Excerpt from Circle of Blue WaterNews
Reporting the Global Water Crisis
September 7, 2009
Dr. Peter Gleick is president of the Pacific Institute, an internationally recognized water expert and a MacArthur Fellow. While his specialty is water, this article addresses broader issues that I feel should be of concern to all progressives.
Who would easily see a connection between water and Glenn Beck?
T. Boone Pickens, the high-rolling oilman, may have engineered one of his shrewdest takeovers yet with eight acres of Texas scrub-land.
The land in Roberts County, a stretch of ranchland outside Amarillo, holds no oil. But it is central to Pickens' plan to create an agency to condemn property and sell tax-exempt bonds in the search for one of his other favorite commodities: water.
Approval of the water district was all but certain as Texans voted Tuesday in state and local elections. By law, only the two people who actually live on the eight acres will be allowed to vote: the manager of Pickens' nearby Mesa Vista ranch and his wife. The other three owners, who will sit on the district's board, all work for Pickens.
Pickens "has pulled a shenanigan," said Phillip Smith, a rancher who serves on a local water-conservation board. "He's obtained the right of eminent domain like he was a big city. It's supposed to be for the public good, not a private company."
Pickens and his allies say no shenanigans are involved. Once the district is created, the board will be able to issue tax-exempt bonds to finance construction of Pickens' planned 328-mile, $2.2 billion pipeline to transport water from the Panhandle across the prairie to the suburbs of Dallas and San Antonio.
If Pickens can't find a buyer for the bonds or for his water - and he hasn't yet - he might buy the bonds himself to jump-start the project, said his Dallas-based lawyer, Monty Humble of Vinson & Elkins. The board will spend about $110 million to buy the right-of-way for the pipeline, using the power of eminent domain to acquire property if necessary, Humble said.
When last I blogged about T Bone, it was to point out his unwavering funding of Texas Republican candidates like Abbot and Craddick. Now we learn about his 'business model' - stack the deck when you can....
When last I blogged about T Bone, it was to point out his unwavering funding of Texas Republican candidats like Abbot and Craddick. Now we learn about his 'business model' - stack the deck when you can....
BETSY BLANEY Myriad obstacles remain for billionaire oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens to market Panhandle water to thirsty cities elsewhere in Texas, but one intermediate hurdle appears to be a slam dunk.
Pickens still must lay a pipeline to deliver water to a buyer that's yet to be secured.
But this week he secured a November election for a proposed freshwater supply district in Roberts County. Only five people will be eligible to vote, and all either work for him or support him and live within the proposed district's boundaries.
This is not a sexy story. Nobody is getting blown up, although there are likely some who are dying the slow death of cancer caused by drinking polluted water. However, if this continues, it will soon be a very sexy story and we need someone sexy to help solve it. We can live without Iraq's oil but we can't live without water. Very soon water will not only be the sexy story, it will be the only story.
Take a look at this:
This is our water cycle and what you may notice is that we don't get new water. Our same old water continually recycles itself.
Another thing you might notice is there is no God sending us more water label in that water cycle. Many people where I live still believe that they can pray hard enough and God will send us more water.
(A battle coming to your hometown soon, all over Texas.... - promoted by lightseeker)
I spent Saturday afternoon with a determined group of Texans. These residents in Cass, Red River, Titus, Bowie, Lamar and Morris counties had fought for years to preserve their way of life from the man-made flood waters of the proposed Marvin Nichols lake. Powerful engineering firms outside the district want to dam the Sulphur River, flood 72,000 acres and ship the water to Dallas.
Houston-based organization, OilPatch Democrats, protest against Bush attack on Clean Water Act whistleblowers
MEDIA ADVISORY
The Houston based and Texas-wide political organization, OilPatch Democrats (www.oilpatchdemocrats.com), sent letters of protest to Washington, D.C. concerning a recent decision, by Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, to revoke whistleblower protections for federal employees involved in the Clean Water Act.
To quote the September 4, 2006 release by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), "As a result of an opinion issued by a unit within the Office of the Attorney General, federal workers will have little protection from official retaliation for reporting water pollution enforcement breakdowns, manipulations of science or cleanup failures..
The opinion and the ruling reverse nearly two decades of precedent. Approximately 170,000 federal employees working within environmental agencies are affected by the loss of whistleblower rights."
Letters were sent to ranking members of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, the House Committee on the Judiciary, the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and the House Committee on Resources and copied to all Houston area members of the U.S Congress and Senators Hutchison and Cornyn. Below is the text to letters sent to Senator Patrick Leahy and Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.
For questions or copies of all the letters sent, please contact:
Dr. James M. Rine 633 Harvard St. Houston, TX 77007 281 414 1386 jmrine@hotmail.com
This year in Texas, rural voters are presented with a new breed of populist Democratic candidates for state office who are real fighters. These Democratic candidates stand up for the people against the power-grabbing political and corporate elites who are running roughshod over rural Texas in a reign of greed and arrogance. The time is ripe for such candidates, because a populist revolt is percolating across rural Texas, the likes of which has not been seen in decades.
That's the kind of future Texas faces if steps aren't taken soon to find new sources of water, according to an early version of the new State Water Plan.
So goes the headline and teaser from an article in todays SA Express. What is even more interesting and perhaps troubling is the philosphical debate which is at the root of this issue. More below...
