Many players in water election on sidelines Saturday
Fewer than 900 eastern Caldwell County residents can vote Saturday on who will regulate pumping in their area.
By Laylan Copelin
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Rancher Pamela Hohman has worked for months to encourage voters in eastern Caldwell County to decide the political fate of their portion of the water-rich Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer.
As her neighbors troop to the polls at the Delhi Community Center on Saturday, Hohman, who collected signatures on the petition that called for the election, won't be among the votes. Her Broken T ranch is in two counties, but her house is 150 feet outside Caldwell County.
 Jay Janner/AMERICAN-STATESMAN Pamela Hohman |
Fewer than 900 registered voters of eastern Caldwell County will decide whether to join the Gonzales County Underground Water District, which would regulate how much water can be pumped from eastern Caldwell County, or whether to continue the status quo and leave the area a checkerboard of regulated and unregulated properties.
The election has ramifications for a broad swath of Central Texas as cities from San Antonio to San Marcos to Buda, as well as the Lockhart area, are looking toward the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer as a future water source.
Hohman, who supports regulation by Gonzales County, said she's worked on the election so much, "I feel like I've already voted."
But like her, few of the principal players on either side of the issue are eligible to vote.
The ranch of Tony Spears, a businessman who's tried to put together deals to export large amounts of water from the area, straddles the county lines, and he resides, like Hohman, just outside Caldwell County.
Seven of nine property owners in Caldwell County who six weeks ago tried to one-up Saturday's election by submitting their land for annexation by Caldwell County's Plum Creek Conservation District are absentee landowners who can't vote.
Caldwell County Judge H.T. Wright, an outspoken opponent to annexation by the Gonzales County water district, lives in Lockhart, the county seat outside the proposed annexation area.
Wright argues that the water is critical for growth between Interstate 35 and the new Texas 130 tollway. He said he fears the water will be shipped elsewhere if local officials are not involved in its regulation.
"Water is critical for our growth," Wright said. "I just hate to see the water resources of Caldwell County drained for San Antonio and Bastrop."
Hohman dismisses that fear, noting that landowners, not regulators, will decide to whom they sell their water.
For her, the issue is the fear of too much pumping.
"We need protection," she said. "And we need it now."
The election is infused with so much passion because eastern Caldwell County is a rural area that's an anomaly in Texas: A water-rich area, with no pumping restrictions, that is surrounded by water districts on four sides.
"The best water and the most water happens to be in this area," said Bob Wilson, a lawyer for Plum Creek water district. "It's like it has a big target on the area."
Growth south and southeast of Austin is dependent on finding reliable water sources.
"People aren't going to go where the water is," said Wilson, whose clients include several water distributors in the future growth corridor. "They expect the water to be brought to them."
Hohman said she prefers regulation by the Gonzales district because she thinks it has tougher restrictions. Wilson defended Plum Creeks' rules as appropriate for the area.
The election might raise as many questions as it answers.
In March, nine Caldwell County landowners, led by Spears' lawyer Ed Small, asked the Plum Creek water district to annex them. The properties are loosely linked, checkerboard-style, between the Plum Creek boundaries and Spears' ranch.
If the voters defeat Gonzales' annexation of eastern Caldwell County, Plum Creek would regulate the nine properties while the rest of eastern Caldwell County would have no pumping restrictions.
If the voters support Gonzales' annexation, then there is a point of dispute.
"We believe those (Plum Creek) annexations would be void on their face," said Austin lawyer J.D. Head, who represents the Gonzales district. "I believe we'd have sole jurisdiction."
Head said it's unprecedented in Texas for two groundwater districts to regulate the same portion of an aquifer.
Wilson counters that the nine properties might be double-regulated and double-taxed unless the landowners decided to withdraw from Plum Creek and accept Gonzales' rules.
"Is it a good system of regulation? Absolutely not," Wilson said. "Is it workable? Yes."
The conflict, Wilson said, could be negotiated by both groundwater districts to avoid going to court. Or the Legislature, which twice has failed to impose a groundwater district on the area, might intervene.
"After a few failures in the Legislature," Hohman said, "you lose faith."
lcopelin@statesman.com;445-3617
