Click here to read Environmental Stewardship’s cogent analysis of the Board’s truly courageous stand last night.

We also are making regional news!  Here’s a radio report from Statewide Impact News.

The Legislature’s efforts to try to carve a deal for water, education and transportation funding is such high stakes, we have no idea what they’re really doing in committee.  Will they put something on the ballot in November?  They’re trying not to.  We just have to see.

One thing we do know, for sure, is this.  If water marketers continue to try to raid the aquifers of Texas, Texans now have a model for how to respond — just like they did in Bastrop and Lee counties.  We know the marketers (and their friends in political office) are not going to go just go away.  So get ready for Round #2.

Let us know if you want to build the independent movement where you are and we’ll try to make it happen.

More coming soon on what the legislature hands us before sine die — that’s the last day of the session, on May 27th.

Best wishes to you all!

Click here to read Environmental Stewardship’s cogent analysis of the Board’s truly courageous stand last night.

Please get a note to the Lost Pines Board and to our two County Judges below and give them a BIG THANK YOU!  Let them know that if Forestar Real Estate Group even so much as thinks about suing OUR groundwater district, you will help us raise the funds to turn this into a landmark case for the people of Texas!

Lost Pines Groundwater Conservation District Board
Bastrop County Judge Paul Pape
Lee County Judge Paul Fischer

We also are making regional news!  Here’s a radio report from Statewide Impact News.  YNN Austin TV News continues their extensive coverage and the Austin American-Statesman (Asher Price) attended last night’s meeting.  If water marketers continue to try to raid the Simsboro Aquifer, we WILL fight back and this might just get us a real chance to win new rounds beyond our water district.

More coming soon.  Yahoo y’all — get some rest for the next round!

Independently yours,

Linda Curtis
Independent Texans

PS  Despite being in a recent car accident, Lee County Judge Fischer was present last night, so we especially appreciate him and wish him the best!

Legislature’s Water Infrastructure Fund Deflates,
Local Water Wars Escalate

Simultaneous to the Legislature’s scramble to find the votes to get $2 billion to fund water infrastructure, residents living in counties just to the east of the Capitol are headed for a critical skirmish in the water war over their aquifer – the Simsboro portion of the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer.  What’s at stake is an aquifer that water marketers have had their eye on for years, and the setting of a precedent that could open the door for draining Texas aquifers to feed exponential growth, doing great harm to Texas landowners.

Citizens from across the affected counties of Bastrop and Lee, together with others from counties that could receive their exported water, will show up on Wednesday, May 15th, starting at 5 pm, at the Bastrop Convention Center to witness a contested hearing as Aqua Water Supply Corporation faces off against private water marketers, Forestar Real Group (Temple-Inland), End Op LP (owned by former Williamson County Commissioner, Frankie Limmer) and the LCRA.  In dispute are groundwater permits totaling 111,000 acre-feet per year (approximately 99 million gallons per day).  The first battle will be over whether Aqua Water has filed in time, according to the rules of the administrative hearing process, to mount a proper challenge to Forestar’s permit request for 45,000 acre-feet/year and LCRA’s permit request for 10,000 acre-feet/year.

Of great interest will be whether the Lost Pines GCD will also grant “party status” to nine landowners and one community organization, Environmental Stewardship, that has led the fight for years to protect the Simsboro.  Seven members of the Brown family in Lee County have filed for party status.

The Browns have owned land in Lee County since the 1800s at ground zero where Forestar plans to sink 10 deep-water wells.  Adding to the drama is that their cousin and neighboring, Garry Brown and State Representative Tim Kleinschmidt, have either leased or sold their own water rights now part of the Forestar deal.

On hand for interviews will be the following individuals and organizations:

•    Betz Brown and other family members who filed for party status against the Forestar and End Op permits.  Betz Brown provided this 2-minute riveting testimony at the most recent hearing in Giddings:  click Betz Brown here and watch Madeleine Stiffelmeyer Brown here talk about how her family has been divided by this issue.

•    Darwyn Hanna, a Bastrop landowner whose family has owned land in Bastrop County since the late 1800s.  Hanna has filed for party status against the permits for Forestar, LCRA and End Op.

•    Andrew Meyer, a young, new farmer who recently purchased land in Paige to start an organic farm.  Meyer has filed for party status against permits for Forestar, LCRA and End Op.  Video of Meyer’s 2-minute testimony to the LPGCD is here.

•    Steve Box, Executive Director of Environmental Stewardship, who has provided his considerable policy and scientific expertise to Bastrop and Lee County landowners and residents for years.  ES has filed for party status against permits for Forestar, LCRA and End Op.  Watch this 3-minute testimony by Steve Box here.

•    Phil Cook, Bastrop landowner, Sierra Club – Lost Pines area.  Watch Cook’s 3-minute testimony here.

•    City of Austin resident, Dick Kallerman, Chairman of the Save Our Springs Alliance Board, to support the call for ‘conserve first, move water later.’

•    Tom Sherman, Concerned Citizens for Texas Water Resources, who lives in New Ulm, and is working to stop the 20-well application by Electro Purification to export water to Richmond and Rosenberg.

•    Jimmy Gaines, President of Texas Landowners Council, an original sponsor of House Bill 3250 that died in committee this week.  Mr. Gaines will talk about groundwater as a private property right and because it is a private property right, state law should protect individuals against the taking of groundwater and it does not.

Travis Brown, President of Neighbors for Neighbors and 20 year Lee County landowner.

•    Linda Curtis, Director of Independent Texans, a citizen-led political action committee for non-aligned voters.  Independent Texans has sounded the alarm to residents bringing out large crowds to previous hearings.

Linda Curtis of Independent Texans said, “What is at stake in Bastrop and Lee counties is no different from what is at stake for all Texans — rural, urban and suburban.  Most of our officials have turned their head to any genuine effort to protect Texas aquifers or landowners living over them.  Texans are crying out for what we all need — the common sense notion that we should conserve first, move water later.   The Legislature should be helping us, not helping those who are set to profit from draining our aquifers.”

Lots more details on this battle are in the News section of this blos and the website of Environmental Stewardship.  Maps obtained by Environmental Stewardship delineating potential damage to well owners are here.

•    Note:  The three permit requests under dispute at the time of this release are:  45,000 acre-feet/year for Forestar Real Estate Group (Temple-Inland), 56,000 acre-feet/year for End Op LP and 10,000 acre-feet for the LCRA.  LCRA is asking the Bastrop County Commission at a special meeting called for Tuesday at 9 a.m. to pass a resolution in support of their permit application.

For more information:

Linda Curtis
Independent Texans
512-535-0989 office
512-657-2089 cell

Please consider voting for Steve Miller and Debra Thorne-Frances who support the most fundamental reform for BISD — geographic representation aka single-member districts.  This way, you would have a school board member who lives near you in your neighborhood — allowing candidates to go door to door.

Elections should not be decided by who has the most money to spend on big signs.  More competitive elections, which geographic representation can foster (if we citizens use them) can help make campaigns more relevant contests versus shoe-in elections where everyone already knows the outcome.  When everyone already knows the outcome, they choose not to vote.  It’s a simple as that!

Thanks for your consideration.

The coalition of below named organizations have developed what it believes would be a reasonable outcome of your deliberations regarding the groundwater permit applications before you at this time.  We find that the production limits sought by Forestar, End Op, and LCRA applications will harm existing permitted wells, the environment, and are far in excess of the DFC and MAG.  The District has failed to factor in the impact of existing permits, and has failed to reasonably consider MAG.  If granted, these permits will make the DFCs unachievable.We believe that, if permitted at all, individual permit should first be reduced to levels actually supported by the applications and then all permits reduced overall as necessary to an aggregate level that, including existing permits, protect the Adopted Desired Future Conditions. In addition the District needs to factor in the impact of existing permits before issuing any new permits.

Example:  Forestar’s application, based almost entirely on a Letter of Intent with Hays County for 25,000 to 45,000 AFY, due to expire in September 2013, is a perfect example of the overarching common element in the two largest applications.  Specifically, the facts demonstrate the applicants are seeking permits for ill-defined projects, whose end users are moving targets and which seek to satisfy the entire demand for their target areas, despite the potential for other sources of supply.  For example, has Hays County’s supposedly “exclusive” LOI with Forestar  now been replaced with Hays County’s April 2013 Request for Proposals for an Alternative Water Supply?  Might the RFP result in a lower bidder than Forestar?  Is Forestar’s proposal to Hays County for up to 45,000 AFY redundant as far as the Hays Caldwell Public Utility Agency’s plan to bring water to Kyle, Buda and San Marcos?  These are exactly the questions the Board should be considering in determining, bottom line, whether these permits seek to prematurely tie up our water while they look for the highest bidder.

In summary, if permitted at all, Forestar and End Op qualify for less than 5% of the water they are seeking.

We encourage the Board to keep permitting within conservative limits that allow pumping that can be reasonably expected to achieve the Adopted GMA-12 Desired Future Conditions.  We oppose the water bankruptcy that would result from all permits being approved at the levels requested.  The flyer attached articulates our request.

If you are not yet ready to take the steps necessary to conservatively manage this resource through the permit process, we encourage you to table final decision on these permits until 1) after the Legislative session has been adjourned, and 2) after the final decisions in the contested case hearings.

1.    We are concerned that the strategy for preservation of the DFC whereby the District will reduce permitted withdrawals later after the DFC has been violated, may be well-intended but is unrealistic.  Once the permitted entities have entered into binding contracts for the supply of water it will be extremely difficult for the District to reduce the permitted water as necessary to preserve the DFC.  This strategy is even more imperiled by the Texas Legislature.  The Legislature has made clear that it is willing to consider legislation that would wholly remove the District’s ability to make such reductions in the future.  As such we believe it is unwise for the District to adopt a management strategy that will at best be exceedingly difficult to implement, and relies upon a management tool that the Legislature may remove entirely.

2.      We also believe that the contested case hearing will allow the District to develop a more robust understanding of the facts involved in regulating permits under the laws and regulations of the State of Texas, and that this understanding will enable the District to make a more informed decision on the application after the hearings have been completed.

We do not believe this is the time to engage legal strategies, but rather that it is time to act to conservatively manage our precious groundwater resources as has been the request of our county Judges, Commissioners Courts, many organizations, and the people of Bastrop and Lee counties.  If challenged in court over having taken this path, we will work as diligently to back you as we have to encourage your good stewardship.

Respectfully yours,

Steve Box, Environmental Stewardship
Michele Gangnes, Neighbors for Neighbors
Phil Cook, Lost Pines Sierra Club
Gretchen McCord DeFlorio, Groups United to Advocate Responsible Development (“GUARD”)
Linda Curtis, Independent Texans

CLICK HERE FOR THE FLIER — PERMIT THIS NOT BANKRUPTCY-Recycled

Here’s what you need to know and do now!

1.  Write a letter to the editor of your local paper(s) and tell them the Governor’s threat to hold a Special Session on water is the best news you’ve heard all session.  Maybe, just maybe, the voice of the people to protect Texas aquifers (and the precious agricultural land over them) can creep into a very focused 30 day session!

2.  If you live in central Texas, come to next Wednesday’s contested case hearing at 5 pm at the Bastrop Convention Center.  Print out the flyer below and pass it out or post it around the Bastrop & Lee county area.  We’re calling out the troops to this meeting!  Everyone needs to be there at 5 pm and plan to stay for at least through 7 or 8 pm, likely!!!  (More details forthcoming).  To prepare yourself read these two pieces on the Environmental Stewardship website here and here, if you missed last night’s meeting in Elgin.

3.  Call your State Senator after you read this Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance Update on Animal ID – whether you farm, ranch, own pets or just like your food local.  Make your calls now!

Got questions?  Send an email to ljcurtis@indytexans.org or call us at 512-535-0989.

Y’all come next Wednesday, ya hear?!

Print this Flier of Lost Pines Hearing 5-15!

Click here for the Request for Party Status with Forestar

Click here for the Request for Party Status with End Op

Click here for the Request for Party Status with LCRA

Got questions?  Email Steve Box, Environmental Stewardship at:  steward@environmental-stewardship.org

We’re going to see lots of last minute bad stuff coming between now and the last day of the session, May 27th, so do what you can.

BASTROP/LEE COUNTY Reminder:  Meeting this Wednesday, 6 pm at Elgin First National Bank, 1312 US 290 -  map here.  We will prepare you for the May 15th hearing on pending groundwater permits AND show you some maps received in response to a public information request by Environmental Stewardship.  Please come~!

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OPPOSE HB 3234 – Changes to Water Rights Permitting – On House Floor MONDAY

Background on the Water Rights Permitting Process:

Under Texas law surface water belongs to the people and is held in trust for them by the state. Those entities or individuals who want to use surface water must apply to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for the right to use that water for anything other than livestock or domestic use. TCEQ must consider a number of factors before granting a water right, including the following, among other factors:
·      Whether there is unallocated water available in the stream on a dependable basis to accommodate additional water use
·      Whether the water rights application is for a “beneficial use”
·      What the impacts of the water use would be on water quality, wildlife habitat, instream uses, downstream water rights, and – where appropriate – freshwater inflows to bays and estuaries, among other factors
·      Whether the applicant has prepared and/or implemented a water conservation plan.

The administrative review and especially technical review of the water rights permit application takes considerable time, effort, and resources on behalf of TCEQ – especially in the case of complex water rights applications such as the multi-volume Brazos River Authority’s “systems operations” permit application.

The public is supposed to be notified when a permit application is determined by TCEQ to be “administratively complete” and then again after the technical review when and if TCEQ issues a draft permit. Persons “affected” by the proposed water rights permit – such as landowners whose land might be inundated by a proposed water reservoir associated with the permit – may request a contested case hearing on the permit. TCEQ may deny the requests for a contested case hearing and issue the permit.

If TCEQ grants the request for a contested case hearing, the matter is referred to the State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH) for a hearing, and other affected parties or parties whose requests were denied by TCEQ may seek to participate in the hearing, if the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) admits them as parties. After the contested case hearing is concluded, the ALJ will make a proposal for decision by TCEQ. TCEQ makes the ultimate decision and may issue the permit, even when the ALJ recommends denial of the permit.

At whatever point TCEQ issues a water rights permit, that decision may be appealed to state court. Denial of a request for contested case hearing is also appealable to state court if the permit is issued. The courts have overturned TCEQ denial of party status and contested cases for different permits issued by the agency. But the courts give considerable discretion to the agency in decisions about the issuance of a permit. TCEQ rarely denies applications for water rights permits, but permits are often improved as a result of TCEQ and public scrutiny of the permit applications.
CSHB 3234 – This proposed legislation:

·      sets deadlines for TCEQ’s processing of water rights permit applications
·      limits the issues that may be referred to SOAH for consideration in a contested case hearing on a draft permit,
·      prohibits the ALJ from admitting as parties to the contested case hearing any persons or organizations who did not make a request to TCEQ for a contested case,
·      prohibits parties in a contested case hearing from raising any issues they did not raise earlier, and
·      sets limits on the length of time for conducting the contested case hearing.

What’s Wrong with CSHB 3234 – This legislation:

·      sets unrealistic deadlines for TCEQ’s processing of water rights permit applications – especially complex multi-volume permit applications – requiring in essence that TCEQ complete its review and issue a draft permit within 300 days (with some flexibility for additional time if more information needs to be requested from and provided by the permit applicant)
·      puts TCEQ and the public at a disadvantage in reviewing a permit application – while the applicant may have spent years preparing an application the agency and the public are expected to review it thoroughly within a few months
·      makes it difficult to adequately review the impacts of a proposed water rights permit on water quality, wildlife habitat, instream uses, downstream water rights, freshwater inflows, and other concerns
·      ignores any staffing and resource constraints at TCEQ in expediting permit applications
·      unduly limits the issues that may be considered in a contested case hearing on a permit
·      puts inappropriate limitations on an ALJ’s authority to admit persons affected by the proposed permit as parties to a contested case hearing on the permit – if a landowner affected by the permit was not properly notified of the application or the draft permit, for example, the ALJ would not have the authority to admit that person as a party to the hearing because they had not earlier requested that TCEQ grant such a hearing
·      unrealistically limits the time period for the contested case hearing process to nine months – naming of parties, setting a schedule for the process, researching the issues, deposing witnesses and doing other “discovery,” briefing the issues, conducting the physical hearing, replying to briefs, reviewing the evidence, and issuing a proposal for decision would all have to occur within nine months, leading to a rushed and unfair process that is again all to the advantage of the applicant and to the disadvantage of affected persons such as landowners contesting the permit
·      is not the result of a stakeholder process involving diverse interests but reflects only the interests of attorneys for a few permit applicants who requested this legislation, and thus ignores the interests of potentially affected persons such as landowners and anglers, who might be harmed by the issuance of a water rights permit

Prepared and distributed by the Lone Star Chapter, Sierra Club. For more information: kenwkramer@aol.com

ON THE WATER FRONT: 

Read this piece in the Austin-American Statesman, then call or contact your legislators and ask them to stand tall on this issue.  Legislators can focus on conserving water first!  For pennies on the dollar, fixing leaky pipes and getting everyone — the municipalities and large agricultural entities, in particular — to conserve, must be done now.  Do not spend tax dollars on building pipelines to drain rural Texas dry, potentially doing great harm to our aquifers and landowners.  And for the small towns that need help, our understanding is that there are low interest loans available to them already.  If someone tells you differently, we’d like to hear what they have to say.  The bottom line is that building costly infrastructure won’t make it rain.  It doesn’t appear we’re going to get much of that over the next few years, until the lege meets again.

Plan now dudes in the legislature!  More soon…

Latest Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance Legislative Update is here.

BASTROP & LEE COUNTY MEETING REMINDER!
Wednesday, May 8th, 6 pm
First National Bank in Elgin
1312 Highway 290 map here

This meeting is to prepare you for the May 15th, 5 pm hearing of the
Lost Pines Groundwater Conservation District at the Bastrop Convention Center.

Hope to see you Bastrop and Lee County folks next Wednesday!

We attended a school board election debate last night for the Bastrop Independent School District.  

Based on this event, please consider voting for Debra Thorne-Frances in Place 6 and Steve Miller in Place 7.  Though there is much to say about the positions of the candidates on a range of issues, upon which they mostly agree, one issue had clear lines of difference.  That was the issue of geographic representation (aka single-member districts) for school board elections.  Steve and Debra strongly support geographic representation, their opponents strongly oppose them.

Geographic district representation for BISD would be a MAJOR reform in how we elect board members and, I believe, would make them much more accountable to the people in each area of Bastrop County.

Right now all voters in the county vote for all places on the board, which pretty much guarantees that no one on the board really represents YOUR community.  Board members may be well intended, but they cannot know what it is like to live in all areas of the county.

In addition, this “at-large” system pretty much guarantees that the person with the most money for signs and a campaign organization wins.  If we had single-member districts, candidates could more easily work their area door-to-door, which would encourage more people to run.  It would also be more engaging for the voters.

We hope you will consider voting for Miller and Thorne-Frances so that they can lead an effort to win geographic representation for all of Bastrop County.  Early voting is now.  Here’s the information you need

Please feel free to share this message!