Under Perry, projects to meet water needs stall | Houston & Texas News | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle
A couple of teasers:
When the Legislature approved a statewide water plan in 1997, then-Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock hailed it as "the heart of our legacy," while its sponsor, Sen. J.E. "Buster" Brown, promised it would provide plentiful supplies of the crucial resource "for our grandchildren and our grandchildren's grandchildren."
Then came the Great Drought: Since passage of the landmark 1997 legislation, state funding for water projects has been as scarce as rain in the summer of 2011.
Fourteen years after Bullock and Brown laid out a road map for securing adequate water resources for the state's booming population, state leaders still have not found a reliable way to finance water development beyond asking voters for authority to issue debt through bonds.
With the population of Texas expected to double by the year 2050, Gov. Rick Perry is fond of saying that people have been "voting with their feet" for the state's conservative governing principles. The additional population, however, has severely strained the state's infrastructure.
In November, Texas voters will be asked to approve $6 billion in bonds that the Texas Water Development Board will use to help local communities grow and maintain water supplies.
Perry, who took note of the withering drought in April when he issued a proclamation calling on Texans to pray for rain, endorsed the legislation authorizing the bond election.
"As Texas' population and economy continue to grow, Gov. Perry is committed to making sure both families and businesses have clean and reliable sources of water," said spokeswoman Lucy Nashed. She noted that since the Water Development Board was established, Texans have voted to authorize more than $4 billion in bonds for water projects.
The 1997 plan called for spending $53 billion for expanding water resources and identifies $142 billion in capital costs for water treatment and distribution projects and flood control.
Brown and Ritter say other financing tools are needed to help the state secure water resources for the future.
In the late 1990s, Brown and others proposed fee surcharges on bottled water or on consumption exceeding 5,000 gallons a month for residential users. Opposition was swift and stout.
"This is a water tax. The people I represent are viscerally opposed to this," one Houston lawmaker said at the time.
To this day, a prevailing anti-tax sentiment "makes it pretty difficult" to invest in the state's future water needs, said Brown.
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