It’s a safe bet that at times, a parched West Texan has wished they could just pipe water in fresh from another part of the state. After all, Midland gets just 15 inches of rainfall a year, whereas Houston gets more like 50.
This is a notion that’s also caught the interest of Gov. Greg Abbott. According to a story in the Houston Chronicle, Gov. Abbott brought up the idea of buying Houston’s excess water to send to West Texas in a conversation with Houston Mayor John Whitmire.
Ben Wermund, senior political reporter for the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News, spoke to Texas Standard about how such a water swap might work. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Well, tell us about these conversations between Mayor Whitmire and Gov. Abbott. Were they structured to talk about the water issue or was this something that came up at a cocktail party?
Ben Wermund: It’s a little unclear. They seem to be high-level discussions at this point.
Mayor Whitmire said that the governor called him to ask if he would be willing to potentially sell excess water from the city to the state in exchange, possibly, for money to work on the city’s infrastructure needs.
“Excess water.” Does Houston really have excess water?
Well, it kind of depends on who you ask. It definitely seems to have enough water for the city proper, but it supplies water to much more than that – in critical infrastructure needs, like the port and the petrochemical industry down there. And just outside of Houston proper there are areas that are in need of water already.
So let me make sure I understand this correctly. What Gov. Abbott seems to be suggesting is that Houston would sell the water to the state, which would then transfer the water some way or another to West Texas, right?
Yeah, that’s what it seems like. And this is happening, you know, with the context that there’s a larger conversation in the Legislature, which is gearing up this month, over how to make sure that the state has enough water and that all the parts of the state have enough water moving in the future.
This seems to be one potential piece of that.
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I would guess, though, that this is not something that the governor or the mayor could do on their own. This would require some kind of legislative approval. Or am I wrong there?
No, you’re right. And like I said, this is we’re expecting this to be a really big discussion in the Legislature this session. The governor has talked multiple times about finding a generational sort of fix for the state’s water needs.
Sen. Charles Perry, who’s a Republican who’s been sort of overseeing these water efforts, is really optimistic about getting something big done this session. He has support from the governor and the lieutenant governor on it.
Well, I guess what about the people in the city of Houston? Because Houston’s obviously fast-growing. You’re going to have infrastructure needs there. Would they have to sign off on this? I mean, the citizens of Houston.
I imagine that the city would have a say in approving something here. But there is precedent for the state to pass laws to basically take the city’s water.
In 2019, the Legislature passed a law to force the city to sell its shares in a proposed reservoir that is still not being built. But the city opposed that, had to go to court, but the courts did end up blocking it, even though the city ended up selling its rights to the water anyway.
Best laid plans. Well, we’ve been talking about the water going to West Texas. Any more specificity when it comes to what that means? I mean, particular part of Texas? A particular area or industry or what?
We don’t really know at this point. I really get the sense that these were, like I said, pretty high-level discussions that the mayor was having with the governor.
The governor, it seemed, was sort of testing the appetite for something like this. And so there aren’t a ton of details out there right now. And again, it sort of fits into this broader discussion that we’re expecting to see a lot of in the legislative session.
