October 14, 2016 4:31 PM

Rep. Larson pushes for credit system to encourage water conservation

Financial incentives are limited, but some tweaks could be reasonable on the regulatory side, agency says

The state must create some type of credit system to encourage surface water permit holders to capture and store some of the excess water that flows out to the Gulf of Mexico, Rep. Lyle Larson, R- San Antonio, told colleagues in a Texas House hearing this week.

Texas loses up to 40 million acre feet of water each year to outflow, mostly from East Texas out to the Gulf of Mexico basin. Larson said that loss was too valuable to ignore.

“Everybody that you talk to sees all the videos – in the Trinity basin, in the Colorado basin,” Larson said. “We’ve got all this water that flows, and everybody is saying, ‘Why isn’t the state doing something? Why aren’t you capturing some of that water for our next drought?’”

By Kimberly Reeves