The New Oil

If you have money enough in Austin, Texas, you can have your own water well drilled into the Edwards Aquifer, at a cost of $18, 000 to $32, 000 within the city limits, and ignore the city water restrictions. According to the Austin American-Statesman:

As plummeting lake levels triggered drastic watering restrictions during the drought, homeowners drilled 47 new water wells in Austin last year — more than doubling the 19 drilled the year before, according to data from the Texas Water Development Board. More than 150 new wells have been drilled since 2006 — the number also jumped during droughts in 2006 and 2009 — and nearly all of those wells are in West Austin neighborhoods such as Pemberton Heights, Tarrytown and Balcones, where many homes boast lush, carefully manicured landscaping.

The owners of these homes, with an averaged assessed value of $2 million, claim that they are helping to conserve water by not taking city water--the use of which is regulated in drought-prone Austin--to water their lawns. Others see the increased use of aquifer water from private wells differently:

• Daryl Slusher, an assistant director at the Austin Water Utility, is more concerned with how the drilling of private water wells and the use of that water in drought will affect people's attitudes toward water. The first effect is on the attitude of the folks who have paid lots of money to have their well drilled. Not only do they have little incentive to conserve water, they also may feel that "the more water they pump from the aquifer, the faster they can recoup their investment." The second effect, he thinks, will be on the attitudes of folks who see their neighbors with a "lush green lawn" in times of drought. That attitude may cause those folks using city water to conserve less themselves.
• Others are concerned that folks fail to realize that aquifers aren't an endless supply of water, either.  John Dupnik, a senior regulatory compliance specialist for the Barton Springs/Edwards Aquifer Conservation District, says that because it's difficult to measure the unregulated withdrawal of water from an aquifer, the end result could be an aquifer depleted by "a thousand cuts." Jason Hill, spokesman for the Austin Water Utility says that "'just because it's groundwater and not surface water doesn't mean it's an infinite supply. We do hope that customers (using wells) still are prudent and mindful of water use.'"
• As John Dupnik also points out, the use of privately drilled wells, especially in these times of drought when city water is being regulated, emphasizes the difference between the haves and have-nots. A recent Texas Supreme Court decision also throws that difference in a new light in its ruling that landowners own the water beneath their land, just as (some) land owners own the mineral and oil rights to their land.

Water is the new oil.