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Texas Water Ownership

Thu, March 13, 3:30 to 5:00pm, Sheraton Dallas Hotel, TBA

Abstract

Texas faces a potential water shortage in coming generations, making sound regulation of water crucial. At present, Texas holds that the state owns all surface water lying in bodies and that landowners own the groundwater beneath their land. Citizens use surface water by permit according to the rule of prior appropriation. Their use of groundwater is subject either to restrictions set by conservation districts or otherwise to the lax rule of capture.
There are three alternatives to the rule of capture as a means of allocation of water: prior appropriation, correlative rights, and reasonable use. Of these, prior appropriation is preferable. Meanwhile, conservation districts have performed poorly according to statistical analysis, and the situation calls for either closer oversight of the districts or their replacement with state ownership and management of groundwater. Adopting the same system that it uses for surface water to groundwater use is Texas’s best way to meet the water crisis.

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