around where they put their water lines, not just put up water lines wherever there's growth," said Rick Lowerre, an Austin environmental lawyer. "That means they can't plan for growth, and, worse than that, they can trump cities and others who want to plan."

Little enforcement

Environmental groups such as the Save Our Springs Alliance have long contended that the river authority's decisions to sell treated water west of Austin have led to profound shifts in land use in the areas of the Hill Country nearest Austin, from rural to suburban. The water enables not only new subdivisions, but also accompanying roads, businesses and parking lots.

Development has, in turn, jeopardized the Barton Springs portion of the Edwards Aquifer because litter, car oil and other forms of pollution are swept into creeks and eventually underground by rain.

The river authority does require its water customers to meet certain environmental standards, like setbacks from creeks and limits on impervious cover such as roads and parking lots, that are more stringent than anything in the rural areas in which it operates.

Though developers have to submit a conservation plan as well as a plan for cutting water consumption in times of drought, the LCRA has little ability to monitor adherence to the conservation plan. Despite explosive growth in the region, the agency is budgeting less for permitting and inspections ($481,000) than it did five years ago. (The total spent on environmental protection and water quality management has increased from $1.9 million to $2.63 million during the same period.)

Time and again, the Legislature has refused to give counties the power to zone, assess impact fees and make other land-use decisions. The LCRA can and does charge developers impact fees ˜ they are factored into the cost of homes ˜ but others would like the river authority to wield more muscle.

"LCRA could impose standards that would not totally block growth, but direct growth," Kaiser said.

The river authority doesn't see it that way.

"No board in our 74-year history has been interested in taking up land-use authority," LCRA spokesman Robert Cullick said. "That doesn't pre-empt them from doing it in the next session."

By Bill Ward, Native Plant Society of Texas

What is the most precious natural resource in the Texas Hill Country? For most people the answer to that question is a no-brainer. Water, of course!

Surface water or ground water? There you might get different answers, but those “in the know” would think this is a dumb question.

That’s because around here, most surface water and ground water are part of the same hydrologic system. They shouldn’t be considered separately, especially here in this expansive area of karst limestone terrain.

Groundwater issuing from springs is the source of most big creeks and rivers in the Hill Country. Stream beds are the main zones of recharge for our aquifers.

In other words, what may be ground water in one area may become surface water in another area. And that surface water may infiltrate underground in another area. All part of the same hydrologic system.

If, as most people would agree, the quality and quantity of natural water is of utmost importance in the Hill Country, doesn’t it stand to reason that springs and streams are the habitats we most want to preserve and protect? Yet, in many places our creeks are under assault!

For example, in one of Kendall County’s neighboring counties plans are underway to run sewage lines up the limestone creek beds. Never mind that creeks are delicate areas of groundwater recharge and are the conduits that supply water to the larger streams and lakes.

Most of the assaults on the Hill Country riparian ecosystem are more subtle than the laying of sewage lines. There is widespread modification of stream habitats, and thus widespread modification of the hydrologic system, by removal of native riparian vegetation during ever-increasing cultural modifications.

Construction, “flood control,” “land improvement” and too much browsing by livestock and the overabundant deer, all generally remove some of the very native vegetation that is helping maintain quality and quantity of the water system.

In the natural riparian system, diverse grasses, sedges, reeds, wildflowers, woody shrubs, small trees and large trees grow along the edges of surface water. This native-plant diversity is important in stabilizing banks and maintaining water quality and quantity. Trees alone cannot do the job.

As my friend Rufus Stephens likes to point out, it is not only the above-ground foliage that is lost when plant diversity is decreased by human “improvements” or animal over-browsing. A vast network of roots also is removed.

Dense root systems are like sponges that soak up large amounts of infiltrated water and then can provide base flow to streams.

Where stream-bank plant diversity is reduced, streams more easily go dry during droughts.

Another major consequence of reducing natural vegetative cover and root systems is decreased infiltration of water that flows off the land surface. This leads to increased frequency and severity of flooding and, of course, to increased bank erosion and other modifications of the stream habitat.

And this, in turn, leads to decreased quality and quantity of the water system. It’s a vicious sequence of changes better left unstarted.

Do you know why New York City doesn’t have to treat its drinking water? It is because of good land stewardship in the Catskill Mountains watershed. The determining factor in the amount and purity of that drinking water is the health of the native vegetation in the watershed.

Wouldn’t you hate to think UpState New Yorkers were smarter about managing their land and water system than Central Texans?

By LARRY D. HODGE, Special to the San Angelo Standard-Times, March 13, 2008

It's mid-August (2007), and I'm standing in a pasture on the Rosa Ranch in Blanco County. It should be sere and hot and thoroughly unpleasant this time of year.

Instead, it's green and lush. For the first time in my life, trees on the verge of fall still look fresh, not tired, dusty and droopy. Creeks in the sandy granite regions of the Hill Country are flowing. In August.

Texas is wet - wetter than I've seen it in more than three-score years.

I spent my childhood on a sandy-land sharecropper farm in Central Texas, wearing flour-sack shirts and holey jeans and shoes during the drought of the 1950s.

Only memories - of parents worn down by worry and water trucks filling up on the square in Elgin to haul precious fluid to West Texas towns with no water - keep me from feeling foolish about being here in the middle of one of the wettest years on record to write a story about how land managers can cope with drought.

The old adage may be that the only things you can be sure of are death and taxes, but anyone who's spent his life in Texas knows there's a third certainty: drought. Texas is awash in water in late 2007, but ranchers and farmers know: The next drought begins the day the rain ends.

The drought of the 1950s spurred Texans to do what some future environmental historian may label shortsighted: Instead of looking for ways to make the land better able to withstand drought and sustain them in dry times, Texans built reservoirs - a quick fix for a long-term problem.

This was the latest chapter in a story that began when Europeans arrived and began to suppress fire, overgraze rangeland and disrupt an ecosystem that had developed over millennia.

Ironically, Texans built those reservoirs without realizing that a fundamental ecological shift had reached its zenith during the 1950s drought - a shift that made the very reservoirs built to deal with water shortages less able to do so. During the first half of the 20th century, the process of converting grass-covered savannas to brush-covered rangeland peaked.

Seventy-five million acres, about 80 percent of Texas rangeland, had been invaded by noxious brush (juniper, mesquite, prickly pear, salt cedar) and weeds. Land that had, when covered with grass, absorbed 80 to 90 percent of rainfall was now robbed of 75 to 80 percent by trees and brush. Springs and streams ceased to flow, and thirsty reservoirs failed to receive the expected runoff.

We used the land hard because we could get away with it without having to make too many inconvenient sacrifices. We still can - at least for now, as long as it rains when and where we need it to. The summers of 2005 and 2006 were the latest examples of dodging the bullet.

As lakes in even normally wet East Texas ebbed, Texans began to face the unpleasant fact that they might have to change their wasteful ways. Texas faced a serious water crisis.

And then it rained. And rained, and rained.

Lakes that had been empty filled. Some overflowed. And we went back to using water like it would never run out.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service estimates that brush in Texas uses about 10 million acre-feet of water annually.

In comparison, total human use in the state amounts to about 15 million acre-feet. The obvious answer to the state's water supply problems, at least in part, is to transfer water use from brush to people, but that is no simple task.

Somewhere around 95 percent of the land in Texas is privately owned. Solving the problem of public water supply inevitably means working with private landowners, if for no other reason than the fact that most rain falls on land privately rather than publicly owned.

Brush control is not the answer to everyone's water problem, but for some people it is the only answer.

Mort Mertz and his son Michael ranch around San Angelo in the Concho River watershed, on land that has been in the family for three generations.

Mort saw brush invade their land, and he's now seeing the results of removing that brush. "Brush became a problem after World War II," he says. "After we started clearing brush, creeks started running that had not flowed in the last 25 years."

"If you don't have something sucking water out of the soil, where can it go except into the water table?" asks Michael Mertz. "We want to improve our property, and at the same time we are benefiting wildlife habitat. I don't mind spending the money if my land grows more forage and has water. Brush removal helps increase the water supply for people in cities, and that's a major plus."

Jimmy and Nancy Powell also ranch near San Angelo, and like the Mertzes, they see brush removal as benefiting not only their land but also thousands of people who will never set foot on the place.

Powell laces his conversation with factoids that convince listeners he's studied the problem from every angle.

"I've calculated that with 18 inches of rainfall, and all the land in the Concho watershed in grasses, that would produce enough water to fill an 11,000-acre lake 60 feet deep every year - and that's enough to meet the water needs of San Angelo," he says.

"There is no immediate payback for brush control," Powell adds. "In 10 to 12 years you will, if you maintain the land properly and keep the brush off, have an immense return. But you have to maintain an investment program and have good grazing rotation to keep the grasses."

Powell sees brush control in a historical context.

"We have a different set of problems than early settlers had," he points out. "They had to tame a wild country. Our problem is to deal with the changes to the landscape that followed settlement, such as overgrazing and brush encroachment. It is our obligation to find a way to solve the problem."

Working with ranchers are a host of resource and conservation specialists at a variety of levels of government.

"When we brush-sculpt a place, we maintain wildlife corridors and recharge streams and aquifers," says C.A. Cowsert, NRCS district conservationist in Johnson City. "When you get more grass cover, the rainfall is filtered. You don't get as much runoff, and what does run off is good, clear water."

Grass roots delve deep into the soil, holding it in place and providing a pathway for water to percolate deep into the earth.

Flood events become less frequent and less severe. Equally dramatic is what happens in the unseen underground.

"The water level in some of our wells rose 80 feet, even before the rains in 2007," says Todd Bannert, ranch foreman for Jimmy Powell.

Vaden Aldridge, NRCS district conservationist in Eldorado, gets excited when he sees native grasses coming back to a pasture after it's been cleared.

"The seeds are there, they just need an opportunity to breathe," he says, pointing out little bluestem, vine mesquite, Halls panicum, sideoats grama and other grasses in one of the Mertz pastures. "It opens up a whole new world when you take the brush off."

Educating landowners to what the possibilities are is a big job of the modern conservation scientist.

"The daily challenge for us is, ranchers say, 'It's green out there, I'm going to buy some more cows,'" says George Clendenin, NRCS conservationist in San Angelo. "We really need to educate them so the next time it's green, they can make an informed decision. They need to have a grazing plan and stock conservatively to prepare for the next drought.

"By making healthy upland areas, you are also making healthy riparian areas," Clendenin continues. "In the past, we did not put a lot of emphasis on riparian areas, but now we understand their importance, and they are as big a part of a management plan as upland areas."

Through the Continuous Conservation Reserve Program, NRCS helps landowners establish buffer zones. Brush is not cleared from these stream-side areas, and they must be protected from grazing for 10 to 15 years, but they can be used for recreation and hunting.

"Selective brush clearing as part of an overall plan is important. While it may be beneficial to selectively clear upland sites, it is equally beneficial to selectively leave brushy mottes and wooded sites along creeks and draws," Clendenin points out.

Ryland Howard and his mother, Edith Boulware, manage the Head of the River Ranch near Christoval, and they have established riparian buffers along a mile and a half of the South Concho River.

"It took a lot of our land out of grazing, but our philosophy has always been to take care of the land and preserve the springs that are there," he explains. "There is no question that removing water-using brush results in more aquifer recharge and stronger stream flow."

All of these programs are voluntary, points out Melony Sikes, an NRCS program manager in San Angelo whose passion is managing riparian areas.

"Ranchers are not doing it for financial gain - they're doing it because it's good for the resource. The off-site benefits to the public are tremendous, and there is nothing prettier than a pasture full of grass that comes right up to a flowing creek."

Larry D. Hodge is an information specialist with the Inland Fisheries Division of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. He is stationed at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens, Texas.

"The take-home message is that junipers are the most drought-resistant group that has ever been studied," said Robert Jackson, a professor of global environmental change and biology at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences.

"We examined 14 species from the U.S. and Caribbean, and they're all relatively drought-resistant—even ones in the mountains of Jamaica that get hundreds of inches of rain a year," he said.

"They've been expanding for about 100 years in some places, and drought plays a role in that," added Jackson, who is corresponding author of the new report published Feb. 27 in the American Journal of Botany's online edition. "For example, recent droughts have decimated pinyon pine populations in pinyon-juniper woodlands of the Southwestern U.S. but left the junipers relatively unscathed."

Many juniper species—including several popularly known as cedars—"are invading drier habitats and increasing in abundance where they already exist by surviving droughts that other conifers cannot," the report said.

To understand why junipers are so successful, Jackson's graduate student Cynthia Willson and Duke associate biology professor Paul Manos assessed structural and genetic features in the 14 species that can explain their special drought tolerance.

They found a key structural adaptation in junipers: resistance to what scientists call "cavitation" -- a tendency for bubbles to form in the water-conducting xylem tissues of plants.

Water is sucked through xylem tissues under a partial vacuum, "so it's almost like a rubber band being stretched out," explained Jackson. "The dryer the conditions, the greater the tension on that 'rubber band' and the more likely that it will snap. If it snaps, air bubbles can get into the xylem."

The scientists found that xylem tissues of juniper species tend to be reinforced with extra woody material to prevent rupture. Such rupturing can introduce bubble-forming air either through seepage from adjacent cavities or by coming out of solution from the water itself, Jackson said.

The scientists also determined that the more cavitation-resistant Juniper species have thicker but narrower leaves—a trait known as low specific leaf area (SLA)—and live primarily in the western United States.

"Plants in drier environments typically have lower SLA," said Willson, the study's first author, who having completed her Ph.D. at Duke is now a student at North Carolina State University's College of Veterinary Medicine. "We found that junipers from the driest environments were more drought resistant and also had the lowest SLA."

Their research found that the most cavitation-resistant species is the California juniper, which grows in California's Mojave Desert, while the least resistant is the eastern red cedar -- the most widespread conifer in the relatively-moist eastern U.S.

While less drought-tolerant than other junipers, eastern red cedars still handle dry spells well and are in fact invading into Midwestern states including Nebraska, Jackson noted. Juniper species growing in wet parts of the Caribbean also benefit from drought tolerance because they "tend to grow in shallow, rocky soils that don't hold a lot of water," Jackson said.

In parts of the Southwest undergoing an extended drying period, junipers are edging out another hardy, water-thrifty conifer—the pinyon pine. "They're both very drought- resistant, but the pinyons aren't as resistant as the junipers are," Jackson said.

The scientists also investigated how and where these tree types evolved their collective drought tolerance by analyzing each juniper species' DNA. That analysis found that junipers evolved into different species relatively recently, separating into eastern and western groups—technically called "clades."

"The center of diversity for junipers is in arid regions of Mexico," said Willson. "The fact that many juniper species seem to be more drought-resistant than necessary for their current range suggests that a common ancestor of those two clades was also quite drought-resistant."

The work was funded by the National Science Foundation, Duke University and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Adapted from materials provided by Duke University.