Pratt,
On my cynical days, I feel like, when the state water board acts on the basis of the lie of a Texas groundwater scarcity, that we are involved in inverse slave hunting by transferring title (control =ownership) of groundwater outside of the strict state land title laws. And we are evading payment required by Constitutional limits on Eminent Domain.
Notice how “planning” is used to illegitimately evade Eminent Domain and the “trick” is getting around private property rights.
http://www.bushcenter.org/blog/2014/05/06/america-2025-how-start-securing-enough-water
Instead of going and getting slaves, we grab their land instead and make them “save” 50%, fine them for using too much water, fine them for meter violations or impose “production” fees.
Instead of going and getting slaves, we bureaucratically cause the freeman to work on land he no longer owns.
The state should have NO authority to approve or disapprove of binding Regional plans. And 31 TAC 357.32 should not exist. So far as I can tell, the state water board has yet to build one pipeline. Appears to me that we don’t need a state water “development” board.
James
See: Newsletter / Rural/Urban Resources / February 2015 [water rights]
When my wife went off to college her best friends grandfather told her that when those college boys told her how smart they were to ask them to see their report cards, sounds like we need to ask the state water board people to show theirs as well.