Politics
Water Rights Fight Heads to the Legislature as Reservoirs Touch New Lows
Downstream communities and the capital's growing suburbs are colliding over a shared aquifer in an election-year showdown.
AUSTIN. The fight over the region's water has been simmering for a decade. This session, it's boiling.
At issue is whether the state should let fast-growing suburbs draw down a shared aquifer that sustains farms and small towns downstream. Farmers say it's their livelihood; suburbs say it's their future.
Both sides have hired the same lobbyists in different decades. The hearing will decide whose grandchildren win.