Water wars

Commissioners eye legal action to stop Fort Stockton plan

By Zach Lindsey LAREDO MORNING TIMES

When the Webb County Commissioners Court voted Monday to oppose a plan to draw water from the Pecos River watershed upstream of the Rio Grande, they became one more voice in the border region speaking out against the proposal.

But the court wants to go two steps further: Commissioners are suggesting legal action, as well as taking the issue to Austin.

The Fort Stockton Holdings plan to export 41 million gallons of water a day from Pecos County has drawn negative reactions from many border governments, including the City of Laredo and Nuevo Laredo.

Water rights in Fort Stockton have attracted the attention of border communities after a plan was announced by Clayton Williams to export water from the Fort Stockton area.

Although the Williams family, owners of Fort Stockton Holdings, has been pumping water from the watershed for irrigation since the 1950s, this is the first time they will export that water for sale to regions outside of the watershed.

Geoscientist Mike Thornhill, who has done more than 20 years of research on the groundwater beneath the Fort Stockton Holdings property, says there is “no possible way that neighboring

counties or communities could be adversely affected by the amount of pumping that Mr. Williams is requesting.”

They will not be pumping any more water than they currently pump, and Thornhill stressed that “the amount of water… will not change.

If the amount of water does not change, the impact will not change.”

But Rio Grande International Study Center Director Jay Johnson Castro described to the court a pumping process that “dried up about 43 of 46 springs which, prior to this happening, flowed into the Rio Grande.”

At the time, the Williams family referred to a Texas law called the Rule of Capture, which states that the groundwater on their land belongs to them, as opposed to surface water, which belongs to the state.

Johnson Castro called the law “archaic.”

As for the impact, Johnson Castro disagreed with Thornhill.

“We don’t know the impact, but we think we ought to know the impact before we allow it to occur,” Johnson Castro said. He called for a “moratorium for inadequate science.”

Commissioner Sergio “Keko” Martinez recommended helping the Rio Grande International Study Center in any way the court could, including possibly providing financial support.

“Certainly, this thing is going to affect Webb County,” Martinez said.

The Rio Grande “is certainly our main water source, and any effect… upstream would certainly carry effects down here.”

After discussing the Rule of Capture, paired with a reminder that, based on U.S. Census figures, the border region could grow by nearly 300 percent by 2050, County Judge Danny Valdez wondered if the court shouldn’t bring the situation to Austin and place it on the county’s legislative agenda.

Valdez suggested formulating legislation to do away with the entire Rule of Capture.

That would address concerns over future plans to draw water from the watershed. Johnson Castro called the Fort Stockton Holdings situation a “precedent,” and the court worried that, if Williams is successful, other private entities will do the same.

During the state’s last big drought in the late 1990s, the Rio Grande didn’t make it to the Gulf of Mexico, Johnson Castro said.

“This was before any such export out of our watershed,” Johnson Castro said