06 a., b., & c. Record of Standing Committee

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in a regional water plan. I have not become an expert on your Region D plan, but I'm sure Paris has its water use in there, and it comes from Lake Pat Mayse in part. (Sharron Nabors: it's not.) JM: I've not gone to look at your regional water plan, but certainly the process was for each water user group to have identified what their strategies were for meeting the need, so I don't know whether Pat Mayse Lake is or not mentioned, but it should have been. And one thing you need to understand, when I say the regional water plan, the way I access the regional water plan is I go to the Texas Water Development Board Web site and you will find there are appendices upon appendices upon appendices. So when you read1he plan, you might not see Lake Pat Mayse, but I would be willing to speculate that somewhere in there Pat Mayse has shown up in one of the appendices. (Sharron: I don't think so.) Reeves Hayter: That's not correct. All of Paris' and Lamar County's water comes from Pat Mayse reservoir, and iYs all shown in the plan, back there in what they call the database, the D607 appendix to the plan. That's where it shows all of Lamar County's water coming from. JM: The simple narrative document that you get is supplemented by all these appendices, and sometimes the devil is in the details and sometimes that's where that kind of detail exists. I disclaim express knowledge about your plan, but I would suspect if the issue came up we could look at that and see if that exception exists. Again, my point is I think the first exception I described to you fits your situation to a T. A couple of other exceptions are, is if the permit was obtained to meet a demonstrated long-term public water supply need, and it's consistent with the projection of future water needs contained in the state water plan. There are also others that are more specific and don't quite fit your situation. One deals with the situation where a certified filing, which is a very old water right. Before we even got to the state issuing permits, if you had like a mining claim or something, you could go to the county clerk's office and file what was called a certified filing. So if you happened to have a water right that's based upon one of these certified filings, and you're a city, that water right cannot be canceled if the water has been put to use under the certified filing for municipal purposes during any 10-year period. So like I said, the Legislature back during the 50s came out with this broad cancellation provision. It wasn't heavily used, but the Legislature over time has recognized that there are people who have done projects, made investments, and are sitting there with concerns about cancellations, and they have come in to try to address those needs. So under current law I do not have any anxiety that there is a grounds to cancel any of your water rights that are not currently being used in Lake Pat Mayse. One part of the question asked me had to do with the history of cancellations. By and large, most of the cancellations the state has done are for irrigation water rights, which can fall into disuse over time, and a lot of them are in the Rio Grande Valley, where there is a water master. And the Rio Grande Valley is different from the rest of the state in that its water rights are the result of a court case as opposed to this legislative scheme, and most of the rights are allocated over time and a water master has been appointed to ride herd over all of that, and if water is not used over there, it is such an arid part of the state, a very precious commodity that they do monitor that situation, and if you've got an irrigation right that goes into 10 years or more of non-use, they may take some action to cancel that. The question was asked about what does it mean to perfect your water right, and why would we never sell our water right. A moment ago when I told you we have this appropriative scheme, if you want a water right from the State of Texas, you have to go in and file an application, and iYs a fairly arduous process. They really take a good, close look at it, and the first question is, is there water available for appropriation. But assuming you get your water right granted to you, until you put that water to beneficial , 000036