|
|
 |
||||||
 |
Water Boarding Pickens files for place on groundwater board Boone Pickens last week filed for a place on the Panhandle Groundwater Conservation District board of directors.
Pickens, a Dallas businessman with a ranch in Roberts County, filed Feb. 13 for the position on the board being vacated by Kim Flowers. Flowers announced late last year that she was moving from Roberts County to Amarillo and would not seek reelection. At the time, Pickens had expressed an interest in a position on the nine-member board that oversees water production in all or parts of eight counties — Potter, Carson, Gray, Wheeler, Roberts, Donley, Armstrong and Hutchinson. In the past, Pickens has battled the water district over permits to pump and export water from Roberts County to urban areas downstate. Pickens established Mesa Water, Inc., to pump underground water from the massive Ogallala Aquifer that lies beneath much of the Panhandle and sell it to major metropolitan areas, such as Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio and El Paso. Those cities are looking for new sources of water. Citing water rights being bought up by the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority and the city of Amarillo a decade ago, Pickens said he had no choice but to try to pump and sell his water in order to keep from having the water sucked out from beneath his ranch. Under state law, a landowner is entitled to pump all the water he can from beneath his property so long as it is done for a beneficial use and not maliciously pumped to harm his neighbors. E-mail
comments about this story Posted: February 21, 2008
|
|
