"A Water War Is Developing"

"A water war is developing," that's how rancher and conservationist, Bill Addington, puts it in a recent Facebook post. Bill was recently interviewed for a story that appeared in the Houston Chronicle two days ago: As the oil patch demands more water, West Texas fights over a scarce resource. (Of course this story didn't run in the El Paso Times - it isn't midwest or east coast enough. They also missed this story which is even closer to home: El Paso case could set the path for rooftop solar. They also missed telling us that one of our EPISD Trustees, Susie Byrd, completely shucked her duties and missed a vote on a $500 Million budget so she could be with Veronica Escobar in Washington DC to start currying favor with the PACs Escobar will need for her run for Congress. Of course, Bob Moore would never betray his puppetmasters.)

Sorry - I digress. Read the Chronicle story about demands for water. Some key points:

• "West Texas land baron and oilman is on the verge of pumping 5.4 million gallons of water a day" to the Permian Basin for fracking.
• Hughes is not the only person wanting to pump precious water to the Permian Basin for fracking oil. There are other water pirates.
• That water is precious to ranchers and farmers. Some springs have already dried up.
• Energy companies use water by the billions of gallons for fracking (See chart above).
• "West Texas' network of aquifers are interconnected; water pumped from one can reduce flow in another."
• The Permian Basin contains the nation's most bountiful oil fields and is the most profitable.

Addison has published a list of Rep. Will Hurd's next Town Hall meetings and is urging people to attend and speak out against pumping water needed by ranchers, farmers, resorts and, well, just plain folk. 

Sunday, August 6, 2017
EL PASO- 1:00pm-2:30pm Dairy Queen, 800 N Zaragoza Rd, El Paso, TX 79907
SOCORRO- 3:00pm-4:30pm Peter Piper Pizza, 10870 North Loop Road, Socorro, TX 79927
Monday, August 7, 2017
PRESIDIO- 10:00am-11:00am The Enlightened Bean Café, 201 W O’Reilly St, Presidio, TX 79845
ALPINE- 1:30pm-3:00pm Sul Ross State University, Lobo Village Community Room, East Highway 90, Alpine, TX 79832
FORT STOCKTON- 5:30pm-7:00pm Dairy Queen, 408 W Dickinson Blvd, Fort Stockton, TX 79735
Tuesday, August 8, 2017

PECOS- 10:00am-11:30am Dairy Queen, 1226 S Eddy St, Pecos, TX 79772

Says Addington: "It is critical we attend Rep Will Hurd's Town Hall meeings. I will be attending the Pecos Town Hall at the Dairy Queen this Tuesday, August 8th. We must find an elected Reprentative to start championing our critical issue of water and the future of our region. Several Water Pirate companies and the oil & gas industry have targeted our homelands for extreme extraction and export via huge long pipelines to supply the Permisn Basin trillions of gallons of our aquifer ancient waters for extraction and export."

Addington posted on Monday:

"A water war is developing. Our side wants our precious ancient and finate aquifer water to continue to be sustainably used for drinking water for our communities, our cattle and other domestic animials on our farms and ranches, and for our wildlife and river. The Water Pirates want to put that all of our futures at risk by water mining, unsustainably taking vast amounts of water out of the underground bolsons by pumping and transfering our shared waters far away to the oilfields in the Permian and Delaware basins for thousands of gas and oil hydraulic fracturing aka frack wells. Each well fracked can use 2 - 8 million gallons of water, sometimes much more. Multipy this number by 2,000 wells. We cannot allow this to happen. Many more water pirate companies will want to drill, pump and send our aquifer water away to the vast oilfield in the Permain Basin if caring residents do not stand up and defend their home and their familie's future."

There are some things that should be held in common and never be private property: air and water are the two biggies.