The district could issue low-interest bonds to build a 320-mile pipeline for the water. Pickens also wants to use the rights of way for the water line to bury transmission lines from his proposed 4,000-megawatt wind farm, which would be the largest in the world.
The move is the latest in what has been a five-year effort by Pickens' Mesa Water to ship water from the Ogallala Aquifer in the Panhandle to cities trying to plan for future growth.
"We continue to have discussions with potential (water) buyers and want to have as many options as possible to address what we believe will be increasingly critical water supply issues and power issues in Texas, part in the Dallas-Fort Worth area," said Mesa spokesman Jay Rosser.
Though Roberts County Judge Vernon H. Cook voted Tuesday to approve a petition for the district and to call for the election to confirm it, he questioned the method.
"I feel like it's an abuse of the system," he said of only Pickens' people casting ballots. "I have all kinds of concerns about the way the legislation is structured, but I don't think we have a real legal recourse on it."
[snip]
Cook called the election's outcome "a foregone conclusion." He said deeds for the acreage Pickens gave four of his employees were recorded with the county Tuesday, though he wasn't certain when Pickens gave them the land.
One of those employees, Mike Boswell, said Pickens handed over the deeds about two months ago and with the understanding that the new landowners would back the district.
Monty Humble, an attorney working for Pickens, said freshwater supply districts can get low-interest bonds for infrastructure beyond the boundaries of the district if they are revenue bonds.
The district also comes with eminent domain powers that reach beyond its boundaries.
"There's nothing remarkable about using eminent domain for water projects," Humble said. "And there's nothing remarkable to using it for electrical transmission."
[snip]
Welcome to Texas, where the wild west never really went away, it only morphed into the wild market place west, where rigged free enterprise is the ideology of choice, and the rich get richer at our expense. Does anybody really believe it is a good idea to give eminent domain powers to T. Boone?
There have been several excellent dairies on the water issue, including this very comprehensive one . - Barnett Shale: An Insatiable Thirst. a few days ago.
On another front we see the Texas model of privitization of government functions coming under attack. According to the NYT business section, 27 states have either refused to approve or reversed their experiments in energy deregulation. Only California is expanding their program. As I have blogged over and over, Texas is not really a free enterprise state, it is a corporate run , rigged enterprise state on some fronts. From our business crony Supreme Court to our essentially bought and paid for governors and key legislators (Craddick, et. al.) we are reaping the consequences of 2 + decades of these kind of insider sweet heart deals.
It's time for a change, and that means to me Populists Democrats, not merely more corporate power channeled through Democratic hands.
Discuss away... |
