{"id":33912,"date":"2014-01-23T11:37:12","date_gmt":"2014-01-23T17:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=33912"},"modified":"2014-01-23T11:52:47","modified_gmt":"2014-01-23T17:52:47","slug":"retiring-lawmaker-says-work-remains-for-texas-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/01\/23\/retiring-lawmaker-says-work-remains-for-texas-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Retiring Lawmaker Says Work Remains For Texas Water"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"State<\/a>

Mose Buchele<\/p>

State Rep. Bill Callegari spoke about water policy at this years TAMEST conference.<\/p><\/div>\n

State Rep. Bill Callegari<\/a> (R-Houston), more than many lawmakers, knows water. An engineer, he holds “Class A” certifications in water and wastewater management. During his time in the Texas legislature, much of it spent serving on the House Natural Resources Committee, he authored several major bills on water management and water utilities. His office biography calls him “the state\u2019s leading water expert in the Texas Legislature.”<\/p>\n

The Katy Republican is also not what you would call an impartial observer. Having served as president of national and international water companies for decades, he hopes to work with two of his sons — also in the water business — after his upcoming retirement from the House<\/a>. Like so many other state lawmakers in a part-time legislature, he often finds himself weighing in on policy discussions that have a bearing on his business future<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With those disclaimers, we thought it would be interesting to touch base with Rep. Callegari ahead of his retirement. Lawmakers have run plenty of victory laps taken since the passage of Proposition 6<\/a>, the ballot measure that aims to fund the state water plan with billions in seed money. But even supporters of Prop 6 admit it will not solve all of the state’s problems.<\/p>\n

At this year’s conference of The Academy of Medicine, Engineering, and Science of Texas<\/a>\u00a0(TAMEST), \u00a0we talked with Callegari about what remains to be done secure Texas’ water future:<\/p>\n

StateImpact Texas: <\/span>Now that there\u2019s money in the fund for water projects. Are we going to see a lot more action at the regional water planning level?<\/p>\n

Rep. Callegari: <\/span>\u00a0The prioritization, in my opinion, is really going to be the most important aspect of this: How do you really determine which project to build first?<\/p>\n

StateImpact Texas: <\/span>Will that part of the process probably be a little more controversial?<\/p>\n

Rep. Callegari: <\/span>That it will be. But then the other thing that\u2019s going to happen is that you\u2019ll have some projects in high priority, then we may go through three or four years of rainy seasons, and one entity may say, \u201cHey, by the way, our project is not so critical now. You can move it down the list.\u201d<\/p>\n

So the process has to be flexible enough to handle that. Or somebody might come back and say, \u201cIt\u2019s gotten worse, and we\u2019re going to run out of water in so many days or in so many months. What can we do?\u201d It\u2019s going to be an interesting process.<\/p>\n

StateImpact Texas: <\/span>I\u2019m wondering if that controversy is necessarily a bad thing. For so long, a lot of people ignored our water issues.<\/p>\n

Rep. Callegari: <\/span>I think that\u2019s right. Controversy always happens in Texas anyways, so I don\u2019t know that it\u2019s a bad thing. I think it\u2019ll just bring these issues forward and let \u2018em talk about them and make the evaluations. I\u2019m sure there will be people who say they picked the wrong project, but you can second-guess every coach.<\/p>\n

StateImpact Texas: <\/span>The issue of inter-basin\u00a0transfers<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>(a state rule that strictly limits how water can be sold between regions of Texas) has been something that lawmakers have been reluctant to take up. Do you see that as inevitable?<\/p>\n

Rep. Callegari: <\/span>I see it as inevitable. I don\u2019t know how long it\u2019s gonna take for it to happen, but I think it has to happen.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve only had two or three inter-basin transfers since this rule was put in, in 1997, and it\u2019s basically clearly served to prevent that from happening. If we\u2019re going to take water around the state and share it where it\u2019s needed most, we\u2019ve got to have some kind of relaxation of that process.<\/p>\n

“If we\u2019re going to take water around the state and share it where it\u2019s needed most, we\u2019ve got to have some kind of relaxation of [the] process.”<\/div>\n

StateImpact Texas: <\/span>Any thoughts on the rule of capture and where that stands in terms of water rights and property rights?<\/p>\n

Rep. Callegari: <\/span>Well that\u2019s going to get interesting, too, because the rule of capture is being sacrificed a little bit by the Groundwater [Conservation] Districts because they\u2019re making decisions that affect how water can be used.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve gotten fairly powerful over the years, and it really depends on who has control of that district. If it\u2019s a commercial-oriented board, then they\u2019ll give a little more to the commercial side; if it\u2019s a landowner-oriented board, which probably most of them are, it\u2019ll be more to the landowners.<\/p>\n

But again we have to have the happy medium between what can be used and not, and I think a big part of that is that they\u2019re going to have to get more involved in developing ways to preserve the aquifers\u2019 infrastructure, and that means maybe more attempt to do aquifer injection. The problem is they don\u2019t have money, so somebody\u2019s gotta fund these projects.<\/p>\n

StateImpact Texas: <\/span>What is the role for lawmakers to play in this?<\/p>\n

Rep. Callegari: <\/span>One of the first things I learned when I got on the Natural Resources Committee after I got into the legislature, is that this whole term ‘Whiskey is for drinking, Water is for fighting’ is true, because almost every time someone comes up to talk about a water issue, somewhere in their conversation the word \u201clawsuit\u201d comes up.<\/p>\n

We spend more money on attorneys and legal issues than I think we do on technical issues, and as an engineer, I\u2019d rather see us build stuff than spend all this money. But I don\u2019t know how to stop it.<\/p>\n

“Almost every time someone comes up to talk about a water issue, somewhere in their conversation the word ‘lawsuit’ comes up.”<\/div>\n

StateImpact Texas: <\/span>One of the ideas you brought up in your talk was a reconfiguration of the borders of Groundwater Districts to more closely mirror our aquifers.<\/p>\n

Rep. Callegari: <\/span>I\u2019d say that if we were starting all over, I\u2019d certainly organize it on an aquifer basis. I don\u2019t see much potential for that to be changed in the near future. That\u2019s just part of the politics in the state.<\/p>\n

StateImpact Texas: <\/span>So we have to work with what we\u2019ve got?<\/p>\n

Rep. Callegari: <\/span>That\u2019s right. And we have this dilemma throughout the state about local control versus state control.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m very much a local control person, but at some point in time we\u2019re going to figure a way to let either the Texas Water Development Board or Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to have more voice in these conflicts between the Groundwater Conservation Districts. We\u2019ve talked about it in some of our discussions in Natural Resources, but we haven\u2019t come up with a solution yet, because it\u2019s such a far-reaching thing if you say, ‘Ok we\u2019re going to give the authority to Texas Commission on Environmental Quality or the Water Development Board to override them.’<\/p>\n

Nobody is ready to do that yet. I don\u2019t want to see state be the sole authority, but there\u2019s got to be some way to resolve [conflicts]. Right now it\u2019s the courthouse, and that\u2019s better than nothing, but it\u2019s not the best either.<\/p>\n

StateImpact Texas: <\/span>Everyone I\u2019ve talked to seems to agree at least on one thing: We\u2019re going to be paying a lot more for water in the future.<\/p>\n

Rep. Callegari: <\/span>Water is going to cost more.<\/p>\n

When you start doing more desalination, more reuse\u2014every time you do that, you\u2019re talking about building plants, which are expensive, and somebody\u2019s got to pay the freight, and the freight has got to be paid by the people who use the water.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t see a statewide rate. This is one case where each community has got to fly on its own.<\/p>\n

Now, when you start talking about moving water from one region to another, some people suggest, ‘Well, maybe the state ought to pay for that.’ I don\u2019t see that happening, certainly not in the near future.<\/p>\n

Interview transcribed by Alex Dropkin. This interview has been edited for clarity and content.<\/em><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

State Rep. Bill Callegari (R-Houston), more than many lawmakers, knows water. An engineer, he holds “Class A” certifications in water and wastewater management. During his time in the Texas legislature, much of it spent serving on the House Natural Resources Committee, he authored several major bills on water management and water utilities. His office biography […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[295,336,292,280,282,310,85],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33912"}],"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\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33912"}],"version-history":[{"count":38,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33981,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33912\/revisions\/33981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}