SAWS' water deal doomed by Texas history

[unhappycamper]

http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/business_columnists/greg_jefferson/article/SAWS-water-deal-doomed-by-Texas-history-5215365.php

SAWS' water deal doomed by Texas history
Greg Jefferson
February 7, 2014 : Updated: February 7, 2014 6:50pm

SAWS' surprise decision last week to recommend junking three proposals for a 30-year water supply deal proves once again that it's easier to take away Texans' guns than it is to win agreement to pipe significant amounts of water from one part of the state to another.

Chalk it up to Texas' habit of falling into deep drought; the state's fast-growing urban populations taking bigger gulps of increasingly scarce water; farmers' irrigation demands; and rural communities' suspicions of the motives of big cities. To these longstanding complications, you can now throw in drillers blasting vast amounts of water into tight rock formations to break them open to free oil and gas deposits.

SAWS trustees will have to decide whether to stop pursuing a megacontract for about 50,000 acre feet of non-Edwards Aquifer water to be delivered annually, starting in 2018.

Landing the agreement would have thrilled business leaders who for decades have pushed a big splashy project to secure San Antonio's water future, and to keep the city an attractive destination for companies and tourists. But staffers couldn't have taken a dimmer view of the prospects last week.