The Houston Chronicle
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Water, water everywhere, but not a drop they'll share

By DAN FELDSTEIN
Copyright 2000 Houston Chronicle

Monday, August 14, 2000

As the Houston region tries to find enough water for future growth, something occasionally shimmers on the horizon.

It's water in someone else's back yard -- river water from the Texas-Louisiana border, or even well water from a rural area near College Station.

Many officials feel the supply exceeds the local demand in both areas. But not surprisingly, such notions bring strong suspicion from the locals.

"Y'all want to take our water," said Jim Rich, vice president of the Beaumont Chamber of Commerce. "Whenever anyone talks about it, they get very emotional."

A 1997 Senate bill divided the state into 16 regions, and committees in each must figure out how to meet water needs for the next 50 years.

The 15-county Houston region has a looming deficit that will require significant actions, including serious residential water conservation and use of recycled sewage water by industry.

Up to three new reservoirs might have to be built on the Brazos and Trinity rivers that could cost $644 million and raise environmental concerns.

Another option was pointedly not selected: tapping into the Toledo Bend Reservoir by opening a canal from the Sabine River to Houston.

Jointly owned by Texas and Louisiana, the 33-year old reservoir is east of Lufkin. It yields twice as much water as Houston's three main reservoirs combined.

Only 2 percent of the water is under contract. The rest, technically, is available.

The idea, first studied several years ago, would be to build a 70-mile canal from the Sabine River below Toledo Bend to the Trinity River. Then, an existing canal would convey it to Houston treatment plants.

Today, Lake Livingston provides much of the water to those plants. Relieved of that duty, Livingston water could then be piped west to a creek that eventually feeds the Brazos River.

In that way, the growing, thirsty west side of Houston could receive the water it will need.

The engineers say it would work. East Texas politicians say otherwise.

Jefferson County Judge Carl Griffith said his predecessor once promised to greet Houstonians with a shotgun if they tried to take East Texas water. He agrees with the sentiment.

State Sen. David Bernsen, D-Beaumont, also said a transfer was ill-advised. And officials of the Sabine River Authority-Texas have expressed concerns.

Among them: The water level in Toledo Bend could fall during heavy use, harming the area's tourism and recreation business.

The flow of freshwater into Sabine Lake and the Gulf of Mexico would be lowered, possibly harming the sensitive ecosystem.

There might not be enough water left for future East Texas uses. And why should East Texas let its water help Houston's economy when cities like Beaumont, Port Arthur and Orange would rather have the growth there?

A previous study indicated that Toledo Bend occasionally would drop up to three feet if the transfer occurred. The effect on fishing and boating, it said, was "not significant."

The freshwater needs of Sabine Lake is an open question. A technical study is under way.

Houston officials think East Texas is overestimating its future needs. And as for its competitive regional advantage, the water by law belongs to Texas, not East Texas. The Sabine River Authority is only a permit holder, and a portion of the reservoir isn't even assigned to a permittee.

"They've got more than they need, but they're trying to safeguard their area," said Jim Adams, general manager of the San Jacinto River Authority and chairman of the Houston region's water planning committee.

"You've got people over there who think it's their water. It's the state's water," he said.

The Houston committee seemed to leave Toledo Bend off its wish list in part to see how East Texas would react, believing some of the complaints are a ploy to ensure that Houston pays a high price.

The Sabine River Authority has said it would sell a portion of its Toledo Bend water at "replacement cost," which means the cost of building a reservoir to replace whatever water Houston takes.

Unfortunately, Toledo Bend was built for $70 million and it might take $1 billion to build the same reservoir today, said Jerry Clark, general manager of the Sabine River Authority-Texas.

Whatever the authority charged Houston for the water would be on top of the estimated $800 million to build the Sabine-Trinity canal and Livingston-Brazos pipeline.

As a final safeguard, East Texas politicians supported an amendment to the 1997 water law regarding such long-distance water sales, known as "interbasin transfers."

It says that any water transferred out of a river basin is only a "junior water right." In times of shortage, all permit holders within the basin would get their water first and the junior right might get none.

Partly because of the junior water rule, a new water scheme has emerged.

If river water can't be moved across the state, what about groundwater, pulled from wells? State law says no one owns groundwater. Whatever you can pull from the ground is yours, although some areas have pumping limits sets by groundwater districts.

In the Panhandle, oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens is trying to buy the "groundwater rights" of 200,000 acres of ranch land. The landowner must promise not to use more groundwater than needed for personal use, leaving the rest for Pickens to pump.

Pickens' company would set up a network of major wells and then run a pipeline to a water-poor city, such as San Antonio or El Paso. He says a consultant's study shows he can make money, even with the huge expense of the pipeline.

A similar proposal directly affects Houston. An entrepreneur named W. Scott Carlson has set up shop in Brenham, and his Metropolitan Water Co. of Texas is knocking on doors in Burleson County and trying to lease groundwater rights.

The company would collect water from 30 major wells throughout the area and pipe it 90 miles to Harris County. The buyer might be the North Harris County Regional Water Authority, which is trying to supply water for 400,000 suburban residents.

Panhandle and Burleson County officials are suspicious, while landowners aren't quite sure what to do.

"Some people have said, `Get outta here,' and others have said, `Oh, maybe so,' " said Don Strickland, mayor of Somerville.

Carlson said his reception has been favorable. He is confident that he can provide better, cheaper water to north Harris County than the city of Houston.

The area in which he would collect water has few major water users and little prospect of getting them, he said. It sits atop the Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer, one of the most abundant and untapped in the state.

If local officials form a groundwater district to regulate pumping, he easily could fall within the limits that hydrologic tests recommend, he said.

Beyond that, Carlson politely declines to provide details, for business reasons. The Burleson County Citizen-Tribune quoted a proposal as saying Carlson wanted to assemble the rights to 75,000 acres and pump nearly 27 million gallons a day.

Tom Wilkinson Jr., executive director of the Brazos Valley Council of Governments, said that while the local aquifer is abundant, no one has studied just how much water could be safely removed.

While he would like to be neighborly to Houston, Wilkinson said, "Why should we send water to an area to grow more when we'd be happy to grow?"

On the receiving end, north-county water authority officials said they are willing to listen to Carlson's proposal but they need a lot more details. They also are concerned that Pickens' proposal is so controversial that some water rules may change next January in the Legislature, where all water disputes are ultimately settled.

At Azurix Corp. of Houston, a publicly traded spinoff of Enron Corp., a new project is trying to encourage open markets and free trading of water, rather than hoarding water rights that go unused and building expensive new reservoirs.

In a dry year, water could become so valuable that a rice farmer would make more money selling his water to a nearby city than raising a crop. The city would be willing to briefly pay more on the spot market, since that would still be less than the long-term cost of building a new reservoir or other water project.

Such a market exists on the lower Rio Grande River, where Azurix is encouraging water users to trade on its new Web site, Water2Water.com. It's fairly easy to trade in the region because all water comes from the Rio Grande, and almost all users have direct access to the river.

Azurix says a market system could work for the San Antonio area as well, since so many users pump directly from the Edwards Aquifer. The city of San Antonio has rights to just under half of the aquifer's closely regulated water, and various smaller users have the other half. If San Antonio wanted more at a given time, it might be cheaper to pay a market price than to secure the long-term right for that amount.

In theory, people hoarding their long-term rights would sell for short-term use if given a chance, lowering all water costs instead of raising them.

The problem in Houston, with different water sources scattered through the region, would be transporting the water from seller to buyer. The cost of moving water here can be more than the cost of the water itself.

In many transfer scenarios, one issue will continue to dominate, said Jeff Taylor, a Brown & Root Services water consultant who has been serving the Houston water committee.

"Some people believe you can put a value on water," Taylor said, "while others believe it is invaluable."