Making growth pay for itself!

Category Archives: groundwater

Make 1 phone call before Thursday

Every Texas House Representative is expected to vote on House Bill 3298 — a $2 million study for a water grid (aka “Gridzilla) of pipelines across Texas — as early as Thursday.

WaterGridMapSimply make 1 phone call before Thursday, to your Texas House Member. Ask her or him to vote NO on HB 3298.

Here’s where you can find your rep.

The stated purpose of HB 3298 by its author, Rep. Lyle Larson (R-San Antonio), is to bring masses water from across Texas to the “triangle” — DFW, Austin and San Antonio — to “meet the needs of population growth”, projected out to 2040. In other words, this is to enable developers to continue building out in areas that don’t have local water supply.

The water will come from the mining of nearby rural area aquifers — Lee and Bastrop counties in our case. We will also see long opposed projects for costly and wasteful reservoirs flooding prime farm and ranch land in NE Texas. Food and timber will be sacrificed for more rooftops for the real estate lobby.

Rural and urban citizens put up a road block in the Senate last week by making 1 phone call to their Senators. Consequently, Rep. Larson is pushing the bill to the House floor as early as this Thursday.

Are you fed up with the off-loaded costs of unbridled growth (roads, public safety, schools, etc.) for all the newcomers, while you get priced out of your homes and apartments? We are!

Don’t bring the “California model” to Texas — it’s a proven disaster.

More facts on HB 3298  

Thank you Austin!

PS While you’re at it, you can also call your State Senator, just in case it gets back to the Senate.

Local control in the crosshairs, come to Bastrop Saturday!

Screen Shot 2015-01-20 at 1.31.07 PMY’all come on out to Bastrop this Saturday — regardless of party or persuasion — for the “Building the Rural-Urban Coalition for Local Control” meeting put on by the non-profit League of Independent Voters of Texas.
 
Click here to view the agenda.
Click here to reserve a seat.

Besides….our own Brian Rodgers, is speaking on his alternative to the Chamber of Commerce’s model for economic development which stresses unbridled population growth with the costs passed on to you. 

This event is appropriately being held in Bastrop, home of the Texas water wars, as an unholy alliance of the real estate lobby, water marketers and some leading state politicians now in session want to move large quantities of water underlying Lee and Bastrop counties to the I-35 growth corridor.
With the legislature now in session, it’s likely to be a bumpy ride with the rights to local control clearly in the cross-hairs. So show up or forever hold your peace! 

PS Linda didn’t make the runoff for Texas House District 17, but ran a surprisingly strong race as an independent in 3 weeks, coming in third in a five-way race. She is currently locked in a battle with Bastrop County on alleged election misconduct to ensure a fair runoff…also a topic on Saturday that Fred Lewis will be speaking on. More here in today’s Statesman.