West Texans Sizzle Over Plan By GOP Pals to Sell Public Water

New York Times -- Angry West Texans and some state officials are demanding a halt to a deal that allows a group of politically well-connected Midland oilmen to tap the desert and sell billions of gallons of water from the state's public reserves.

The venture was advancing without announcement or competitive bidding by the powerful Texas General Land Office, which controls 20 million acres of public lands and the liquids and minerals beneath them.

The agency has never licensed private sale of its water.

Since last year, people involved in the matter say, the land office — steward of a nearly $18 billion permanent school fund to benefit public education — has given an exclusive hearing to Rio Nuevo, prodded by the speaker of the Texas House, Tom Craddick, Republican of Midland.

Adding to the furor are accounts that Rio Nuevo sought to deliver its water by sending it down the Rio Grande — a plan the state's agriculture commissioner called "cockamamie" — and to pay the state 20 cents an acre for water rights to 646,548 acres in six counties, a yield to the schools of about $129,000.

By Texas law, unless a water district has been formed, landowners control the water beneath their property and can draw it out even if that depletes a neighbor's supply. This is known as the rule of capture, or "the biggest pump wins."

An analysis by Texans for Public Justice, a watchdog group, shows that six Rio Nuevo partners gave a total of $83,136 to Republican state candidates in 2001 and 2002 — the bulk of it, $72,886, from Gary Martin, an oil investor and businessman.

Mr. Craddick... said through a spokesman that he had no connection with Rio Nuevo. But he did not dispute accounts that he had urged Mr. Patterson and David Dewhurst, the land commissioner at the time and now the state's lieutenant governor, to meet with Rio Nuevo partners.