Board of Directors working to implement policy by Jan. 2015
By Ronnie N. Hopper
The High Plains Water District Board of Directors and staff are working to develop common sense water policy for our district. Our goal is to develop policy by April 1, 2014 and to implement it by January 1, 2015.
Water and its use are complex and often controversial issues.
Water strikes at the core of our liberty. I believe that private property ownership has made this nation greater than many others, thereby revealing the great responsibility that lies on our shoulders. In the past, the groundwater has provided livelihood for tens of thousands of our residents, paid for the education of our children and helped build our cities.
For generations, West Texas landowners have struggled to purchase land. I sometimes think that water policy should be decided solely by my fellow landowners and me. After all, we are the only group immediately affected by water district policy. West Texas producers and landowners are generally an independent lot. It is easy for us to become self-absorbed and solely independent until we stop to realize that we, like others, need someone else.
Yes, we produce the commodity, but someone else processes it and sends it along the chain toward public consumption. Someone else educates our children and prepares them for their future. Someone else protects our homes and businesses from fire and theft. Think of the thousands of businesses, both large and small, that depend on each other for their livelihoods. The list is endless. I am amazed how little I do for myself each day and how much others do for me.
Our water decision, as I see it, is a debate between preservation versus conservation.
There are those who believe the groundwater stored under lands of our district should be set aside (preserved) for future use. They believe water will be of greater value to the future residents. For those who favor conservation, on the other hand, believe the groundwater should be used in a judicious and prudent manner (conserved) in present times.
Remember, land always moves to its highest and best use. When our area was first settled, it was ranch land for cattle. Later, the land was broken out and it became irrigated farmland, a higher and better use. Irrigated agriculture generates more dollars moving through the economy than does dryland production.
I explain the difference as $400.00. In round numbers, I spend $700.00 in production expenses for each irrigated acre that I farm and $300.00 for each dryland acre. The $400.00/acre is reduced revenue to our local communities, impacting local businesses. It is easy to see the reduction in revenue when our farmland moves from irrigated to dryland agriculture. Over time, irrigated farmland will continue to move toward dryland production.
Still, agriculture has a great story to tell. More than ever before, crops such as corn, wheat, sorghum and cotton produce higher yields with greater efficiencies using less water. For example, the amount of water required to produce one pound of cotton forty years ago is now producing more than three pounds. This is only one of many examples: a great success! This trend will likely continue.
My fellow Directors at HPWD and I will not have the wisdom to develop sound water policy without the advice, consent and support of the stakeholders. We ask for this input and support as we move forward with our task.
Ronnie N. Hopper of Petersburg is HPWD Precinct Five District Director which represents residents in a portion of Floyd County, and all of Hale and Swisher Counties.
Mr Hopper, there is no “common sense” water policy to be found in this conundrum.
In Texas the water issue isn’t complicated.
The LANDOWNER’S right trumps all.
The only aspect that renders this issue “controversial” is the majority angling for a way to usurp the individual rights of the minority (the landowner) who, by TX law, controls his water.
You sir, have been selected to undertake an impossible task. I pity you the machinations of educating the desperate locals to the cold, hard reality we face.
The preservation vs conservation argument should have been made more forcefully back in the late 1960’s when it could have made a difference. Frankly, Texans have always, and will continue to insist on individual freedom, thus the argument for majority interest control is impossible.
As an ag producer in the in a county whose ag output is only second in the state, I can tell you that we are at the point that restricting water use is an exercise in futility. I will be interested in giving up irrigating my crops as soon as I see no green lawns or golf courses in the Panhandle/ South Plains towns and cities.
The idea that ancillary businesses who benefit from and make their living serving ag’s needs in the various phases of the production chain, should weigh into this equation is ludicrous, and smacks of collectivism. To see this more clearly, consider whether these businesses would continue if we landowners voted to cut their profits in half. Their forebears didn’t pay the taxes on my, or my forebears holdings for the last 120 years.
For added perspective, consider that In the majority of our region’s counties irrigated farming has already been abandoned. Allowing the process to evolve naturally, leads to a more graceful transition back to dryland production.
This big desperate last flurry of “action” is silly in the context that over the last several decades we have somehow managed to ignore the loss of irrigation over the majority of the region. Those landowners were allowed to manage their water unmolested until it ran out.
WHY should those of us more fortunately situated in the lottery of location be treated any different than they were?
We do not need any “common sense water policy” from HPWD. The HPWD needs to be eliminated so it stops trying to steal water from the landowners. The people own the water, not the govt!
incentive based programs. Likelyhood of qualifying for operational loans by financial institutions. This would be great. Showing favoritism to savvy landmanagement makes sense. incorperating these water conservation practices thru reward without no mandatory regulated oversite Hey. preferencial treatment to those whose intent seems inclusive of the whole.