Conservationists finally permitted to buy water rights in TX

[derrida]

For the first time in Texas, an environmental group has been allowed to buy a water rights permit to
use public water for conservation purposes. Not many water right permits are available in Texas, as
most of the existing surface water in the state is already allocated for use by municipalities, districts,
and private companies for uses ranging from industrial cooling to public drinking water.

The major source of contention that arose from environmental groups trying to buy water rights was
the fact that they weren't even going to use it for anything. They just were going to let that valuable
water stay in the river and just flow on, unused, to freshwater-dependent bays and estuaries! This was
deemed an unacceptable waste of public resources, and requests for water rights permits for
conservation purposes were repeatedly declined by the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality for
5 years.

However, just last month, state District Judge Suzanne Covington decided that water rights permits for
'environmental flows' was indeed a justifiable use of public waters and environmental groups should be
treated the same as businesses and municipalities that want to use water for direct public consumption.
This decision will result in millions of acre-feet of water per year staying in rivers and flowing to the
Gulf, thereby preserving aquatic habitat in rivers and bays.

This is a common problem for conservation efforts nationwide. For instance, in certain western states
it's illegal to own rangeland and not run cattle on it. You can't even pen the cattle and grain-feed them:
if you're not destroying the land, you can't have it. Which makes it doubly frustrating when the
libertarians of the world tell us "If you want to preserve the land, just buy it."

Things have been especially dire in the Gulf states as the fisheries have collapsed and the dead zone
has started growing more rapidly. Currently, there isn't an ounce of water in any Texas stream
identified by the Corps of Engineers that isn't owned by someone. And now, environmentalists
will finally get to compete in the open market.