Article
Recently, the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) released Water for Texas - 2002, the first state water plan since the passage of Senate Bill 1 in 1997. One of the primary elements of SB 1 changed the planning process to one based on public participation at each step of the process and local and regional decisions to produce regional water plans. These regional plans help to compose the statewide plan.
The goal of the State Water Plan is to provide a grassroots water plan that, if implemented, will meet the needs of all Texans, even during conditions of drought.
Rural water issues were addressed in the TWDB's 2002 State Water Plan. The population of Texas is expected to double by 2050 with much of that growth in urban areas of the state. Although most rural communities and small cities are growing, they are not growing as fast as urban areas. This trend will create issues of resource sharing and competition between rural and urban areas.
While rural areas contain 15 percent of the state's population, agriculture currently uses the majority of the fresh water in the state. Two main factors will create major implications for rural Texas: decreased irrigation due to depletion of groundwater resources in some areas and increased use of all water resources by growing urban/suburban areas. This impact on water use will reverberate directly and indirectly through local institutions from feed stores to banks, and through rural communities as a whole. The effects could devastate rural Texas.
TWDB makes the following major policy recommendations:
* The Legislature should consider protecting rural community access to local water resources to ensure the continued economic viability of rural Texas;
* The Legislature should consider creating new financing mechanisms to support agricultural water conservation in general, but especially to support the voluntary conversion of a portion of the water saved to other uses when the water is not needed in the rural area; and
* The Legislature should consider requiring disclosure of information quantifying impacts on rural Texas. Applicants for surface water appropriations or groundwater withdrawal permits that remove water from rural areas could be required to provide the information to the regulatory body considering the application.
For more information about this report please contact my office at: P. O. Box 2910, Austin, TX 78768 or access the Water Board's website is www.twdb.state.tx.us.
State Representative Ron Clark
P.O. Box 2910
Austin, TX 78768-2910
(903) 893-9426 * (512) 463-0474
(512) 475-3767 (fax)
ron.clark@house.state.tx.us
http://www.grayson.edu/district62/RonClark.html
Gallery