by James Adams, Esquire
“And that’s where you get into the groundwater away from cities because that water has not been spoken for.” – Steve Young in the Texas Tribune.
BALONEY! All land in Texas is “spoken for”, hence all groundwater in Texas is ‘spoken for” through millions of pre-existing policy documents called warranty deeds, the state land patents’ perpetual and irrevocable grants, and the US Constitution that protects our God-given private property rights from Statists and other oppressors.
The Texas Supreme Court Justices know the import of the sworn oath to God to protect us from oppression by keeping the US Constitution on the top shelf.
Our legislators shake our hands and tell us they believe in God-given property rights in Church and at political events. Now they need to figure out how to protect us from oppression on days other than the Sabbath while in Austin.
I still get a sick feeling in my stomach when I think back to last session when Rep. Keffer, a person who called groundwater owners ‘hoarders’, wrote HB 2767 to put TCEQ in ownership control of private groundwater through the gimmickry of future conditions and resort to Dark-Ages-style ‘review panels’ chosen by TCEQ, and Sen. Charles Perry sponsored the legislation in the Senate.
State control of private property is Statism. Statism is what we fought against in WWI and WWII.
God and the Texas Supreme Court are doing as much as they can but the Texas legislature meets far too often.
Our human rights and our human dignity cannot be divided otherwise we are dehumanized for the ‘greater common good’ of the state which is Statism.
Only the true owner has the right to determine the future condition of private property and the state’s duty, in a free society, is to protect the true owner as determined by centuries of pre-existing land law.
Our legislators are not policy makers. Policy is already set to protect us from the oppression of Statism.
If our God is the God of the oppressed and our God is working to free us from oppression, then we have a Judeo-Christian moral and ethical duty to make it our business to help God help us through our elected representatives.
Every one of our representatives needs to recognize their sworn duty to God to free us from oppression in order to protect our God-given rights to life, liberty and property.
The most common thread or theme I’ve witnessed in the TCEQ, TWDB, TPWD groundwater grab is the stubborn refusal to recognize millions of pre-existing legal relationships set out in deeds but also in the Farm Bill and billions of dollars of loans that hang in the balance.
Farmers must be able to pump all they need of their own groundwater during a drought. The EAA permitting system is fundamentally unlawful.
The most stubborn refusals to recognize our centuries of Texas land law usually come from those educated in places other than Texas.
Groundwater is governed by Texas land title law, not water or riparian river law, despite the water law lawyers who might try to say otherwise.
And so far as I can tell, I’ve yet to meet a single Texas land title lawyer who is involved in the legislative planning.
The state land patent’s grant ‘Forever’ of “all right, title and interest of the state’ cannot be ignored because of the US Constitution’s prohibition against Ex Post Facto laws and because, “It is fundamental that the Constitution is the paramount law of the state and cannot be altered by legislative amendment.” Jones v. Ross, 173 S.W.2d 1022, 1024 (1943)
Legislators’ jobs should be working jobs, not unlawful titles of nobility.
And their jobs are to protect our ‘spoken for’ groundwater from state agencies such as the TCEQ which has a proven track record of working against the Texas Supreme Court and against our God-given rights.
The TCEQ, TWDB and TPWD should not be able to set policy that supports oppression of private rights………… the Governor Greg Abbott should set public policy for the state.
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