Prohibiting a landowner from selling any amount of groundwater for out-of-county use has about as much chance as prohibiting a landowner from selling oil or gas from her land for out-of-county use. Or from selling lignite resources. Or sand and gravel.

Groundwater has a market value because the market out there wants it. Landowners who sell the water from the aquifers beneath their lands can get paid nicely for that resource. If a politician running for office proposes to deny landowners that source of income, totally, that politician is going to lose whatever elected position he or she is seeking.

Stated broadly, what we need is a regulatory system which assures the people of Bastrop, Lee and other counties in this area that there will be ample, sufficient groundwater available for local use. This is, of course, much too broad a formulation upon which to regulate groundwater production and sales. It is lacking in the specificity necessary to assure that groundwater will be available for those uses which we consider most important. There is enough slack in this formulation for much mischief.

Do we, for example, want the area to become industrialized? Do we really want to see this area become something like a Ruhr Valley, burning lignite and using vast quantities of water to produce consumer goods? That could happen, and it could happen in the context of a regulatory system which favors local use.

Same for urban development. Do we want Bastrop and Lee Counties to become fancy suburbs of Austin, and Burleson, Fayette and Colorado Counties to become fancy suburbs of Houston? The water which will be necessary to support that kind of development will come close to the amount required to support industrialization.

Or do we want something else, like agriculture, hunting, wildlife and open space areas? Bastrop and Lee Counties could well become the primary garden produce, grain and meat production, and wildlife-oriented recreational areas for Austin. Groundwater in sufficient, steady, reliable and sustainable amounts will be necessary to achieve this vision.

Let me point out something for those who want Bastrop and Lee Counties NOT to become urbanized or industrialized: The easiest way — but assurdely not the best way — to achieve that goal is to encourge the export of groundwater to the absolute maximum amount in the aquifers. Ship it all out. Let Austin, San Antonio, Houston or wherever take the water and use it somewhere else to support sprawling suburbs and ugly industrial areas. With that water gone, development of all types in this area will be drastically truncated.

Our ability to locally regulate groundwater, to achieve the vision we want for Bastrop and Lee Counties, is totally in the hands of the Texas Legislature. We have a groundwater conservation district in place to regulate groundwater for this area, but it can be abolished, or its powers drastically curtailed by the Legislature.

This means we need a representative in the Texas Legislature who will give us more than knee-jerk reactions to the issues involved, who understands the complexity of the issues, who is willing to serve all the interests in this area (and not just the development interests), and who is not burdened intellectually by anything even close to resembling a laissez faire attitude.

It will also be refreshing if candidates for the office refrain from trying to bamboozle us with transparent political spin.