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The House Committee on Natural Resources met on June 5, 2018 to hear invited testimony and public testimony on the status of groundwater policy in Texas. Committee discussion included extensive review of current case law surrounding groundwater rights management and comparisons to Oil & Gas standards.

 

This report is intended to give you an overview and highlight of the discussions on the various topics the committee took up. This report is not a verbatim transcript of the hearing; it is based upon what was audible or understandable to the observer and the desire to get details out as quickly as possible with few errors or omissions. Please note, the livestream for this hearing was not stable and portions of questions or statements throughout may not have been audible.

 

Progress and challenges in encouraging coordination and consistency in aquifer-wide management and permitting practices

Sarah Schlessinger, Texas Alliance of Groundwater Districts

  • TAGD is a nonprofit representing 85 of the 98 GCDs, primary purpose is to provide data on GCDs
  • Regulatory approach can vary across the state, affected by several factors: Local hydro-geological conditions can vary, local needs or use variances, and funding or existing uses
  • Found that most districts use a hybrid of permitting rules, discussion is very complex
  • Have held 6 public panels discussing GCD regulation,
  • TAG formed a subcommittee to evaluate consistency and homogeny of regulatory frameworks; At least 9 of the GMAs have begun a formal process to look at inconsistencies regarding framework
  • One of the goals of the subcommittee is to develop a template for other GMAs and GCDs to use and provide more consistency
  • There are opportunities to increase consistency: wants to establish more consistency with definitions, shared application forms, template language for procedural rules, etc.
  • Larson – They’re all cooperating and we can really see the common ground across districts. Some of these GMAs are really similar

 

Marty Jones, Sprouse Shrader Smith

  • Districts in Panhandle are doing a very good job of managing aquifer, keeping rules simple and consistent across counties
  • Have issues with DFC process, amount of time required to finish process is too long
  • No point in making appeals as you will already be in the next cycle
  • Glitch in the resolution process too, if a DFC is declared unreasonable, any correcting changes require agreement between the involved GMAs; if they don’t agree on the solution, then the initial GMA that presented the issue would not get a resolution
  • Aquifer-wide DFCs could resolve the issue
  • Different rules for different owners in the same aquifer separated by arbitrary lines that do not follow hydro-geological conditions practically result in a taking for some owners; essentially a ‘taking’ as these DFCs are government-regulated
  • Need consistent DFCs across aquifers
  • Price – Could you refresh our memory about the new DFC appeal?
    • New process is filing a petition, district is then obligated to contract with SOAH, ALJ issues proposal for decision declaring DFC reasonable or unreasonable, goes to the water district who can accept or not accept
  • Price – If you’re unhappy with whatever decision the district makes and you need to take it to court, is it de novo review, etc.?
    • Substantial evidence review
  • Frank – How many different rules do you see in the same aquifer?
    • Every aquifer has substantially different rules from what I’ve seen
    • Recently sued Brazos Valley GCD, looked at other districts in GMA 12 and found widley varying rules
  • Workman – It would appear to me that different conditions in different parts of aquifers justify different rules
    • The problem is where the line is drawn, different production limits on different parts of the line cause major issues
  • Price – You recommend an attorney’s fee provision for these kind of issues; Secondly, you recommend an elimination of an export permits, why? I want to hear both sides of this
    • This is the only judicial setting where only the state can recover attorney’s fees, Landowner should also be able to; should be rare, but should be possible
    • Regarding exports, this is the personal property of the landowner; case law is clear, once its produced to the surface, it is the same as any other property
    • Unless its wasteful, the water authority shouldn’t have the right to say how they’re going to use it
    • This is meant to discourage the removal of water

 

C.E. Williams, Panhandle Groundwater Conservation District

  • On the issue of export fees, they’re capped in chapter 36 of water code.
  • Fees that are in the code now are reasonable and should stay, this is also the only way to get funding because these organizations are tax exempt
  • Attorney fee language was put in as a compromise, you don’t see many frivolous lawsuits in GCDs because of this provision
  • Nevarez – What is the definition of a frivolous lawsuit? That’s a scary word, only frivolous or muffled until it happens to you; can you give me an example of a frivolous lawsuit in a GCD?
  • Nevarez – Concerned about muffling lawsuits, we have to be concerned about the ordinary citizen; they deserve justice
    • Cannot provide an example
  • Panhandle GCD works to streamline its permitting process
  • Local management for groundwater is a difficult regulatory scheme, but likely the most fair way to go about it

 

Kody Bessent, Plains Cotton Growers

  • Plains Cotton Growers believes in local development of resources through GCDs, communication exists across GCDs, GMAs, etc.
  • Each district in each area is very unique
  • Ultimate goal of managing water resources in conservation
  • From a Cotton-based perspective, saw increased yields with reduced water usage from technology, management improvements in the High Plains Water District, collaboration allowed for an effective aquifer-wide solution
  • Rules may be different based on aquifer conditions in the Panhandle versus the High Plains, but they are this way for a reason; aquifer contours differ and should be managed accordingly

 

Developments in case law regarding groundwater ownership and regulation

Shauna Fitzsimmons, Sledge Law Group

  • Will be speaking to recent TWCA O&G whitepaper and ongoing case in Conroe and outlying areas involving DFCs
  • O&G Whitepaper: Was done to respond to legislative inquiry about O&G law involving groundwater
    • Many stakeholders had misconceptions about what the “Day case” means, how it impacts groundwater, and how Chapter 36 should be revisited
    • Courts have applied O&G law to ownership and noted differences in management and regulation; applied things like the Rule of Capture and Severance (e.g. separating surface and groundwater rights) to groundwater ownership
    • Day case determined that groundwater is a vested property right, e.g. can have an ownership interest in groundwater under property
    • Also found that groundwater estate is the dominant estate, e.g. groundwater owner can use the surface estate to access his groundwater
    • As such, accommodation doctrine applies, e.g. groundwater owner cannot destroy property, etc. to access their groundwater, must only take reasonable access actions
    • Texas Supreme Court and other authorities have identified several differences however: differences in resource, those that might be interested in conservation, ‘waste’ is defined differently, RRC vs. GCD regulation, etc.
  • Since the Day case, have heard a lot on correlative rights; court noted that correlative rights doctrine should be applied to protect landowner’s opportunity to produce their fair share
  • Many had difficulties with this concept, correlative rights is typically understood to mean limiting groundwater production based on surface acreage; but this is not the technical definition or what courts use, should probably not use this term in this way
  • Essentially applies to concurrent ownership interactions, courts have noted this is only realized through regulation; in O&G, looked at via well spacing, production allowables, etc.
  • Court-identified factors in acreage-based regulations include: Landowner’s ability to recover reasonable investment expectations, historic use, future needs, environmental impact, subsidence, etc.
  • Nevarez – What would you suggest in harmonizing the definition of correlative rights between the actual meaning and the groundwater regulatory definition?
    • My hope would be to talk about correlative rights and be on the same page, also understand that it is not necessarily a scary term
    • Using correlative rights to describe acreage-based regulation and assuming it is consistent with O&G is wrong; groundwater necessarily has to be regulated differently and courts have stated this, provided additional factors
  • This concept triggers other discussion of “user-based rules,” e.g. those promulgated to respond to historic use; not mutually exclusive with correlative rights
  • Whitepaper goal is to educate on correlative rights, user-based rules, site-specific rules (e.g. Barton Springs considering impact to springs in regulation)
  • From a legislative perspective, need to consider this before we move forward in mapping Chapter 36 to O&G regulations
  • Important that districts are able to keep some statutory authorities like historic and existing use, being able to regulate based on subsidence, etc.
  • Will likely have ‘takings’ claims if you don’t protect investment-backed expectations
  • Chair Larson – The parallels between groundwater and O&G are talked about often, whitepaper seems like a great exercise to help use understand the terminology and how regulations are being used
  • Regarding litigation, Fitzsimmons represents Lone Star GCD was sued by Conroe and other investor-owned utilities; originally created to address many water issues from a sustainability perspective, water was already fully allocated
  • Rules were developed to achieve management goal based on historic use and to protect investment-backed expectations
  • In 2006, Board came up with a plan to reduce pumping levels by 2016, drew actions from groundwater interests, GCD fought some of the claims that seemed to be designed to stop GCD conservation activity
  • 2 out of 18 claims remain, GCD is back in district court, also attempting to recover attorneys fees; Fitzsimmons notes that GCD is funded by taxpayer dollars and had to expand funds to fight these challenges
  • Current claim remaining is determining if districts have authority to perform a reduction based on historic use, district judge has opined that this issue should move up to appellate courts
  • Plaintiffs also supported replacing Board with elected officials during the 85th Session
  • Plaintiffs and another city appealed the DFCs, GCD studied the issue to determine if DFCs could be changed and allow for more production, ‘Run D’ was selected as the most viable course of action; New DFCs were adopted and DFC appeal was settled
  • Legislatively, Chapter 36 states that a district’s “unreasonable” DFCs would not affect other districts DFCs, however DFCs must be adopted at the GMA level and other districts need to agree as production decisions can affect adjacent district
  • Statute doesn’t recognize the hydro-geologic reality that DFC changes in one district could affect operations in other districts
  • Disputes timing issue of GMA 14 and purported schedule of DFC appeal
  • Chair Larson – Everyone is looking at this case because of the impact, obviously subsidence is an issue there

 

Roland Ruiz, Edwards Aquifer Authority

  • 2 cases against the EAA currently, brought by LULAC and Uvalde GCD
  • LULAC case – challenges the constitutionality of the board, had issues with the 1 person/1 vote principle, 15 members total on the board with concerns re: representation
  • Uvalde GCD case – Irrigators applied for water use and were approved with the caveat that half of the water used needed to be appurtenant to the land
  • Had constituents concerned about what happens to this attached water use when an industrial or commercial development is built on farmland
  • EAA Board promulgated rules to allow for severance of water, Uvalde GCD did not like the new rules and resulted in a lawsuit
  • Question is if Board acted within its authority in developing rules, taking every effort to negotiate with GCD, city, and county
  • Chair Larson – LULAC case sets up a challenge for the urbanization of the state, if courts rule against structure then there would be very little representation for the farmers

 

Greg Ellis, Attorney

  • Presenting on a recent AG request regarding McKinney historic use dispute
  • @11:48 repeated long term audio & video interruption

 

Ed McCarthy, Attorney

  • Case law is largely focused on filling voids in regulatory framework, e.g. between lessor and lessee
  • If legislative could provide guidance on how to make the regulation appropriate, we can avoid the courts and resolve issues
  • Highlights Lost Pines GCD and Middle Pecos GCD cases
  • Lost Pines GCD Contested Case
    • 4 individuals who wanted to contest party status and entered into a contested case
    • Also had request from an environmental group
    • SOAH picked up the cases for a determination of standing to be party, at the time parties were required to demonstrate they had a redressable, justiciable interest
    • None of the parties presented evidence that they had wells, intended to produce, etc.; only asserted that they had standing due to ownership of surface rights
    • Environmental group argued based on conservation and protection interest
    • ALJ concluded that the 4 individuals did not have standing, proposed decision was sent to the District, District denied party status
    • Bastrop District Court reviewed the case on appeal, found that individuals had party status with little analysis, remanded matter back to district for further proceedings
    • Case is currently in the Court of Appeals, parties have agreed to a mediation
    • Central question that likely needs legislative clarification is that the ownership of land over an aquifer without indication of intent to produce does not give an individual standing to pursue a contested case
    • Without clarification, court decision could become law and exacerbate issue of contested cases being used to delay regulation
  • Price – Want to understand a little about what you fear, you believe there could be a proliferation of contested cases if the District Court ruling stands? Who pays for that? Can you award costs in a contested case hearing?
    • In a contested case there is no award of costs to any party, to the extent a GCD prevails on appeal they can collect its segregated cost, landowner cannot
  • Price – So there is not a financial interest for the landowner?
    • Once you enter into a contested case, you can slow the process down and make it more expensive for the district
  • Price – That’s what I mean; you can slow down the process, but there is no direct monetary interest
    • My experience is that delay is the best tactic in fighting permitting as many applicants do not have the resources to continue to pursue
    • Protests and delays are typically used as anti-growth initiatives
    • Groundwater is a replenishable, renewable resource in most instances, must be produced according to legislative direction
  • Price – Very opposed to gamesmanship, but also very interested in protecting landowner’s right; if you need to prove imminent damage to establish standing, then how specific would you need to get?
    • In Lost Pines, the individuals testified they did not have wells, did not intend to produce, could not dig wells due to spacing rules, etc.
  • Price – But isn’t there a value in having a volume of freshwater under your property?
    • There may be some value in that, but I’m talking about cases where owners are not going to produce
  • Price – Not taking a position, but we are in a situation where uses can change, etc.; I see many benefits in fresh water supply under property & concerned about how specific a landowner would need to get to prove standing
  • Price – I think what you’re saying makes sense, but want to make sure that there is not ignorance of a landowner’s choice not to produce at a given time
  • Frank – Would be worried about keeping someone from having standing who actually does own something
  • Larson – Definitely an issue, there are many organizations who will pay to intentionally delay permitting, not sure if legislation is a solution as there are likely other methods
  • Frank – While I’m concerned about standing, it is important that we don’t have unreasonable delays
  • Price – Is there a judicial penalty that can be imposed in response to gamesmanship?
    • Absent finding of frivolousness, not sure of other solutions
  • Second question is that we are seeing some success in working with GCDs to resolve permit issues, have seen cases remanded to GCDs to give them authority in resolving issues
  • In Middle Pecos GCD, some individuals did not seek party status until case was resolved and remanded to the GCD, sought to start the entire process over
  • Clarification that you can’t get party status if you do not seek it while the case is on appeal to higher courts
  • Can be very expensive & a great delay, in Middle Pecos case the individual had public notice, mail notice, and a relative was on the Board

 

Potential improvements to the existing groundwater permitting process, including those contemplated in H.B. 31 (85R)

Hope Wells, San Antonio Water System

  • HB 31 included changes to try and make permitting more consistent and efficient, asks committee to continue this work
  • Important to have an efficient and certain permitting process to help foster growth, benefits all stakeholders
  • HB 2378 and HB 31
    • Required district decisions to be governed only be regulations at date of application
    • Provided direction on moratoriums on permitting
    • Exports section provided that exports were not regulated more heavily than in-district production
  • Will continue to meet during the interim & respond to legislative actions
  • Chair Larson – Partial to all of these things

 

The appropriate consideration of the service area of a water supplier when groundwater resources are allocated based on surface ownership

Russell Johnson, McGinnis Lochridge

  • Discusses using groundwater availability models to help set a limit on overall production of groundwater
  • DFCs were set to create desired numbers based on modeled available groundwater, but goal of GCDs is to ensure some percentage of resource is retained at the end of 50 years, amount remaining at the end of this period varies heavily between GCDs (e.g. 99.5% vs. 50%)
  • Says there is “something wrong” with a system that has such large disparities around the state, if you view this as minimizing impacts, you almost always set a large amount of water as “off limits”
  • Discusses issues with Lost Pines & 4 individuals who sought standing in the permitting case; individuals did not have any intention of producing and standing determination was unfounded
  • Recommendations
    • Elimination of one-sided attorney’s fees recovery provisions that GCDs can recover attorney’s fees for challenges against the GCD that fail
    • Could modify standing provisions that you either have a well or are near the proposed well
    • Goal should be development of the resource with an eye to the historic users, currently the preservation approach automatically puts off use of groundwater
    • Regulation should be by the aquifer and not by the local district, should be uniform to the extent they can be
    • Landowner should always have right to produce their fair share of commonly owned groundwater, comes directly from O&G
    • Export permit requirements are archaic and should be eliminated, aquifers don’t care “where” water is being used, they care “how much” water is being used
    • Historic use should only be protected for the length of the investment-backed expectation
    • Utility Service Areas should be equal to acreage authorization
    • GCDs should be empowered to charge, impose, and administer mitigation funds
  • Workman – We hear a lot on uniform regulation across aquifers, how do you handle things like the Trinity?
    • No doubt that conditions in aquifers are different in some areas over others, these problems should be addressed
    • But, when you have similar conditions and circumstances, the rules should be similar
    • Don’t buy the argument that regulation should be different if use is different
    • Oklahoma does a better job of aquifer regulation than Texas, has a default authorization based on acreage owned, default applies in all cases and state can change as needed

 

Sarah Schlessinger, Texas Alliance of Groundwater Districts

  • Need to consider management across political boundaries, whether it is states or US-Mexico
  • TAGD Subcommittee is currently working to produce a whitepaper on groundwater regulation and permitting
  • Regarding DFCs, DFCs do not try and keep groundwater use the same over 50 years, TWDB has refused approval for DFCs that set out 0 draw down

 

Larry French, Texas Water Development Board

  • Work began in the 81st legislature to fund planning efforts
    • 4 aquifers identified in the first study
  • Currently working on HB 30 requirements to complete evaluations by 2022
    • Involves a lot of mapping, studies and estimations
  • Described steps involved with designating groundwater production zones
  • Reviewed qualifications for an aquifer to be identified as having brackish water and identified aquifers regionally, presented TWDB studies of aquifers and brackish production qualifications
  • Still wrapping up Blossom aquifer studies, currently checking to see if they meet the criteria for brackish production, unsure how much is recoverable
  • Lipan aquifer, not planning
  • Trinity is under contract to identify potential brackish production areas
  • Looking at additional areas of the Carizo-Wilcox and Sparta
  • Edwards-Trinity Plateau aquifer & Dockum aquifer are being done in house
  • Studying most, but not all aquifers, will need additional time and resources to complete surveys
  • Workman – In the Carizo-Wilcox aquifer, how did you pick the initial study area and will it represent all brackish production?
    • For the Carizo-Wilcox, the studied area was the one that met production statistics and vertical/horizontal separation from other resources
    • Expanding study to look at overlying aquifers as well, might have more production zones coming

 

The designation of brackish groundwater production zones and related research

Lynn Tate, High Plains Water District

  • District has 3 primary aquifers Ogallala, Trinity-Edwards High Plains, and Dockum
  • Regarding Dockum, permitting process is similar to the Ogallala, working with several partners for use, 4 municipalities use the aquifer as a primary source
  • Dockum should not be declared a brackish production zone, already has production running and brackish is unneeded
  • Have no objection to the attorney’s fees provision being changed, unfair if one side can recover and the other not
  • Chair Larson – Have heard a lot about the Dockum, goal is to create production zones that can be designated for use and have sustainability over 50 years; need to keep an open mind about brackish production
    • Would appreciate state support and research
    • We believe brackish water belongs to the landowner just like the fresh water, should be managed locally & not by the state
  • Chair Larson – I don’t think anyone is going to disagree with that, state will not come in and take the water; just need to identify potential production zones
  • Chair Larson – Identification of brackish production areas could be beneficial to future water supply conditions

 

Hope Wells, San Antonio Water System

  • SAWS has begun several projects to develop brackish groundwater production, H2O Center has leading desalination process
  • Brackish groundwater production can supplemental other production & help support municipalities, can be a revenue source for landowners
  • H2O Center can easily be expanded like other desalination centers, but would require production of brackish groundwater outside of Bexar County
  • Certain 85th Legislation would have helped brackish development; focus areas include withdraw limits, reasonable production, 30-year permit term, separate consideration of brackish production in DFCs, etc.

 

Sarah Schlessinger, Texas Alliance of Groundwater Districts

  • Several members of the Texas Desalination Association and Texas Alliance of Groundwater Districts have come together to understanding of the industry and stakeholder interests
  • A number of districts have engaged in individual brackish production studies, also looking into how quality can change over time with higher production
  • Chair Larson – One of the issues we have had is with the size of the zones and proximity to disposal wells; can you go into the buffer zones? We’ve been very conservative in these decisions
    • French, TWDB – One of the issues is good data, can have very expensive consequences if we don’t get it right, records are very spotty in terms of quality
    • Looked at 50-year time period and tried to determine how much injectate could migrate from a well, found roughly 5 miles & set the 15-mile buffer to accommodate unusual or irregular dispersal
    • Many unknowns remain
  • Chair Larson – I know this is one of our future water supplies, unfortunately the Governor vetoed the money out of the TWDB budget to continue this work; incumbent on members of this committee to work on this throughout the appropriations process
  • Chair Larson – Need to accelerate this, cost falls as technology improves to treat this water source
  • Turner – We’ve been told there is 3 billion acre-feet of brackish water in Texas, struck by our limited scope; do you have any studies on seawater desalination currently?
    • Not aware of any current studies, but can check and get back
  • Turner – Need to move forward as much as possible on brackish desalination
  • Chair Larson – O&G industry is working with us well, will have a better idea of more extensive production possibilities as the current zones are explored

 

Groundwater data and science needs

Rick Kellison, Texas Alliance for Water Conservation

  • Focused on what we can do to assist production agriculture in terms of water use, how they can use less water, but retain production
  • Also focused on ensuring entire Panhandle region is irrigated properly to support
  • Have been forced to learn how to deficit irrigate due to reduction in storage, TWC project gives us an opportunity to work with producers to learn the best times to use irrigation and reap the maximum benefit
  • Working with Texas A&M and UT to determine this, other water stakeholder partners & agriculture producers, project was funded through competitive grant at the TWDB through 2019
  • Info is shared with producers and advocacy groups
  • Areas studied have seen a significant lack of rainfall, 2011 was a difficult agriculture year and collected large amounts of data on effective irrigation tactics; led to current study on 5 different delivery systems
  • Assessing delivery methods and wetting patterns for economic impact & sharing this info with producers
  • Signed an MOU with Wrangler to help spread info about producer action and conservation efforts
  • For growers to be sustainable, they need to be profitable; extra revenue means more money able to be devoted to conservation issues
  • Chair Larson – Technology advancements are astounding in terms of conservation, are you seeing great improvement?
    • We are seeing reductions in water use, basically doubling yield of incremental water; largely due to technology improvements and water-efficient genetics advancements
  • Chair Larson – Message about good work being done in the rural areas does not get spread to urban areas, need to educate urban individuals who largely drive legislative policy
    • Selling products based on sustainability helps spread message

 

Sarah Schlessinger, Texas Alliance of Groundwater Districts

  • TAGD has been participating in the Texas Water Data Initiative
  • Would be beneficial to expand groundwater level data
  • Updating groundwater availability models would be
  • Increase groundwater quality data
  • Improving data collection tools
  • More data on ASR
  • Price – Asks after how this was funded
    • Preliminary planning grant that looks into how groundwater data is collected, used, and opportunities that exist to improve
    • No conclusions yet, only discussing different considerations
    • One of the interesting issues was GCDs as public entities that are subject to PIRs
  • Price – So you could pursue further grants and continue work on this?
    • Haven’t spoken with the board yet, but hopes work would continue
  • Also highlights the concept of decentralizing data collection hubs, GCDs are decentralized and utilizing them could improve quality of data
  • Turner – Do all districts require drillers to provide data on wells drilled?
    • This is part of the TDLR requirement
  • Turner – So the GCDs would use this data for the DFCs?
    • There are various datapoints collected, including this well data; part of the issue is determining when to “zoom out” and look at data collectively

 

Larry French, Texas Water Development Board

  • Benefits from legislative foresight in funding continued modeling
  • Models exist for all major aquifers and most of the minor aquifers
  • 57 research projects have been completed in the last 20 years related to this work, have benefited many other groundwater projects
  • Trying to take a look at State Water Plan to determine needs and adapt modeling, meeting with stakeholders to help develop models
  • Updating models Carizo-Wilcox, incorporating additional features regarding surface and groundwater interaction
  • Revising model with the Hill County Trinity model
  • Working on an update to Central and Gulf Coast model
  • Much of the research involves the O&G industry, tricky to do as TWDB is a public agency and there are sensitivities around proprietary information
  • Depend on cooperation with TAGD and USGS to track wells and springs
  • Groundwater and recorder well data is posted by TWDB on the web, one of the most visited sites
  • Chair Larson – This stuff is “very cool,” surface and ground data is great; surprised at the amount of traffic your website gets

 

Public Testimony

Todd Lovett, Panhandle Producers & Royalty Owners Association

  • Works largely with O&G producers, water is a very important intersection
  • Agrees with the provisions in HB 31, water use is important to landowners throughout rural Texas
  • Request that any legislation considered in 2019 not infringe on production rights
  • Discusses O&G use statistics versus municipal usage; O&G tries to make efficient use of water resources
  • Water used in O&G production is frequently considered “lost” water, but one of the only new sources of water in the world is burning hydrocarbons
  • Chair Larson – Interesting perspective on adding water by burning gas, would love to see the information on that
  • Frank – What percentage of drilling contractors are recycling?
    • In the Texas Panhandle it is very small as the availability of water is very high
    • Permian Basin uses recycling heavily
    • PPORA holds annual water recycling meetings and is trying to get the info out to operators
  • Chair Larson – Have seen great progress in this area, Pioneer, Apache, Marathon, etc.; economics needs to match up to encourage adoption

 

Judy Stark, Panhandle Producers and Royalty Association

  • O&G has been very proactive in finding ways to promote water conservation & unique recycling solutions

 

Closing Comments

  • Burns – As we look at water use across the state, 80% is in the Ogallala which is not accessible to many urban areas; important to frame the conversation in terms of users, agriculture producers use water that would not typically make it into urban areas
  • Burns – Brackish production and ocean desalination definitely needs to be explored
  • Chair Larson – I think the Ogallala is healthy and stakeholders are doing a good job managing the resource