In the Balance: The Future of Texas Water

The future is going to be water management. Texas is growing like 1400 people a day. Northeast Texas has a lot of water and when people move here they use a lot of water. You know, Dallas is pulling from Lake of the Pines, we want to make sure we keep our water on this side of the lake. Water management is something that we've been thinking about for several years. Conserving it, managing it. Right now we're going to swing around, and we're looking at the edge of the woods where a cow’s probably calving. So we'll check on them, make sure nothing's wrong. So he was born this morning or last night? Today is the what? 25th. The ranch is located in northeast Texas. We have two and a half miles of river frontage, and there's two big lakes. We're right in between Lake of the Pines And then down south is Caddo Lake. Caddo Lake’s not really like any other lake that you know of. It's the only naturally formed lake in the entire state of Texas. It's a series of bayous and rivers and swamps and open lake, and is home to hundreds and hundreds of bird, fish, plant species. It's very diverse. It's just otherworldly, and water’s key to that. Without the water, the forest doesn't function. Without the water, the fish can't function. Without the water, the birds aren't stopping here. So water is key to the tens of thousands of acres of all types of habitat that are here. The pressure on water is growing all the time, and we feel it. We are increasingly concerned that Mother Nature will be overlooked. Water is a public resource. We all use water, and so we should all be responsible for that water. Texas is seeing a lot of growth right now, which means there’s more demand on that resource. We’re also seeing things in certain parts of the state like drought, so that resource is not getting replenished as quickly as it may have been in the past. So finding that balance between our human needs for water and the needs for and the needs for fish and wildlife is really important right now. It’s not if drought is going to occur, it's when the next drought is going to occur. And in Texas, that's just the reality. These droughts cause, economic shocks to producers and to communities, but they also cause, environmental shocks to these river systems. Our work focuses on partnering to change behavior around water use, trying to leave more water in stream when we're facing scarcity. So environmental water transactions, which is a strategy that we use, are basically partnerships with private landowners to incentivize them to change their behavior around their water use to protect and, maintain the health of our freshwater resources in the state. During the drought a couple of years ago, we made a decision that we would sell some of our water rights, create some cash flow to get us through the drought. They appraised it, we agreed on the appraised price, and then we close the deal. If Lake of the Pines ships a lot of water out, if the river's way low and we need a pulse for the paddle fish or for or whatever, then we can get that pulse working with Nature Conservancy. It's just protection basically for this ranch and further northeast Texas. This watershed; Lake of the Pines to Caddo Lake. The Texas Water Trust is a vehicle to protect water rights for the environment. Working with groups like Parks and Wildlife, Caddo Lake Institute and others, we're looking at using this transaction as the first transaction in about 20 years that's been dedicated to the Water Trust. We're really hoping that this shows the pathway not just for groups like The Nature Conservancy, but private landowners who are interested in using their water rights to protect the freshwater resources of the state. It's been a great public private partnership. When people want to know where their meat comes from, we have a story to tell; that we're not out there wrecking the environment, we’re the tip of the spear on preserving the environment. That's our story. It's up to us to tell the story for our family, for our future generations. We're laying the path. We're laying the groundwork.