Prop. 6

[IronTiger]

Prop 6 needs to be voted against. Under the guise as securing water for future growth, it's being supported by developers (friends of Gov. Goodhair?) who intend to build lakeside developments, all the while depriving native plant & animal river wildlife while using the rainy day fund. Absolutely disgusting.

[august948]

Are they creating new lakes/resevoirs?

[luciaphile]

They aren't creating new water.

Prop. 6 would fund implementation of the Texas Water Plan, kickstarting projects like the $3.3 billion Marvin Nichols reservoir in northeast Texas, which the water hustlers have been pushing for about twenty years against the wishes of landowners. It would drown more than 70,000 acres of bottomland hardwood forest and farms in the Sulphur River basin to supply D/FW, and is not needed.

 

http://harmanonearth.com/2013/10/29/lone-star-green-texas-prop-6-would-waste-billions-getting-the-water-equation-right/

 

I've observed that many HAIF-ers become quite incensed over what they perceive as violations of property rights.

Not to suggest that urban issues are trivial, precisely, but ... if you become incensed over what sort of addition you can make to your craftsman home, or whether a developer is given static for inserting a tower among single-family homes - then perhaps you may be sympathetic to folks who have lived for decades with the threat of having their home and livelihoods drowned. Italics mine, from an interview with Max Shumake (http://keranews.org/post/kera-thirsty-series-battle-over-marvin-nichols-reservoir):

 

Shumake pulls up at a grassy clearing on the banks of the Sulphur River.

"I guess this is the next thing to heaven right here on earth, you know," he said. "The land on down the river here a ways has been in the family since 1840-1841, something like that. I'm sixth generation, and I've got grandkids. That makes them eighth generation."

In rural East Texas land is sacred, which is why the proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir is a call to arms for Shumake.

Shumake's family owns some 800 acres of ranch and timber land that will disappear underwater if North Texas utilities are allowed to dam the Sulphur River and flood the area.

"Number one, I oppose it because it takes private property away from long-time Texans," he said. "Number two, I oppose it because it's going to ruin the economy of Northeast Texas. What we have in the timber industry, the cattle industry, farmers and ranchers, that's our big thing."

Marvin Nichols is, by far, the biggest proposed reservoir in the Dallas Fort Worth area's Region C water plan.

The reservoir alone would submerge some 72,000 acres of mostly private property. That's an area more than three times the size of Lake Ray Hubbard near Dallas. The federal government would condemn up to 10 times as many additional acres for what it calls "mitigation" - to make up for the loss of displaced wildlife and submerged habitat.

"This is socioeconomic genocide," Shumake said. "It's going to do away with a whole culture of people when this happens."

Hundreds of East Texas landowners feel the same way. At Tucker's Feed Store, near Omaha, Tommy Tucker says Marvin Nichols would put him out of business.

Tucker: It'll ruin our businesses as far as timber and me selling feed. It'll do away with the cattle people.

Tucker knows what it's like to lose property to a reservoir. The Army Corps of Engineers condemned 700 acres he owned when it built nearby Cooper Lake.

"I had land that I had never cut any timber off of, that I had saved for myself and my kids to have, and the money that I got out of the property, I probably got a third of what it was worth," he said.

Some 5,000 people have signed a petition to fight the dam. Opponents include an unlikely coalition of

landowners, timber employees, environmentalists and the official East Texas water planning group known as Region D.

Squaring off against them are North Texas's Region C water planners, and a group of East Texas civic leaders who believe the reservoir would bring growth to rural communities.

 

I'm told that one person who no longer supports the reservoir is Marvin Nichols.

And it is by no means the only reservoir proposed for East Texas, already full of them:

 

http://www.tcatexas.org/?portfolio=reservoirs-proposed

 

Isn't that a wonderful picture of the Neches?

[little frau]

Why are the only signs around town urging FOR votes?  I've not seen any AGAINST billboards etc. 

 

Frankly, I'm afraid that this will pass.   I believe that folks will vote yes simply because there's not been enough publicity.

 

When I first heard about this, my knee jerk reaction was NO. 

[luciaphile]

Why are the only signs around town urging FOR votes?  I've not seen any AGAINST billboards etc.

 

The usual suspects support it because there is a great deal of money to be made - or I should say, public money to be captured - and rural East Texas has very little clout in Austin. Sometimes it really is that simple.

That said, Prop.6's $2 billion starter pot is not very big in the scheme of things. For this reason, some environmental groups have chosen to swallow the bitter pill of the worst infrastructure aspects of the water plan, typically the sort of dubious projects water hustlers know how to play politics for, in hopes they won't get built; in return for winning some water conservation/reuse provisions, and because there are loans promised to smaller communities that may not have a very good credit rating.

Voting for Prop. 6 does not mean Marvin Nichols, for instance, will be built next year, but it certainly gives it a boost. Voting against Prop. 6 does not mean we will run out of water, or not thinking seriously about water. Far from it.

This is an easy one for me - not like that Hidalgo County hospital district amendment ... oh,  the glorious Texas Constitution.

[LTAWACS]

What can we do to stop this madness?

[august948]

I've observed that many HAIF-ers become quite incensed over what they perceive as violations of property rights.

Not to suggest that urban issues are trivial, precisely, but ... if you become incensed over what sort of addition you can make to your craftsman home, or whether a developer is given static for inserting a tower among single-family homes - then perhaps you may be sympathetic to folks who have lived for decades with the threat of having their home and livelihoods drowned. Italics mine, from an interview with Max Shumake (http://keranews.org/post/kera-thirsty-series-battle-over-marvin-nichols-reservoir):

 

If this passes maybe they can dam up White Oak Bayou creating a resevoir that will provide the city with water reserves, create an in-town boating destination and flood out the Heights thereby making the historic district arguments moot. 

 

Seems like a win-win.

[brian0123]

I'm confused. I thought Prop 6 was meant to help shore up a greater water supply for the state. I've never heard of "water hustlers", but I do know that the water supply will be one of the greater problems Texas (and the world) will see in the future. In the past, yes... they had to flood some forests and land to create lakes. How else would you suggest we increase water resources... are are you saying it's not a problem?

[luciaphile]

... are are you saying it's not a problem?

 

Choose Your Own Response:

 

(1) Actually, yes.

Or at the very least, it is not the crisis it has been made out to be. For starters, people tend to "need" whatever amount of water is available to them.

Take the reservoir I mentioned above. I can't force you to grasp that North and East Texas is replete with reservoirs already, that there is no water storage problem (except - what they never mention - the tendency of some reservoirs to silt up and become saline over time, whoops ...). That building further reservoirs will just be a political play by the people who benefit from the building of them (a not-small industry, made up of both private and public entities), having manipulated a few local poobahs into believing that another bass-stocked lake will be an economic boon worth wiping out farms and timberland. That East Texas has already been crapped on enough.

But please understand that Dallas doesn't need that water in the slightest. That is a fiction.

I will try to make this hard on myself by taking Austin as an example. Austin, you will agree, is a good bit drier than Dallas.

Total annual water use in Austin was lower in 2010 than any other year since 1997.

Despite the fact that it's been in a terrible drought much of that time.

Despite the fact that it has added hundreds of thousands of water users.

And no, it will never be feasible to pipe water from far northeast Texas to somewhere that is really short of water, Midland, say.

The answer to Midland's problem is not to be found in Prop. 6.

The projects Proposition 6 prioritizes are not based in science, they are wasteful water politics as it has traditionally been practiced in Texas.

And just to be clear: dams don't make water, as you might have noticed if you've flown over the Highland Lakes lately.  

 

(2) No, of course not, vote for Prop. 6 as you've been told to and please don't trouble yourself about it further. That would not be a fruitful use of your time. It will surely pass, as it was designed to.

[august948]

Choose Your Own Response:

 

(1) Actually, yes.

Or at the very least, it is not the crisis it has been made out to be. For starters, people tend to "need" whatever amount of water is available to them.

Take the reservoir I mentioned above. I can't force you to grasp that North and East Texas is replete with reservoirs already, that there is no water storage problem (except - what they never mention - the tendency of some reservoirs to silt up and become saline over time, whoops ...). That building further reservoirs will just be a political play by the people who benefit from the building of them (a not-small industry, made up of both private and public entities), having manipulated a few local poobahs into believing that another bass-stocked lake will be an economic boon worth wiping out farms and timberland. That East Texas has already been crapped on enough.

But please understand that Dallas doesn't need that water in the slightest. That is a fiction.

I will try to make this hard on myself by taking Austin as an example. Austin, you will agree, is a good bit drier than Dallas.

Total annual water use in Austin was lower in 2010 than any other year since 1997.

Despite the fact that it's been in a terrible drought much of that time.

Despite the fact that it has added hundreds of thousands of water users.

And no, it will never be feasible to pipe water from far northeast Texas to somewhere that is really short of water, Midland, say.

The answer to Midland's problem is not to be found in Prop. 6.

The projects Proposition 6 prioritizes are not based in science, they are wasteful water politics as it has traditionally been practiced in Texas.

And just to be clear: dams don't make water, as you might have noticed if you've flown over the Highland Lakes lately.  

 

(2) No, of course not, vote for Prop. 6 as you've been told to and please don't trouble yourself about it further. That would not be a fruitful use of your time. It will surely pass, as it was designed to.

 

Just curious why you think it wouldn't be feasible to pump water from East Texas to West Texas.  Is there a better solution?

 

[brian0123]

(2) No, of course not, vote for Prop. 6 as you've been told to and please don't trouble yourself about it further. That would not be a fruitful use of your time. It will surely pass, as it was designed to.

 

Relax, I was seriously trying to understand the issues and learn more. The supporters of the prop run the gambit from liberal to conservative, and it seems like those against it feel it will be more fiscally irresponsible to take money from the rainy day fund (which I could care less about). Also, I have friends who work for the US government (who monitor lakes in Texas) and they were telling me about how dry East Texas lakes got recently. My understanding is that this is basically a fund for providing loans to begin new water development projects by using a portion of the rainy day fund.

[luciaphile]

When would there be a compelling economic reason to pump water from East Texas hundreds of miles and, oh, 2300 feet in elevation, to West Texas? Not for household use - that doesn't require water in great quantity - but for irrigation or to fill up their steadily-evaporating "lakes"? Um, never. Which, certainly, in Texas, doesn't disqualify it from being subsidized - I would never suggest such a heresy. But we have plenty of existing reservoirs adequate to the purpose should we ever pursue that folly.

Better idea? Look, they're already working on it (What? Without a State Water Plan?! But I thought we were going to thirst to death without that?):

 

Some cities close to salty aquifers are looking toward desalination; Odessa is aggressively pursuing this, although the process is expensive. The concept of water reuse is also catching on quickly in West Texas, including the prospect of turning human sewage into drinking water. A $12 million water reuse plant is scheduled to begin operating in February in Big Spring, pumping well-scrubbed sewage into the drinking-water systems of Midland, Odessa and Big Spring.

Brownwood, about 130 miles southwest of Fort Worth, is also beginning to pursue a similar reuse plant, with help from a state grant. And San Angelo is in the early stages of contemplating such a plant, according to Will Wilde, the city’s water utilities director.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/time-for-west-texas-to-face-long-term-water-needs.html?pagewanted=2

 

Yes, poopwater! Go to town, trolls!