Like many Texans, I’m thanking God for the rain we’ve received this past week. However, I know that it won’t even put a dent in our drought situation that’s been going on for the last several years. I got to thinking how a large part of our water crisis is due to Texan’s misuse of our water resources. Then I found this article in Dallas News about that very issue. This article, written by Louis DeLuca, is talking about water rights of industrial businesses and farms. The way things are now, senior riverside industries take priority over water usage rights to newer industries, no matter the need of water usage.
DeLuca described how some students at The University of North Texas recently published material showing how some upstream farmers faced hardships because of the excessive water usage of a downstream chemical plant on the Brazos River. The current system for water rights would possibly allow for senior users to store up and sell their water rights to frantic junior users.
Currently, the Texas courts are supposed to be looking for a new way to make the water usage rights fairer and standardized so that all businesses are allowed water rights based on need, not seniority.
I think the courts need to crack down on water conservation for all riverside industries because if we don’t, we might soon have no water to argue over.
Although this article was published by Dallas News and used the Brazos River as it’s primary subject, I think it was meant for a wide audience across the state of Texas because the water rights affect all of our rivers and lakes. I feel like DeLuca did a good job of supporting his argument with sources like the Denton Record-Chronicle and the publication from the students from The University of North Texas. I also think he made a good argument for ending seniority rights and switching to a needs based system.
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