{"id":28967,"date":"2013-06-19T08:37:22","date_gmt":"2013-06-19T13:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=28967"},"modified":"2013-06-19T08:37:49","modified_gmt":"2013-06-19T13:37:49","slug":"texas-town-upset-with-governors-water-veto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2013\/06\/19\/texas-town-upset-with-governors-water-veto\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Town Upset With Governor’s Water Veto"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Roy<\/a>

Photo by Brandon Thibodeaux\/Texas Tribune<\/p>

Roy Thornhill Sr. (center) voices his concern as residents of the City of Blue Mound, Texas, gather at their community center, on Monday, March 4, 2013. The small North Texas City of Blue Mound held a town hall meeting on Monday, March 4, for its residents to sign a petition against what they say are unjustifiably high water rate increases.<\/p><\/div>\n

From the Texas Tribune:<\/a><\/h4>\n

Officials in the North Texas town of Blue Mound and the town’s representative in the state House say they are upset and baffled by Gov. Rick Perry<\/a>\u2019s veto of a bill that would have made it easier for Blue Mound to gain control of its water system.<\/p>\n

The town’s water is provided by a private company, Monarch Utilities, a subsidiary of SouthWest Water Company. Officials in Blue Mound, which is north of Fort Worth and home to about 2,400 people, have complained that they have considerably higher water rates than the town’s neighbors. House Bill 1160<\/a>, sponsored by State Rep. Charlie Geren<\/a>, R-Fort Worth, would have made it easier for Blue Mound to obtain the right to run its system.<\/p>\n

Perry vetoed the bill on Friday. \u201cAt a time when infrastructure is a focus for our growing state, this bill would provide a disincentive for development by private utilities,\u201d the governor said in a statement<\/a> accompanying the veto. He noted there is also “pending litigation directly related to this issue.”<\/p>\n

Geren, whose district includes Blue Mound, said that the governor\u2019s action was a surprise. \u201cMy first thoughts are \u2014 I wish someone from the governor\u2019s office had told me they had some issue with this, and they never did,\u201d he said. “They never called my staff. They never came to see me. Nothing.”<\/p>\n

The bill was specifically tailored to Blue Mound and one other Texas community, Geren said, and it included accommodations for SouthWest Water Company.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Perry] obviously had somebody too stupid to read a three-page bill\u201d advising him, Geren said.<\/p>\n

In a statement responding to a question about the veto and the future of Blue Mound’s water system, Chuck Profilet, vice president of the SouthWest Water Company, said that \u201cMonarch remains committed to providing clean, safe, reliable water to our customers in Blue Mound, but we can’t comment beyond that due to pending litigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blue Mound is in a legal battle with Monarch in an effort to gain the right to provide its own water. The battle is in the 348th\u00a0district court of Texas<\/a>, according to Alan Hooks, the mayor of Blue Mound.<\/p>\n

Hooks said that \u201cit was kind of upsetting\u201d to learn of the veto, after he had made multiple trips to Austin and spent a few hundred hours on the matter.<\/p>\n

The problem, he said, was the high water rates: Water bills in Blue Mound average $140 for 5,000 gallons a month, he said, whereas residents in nearby Fort Worth and Saginaw pay about $40 for the same amount of water.<\/p>\n

Hooks said that his water bill ranged from $180 to $220 for 8,000 gallons of water a month (which he acknowledged was \u201ca lot\u201d), whereas his brother in nearby Saginaw pays about $70 per month roughly for the same amount. The Saginaw figure includes trash services, Hooks said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s just ridiculous,\u201d Hooks said, adding that the high water rates have had an impact on the town\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

SouthWest Water has said its rates have increased 62 percent since 2005<\/a> as it has invested in Blue Mound\u2019s infrastructure. Private water companies note that repairs and maintenance to rural water systems can be costly.<\/p>\n

Rich Parsons, a spokesman for the governor\u2019s office, said that the veto statement “speaks for itself.”<\/p>\n

Hooks said that the town would continue its fight to gain control of its own water system. The veto was \u201ca bump in the road,\u201d he said, but it could be overcome. The bill would have made it easier for the town to get certified to run its own water system, with the approval of a trial court, but the town can find a way around getting the certification, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are they fighting so hard to keep this little 800-house community up here when we don\u2019t want them?\u201d Hooks said, referring to SouthWest Water. \u201cWe don\u2019t need them.\u201d<\/p>\n

One other bill did go the way that Blue Mound and some other rural communities with high water rates had hoped: House Bill 1600<\/a> will transfer oversight of water rates from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to the Public Utility Commission of Texas. Small communities had lobbied for the transfer, partly because the PUC \u2014 which already handles electric utility-rate oversight \u2014 has an associated office of the Public Utility Counsel to help small communities make their case on rates. That transfer does not occur until 2015.<\/p>\n

Both Geren and Hooks vowed to raise the Blue Mound issue again during the next legislative session.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m coming back in two years, and I\u2019m going to file [HB 1160] the first day,\u201d Geren said.<\/p>\n

Said Hooks: \u201cI will be back in Austin in 2015 talking to anybody and everybody who will listen to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cody Permenter contributed reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n

Texas Tribune donors or members may be quoted or mentioned in their stories, or may be the subject of them. For a complete list of contributors, click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/h5>\n
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune<\/a> at http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2013\/06\/19\/texas-town-upset-governors-water-veto\/<\/a>.<\/em><\/h5>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Texas Tribune: Officials in the North Texas town of Blue Mound and the town’s representative in the state House say they are upset and baffled by Gov. Rick Perry\u2019s veto of a bill that would have made it easier for Blue Mound to gain control of its water system. The town’s water is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":143,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[310,85],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28967"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/143"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28967"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28974,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28967\/revisions\/28974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}