The piece on Texas water challenges (Lawmakers, landowners keep eye on water rights, May 31, amarillo.com) caught my eye.
Having been at the forefront of water issues in Texas, I appreciate the debate.
Water is critical to our state’s future, and it is about time it is getting the attention it deserves in Austin. It often takes a crisis to get government’s attention, and that is certainly what Texas is experiencing with the current drought.
There is much work to be done in meeting state water issues. The current patchwork of groundwater district regulation creates plenty of inequities, for example. Austin has plenty to fix there, and it should start by regulating groundwater production on an aquifer-by-aquifer basis.
Paramount to all of this is the protection of private ownership of groundwater rights. That was a core element of my plan to export Panhandle groundwater to meet the expanding water needs elsewhere in the state.
Ultimately, I recognized that the region was experiencing drought conditions of its own, and my friend and neighbor, Harold Courson, told me not to move the water out of the Panhandle. I was reminded of Harry Frazee, who sold Babe Ruth’s Boston Red Sox contract to the New York Yankees in 1919. Frazee’s family, as the story goes, was cursed for five generations. I didn’t want the Pickens family to end up like the Frazees.
Our Panhandle water sale was a win-win deal for all, and changed the economic landscape for those who participated. It is just another example of the private sector leading. All too often, government is a step behind.
If this drought teaches us anything, it is that government should lead, and not follow.
T. Boone Pickens, regarded as one America’s most successful businessmen, is chairman and CEO of BP Capital and architect of the Pickens Plan, an energy plan for America. Pickens is also a member of the Amarillo High School Hall of Fame.
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Bubba_Billybob 06/07/14 - 07:08 pm
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It would be like giving LeBron James and Art Modell space in the Cleveland Plain Dealer to opine about what is wrong with Cleveland sports. (For the non-fanatics, LeBron dumped the Cavaliers for bigger money in Miami, and Modell hijacked the then-Browns to Baltimore, where they became the Ravens, because Cleveland wouldn't give him a new stadium). Boone moved Mesa to Dallas because he couldn't choose the Amarillo mayor and city commissioners a second time, and then did his damnedest to sell Panhandle water to the Metroplex.
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dml823 06/07/14 - 08:39 pm
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"Having been at the forefront of water issues in Texas". No Pickens, you were not forefront in water issues, you were forefront in water hijacking. Now how about you just go back to screwing the people in Dallas and just leave us already-been-screwed citizens in Amarillo alone.
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Keebler 06/07/14 - 09:41 pm
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I'm a big fan. Have no problem with Boone Pickens.
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bfielder 06/07/14 - 09:41 pm
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His wind turbine venture, he'd have charged a fee for it!
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Dividend 06/07/14 - 11:03 pm
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Boone moved Mesa for several reasons but the main one was that the city sued Mesa.
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Bubba_Billybob 06/08/14 - 02:16 am
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In 1987, a slate backed by Boone Pickens and headed by Glen Parkey was elected to the City Commission. There had been a longstanding lawsuit involving the city and Mesa as well as Pioneer regarding whether some of the valuable components of the natural gas had been removed before it was sold in Amarillo. The suit was settled in March 1979- which Pickens wanted very badly- by that Commission on a 3-2 vote, but in the next round of elections that May, Parkey lost in a landslide to Keith Adams and all the other commissioners were replaced in an election where the biggest issue was how the Parkey commission had dealt with the settlement. It was after that- very soon after that- that Pickens moved Mesa to Dallas. Read the chronology at http://books.google.com/books?id=NC4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA164&lpg=PA164&dq=glen....
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Dividend 06/08/14 - 10:45 am
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As I said, many reasons for the move. Some of them were the same reasons that Shamrock, Santa Fe energy, maxus and several other oil companies moved corporate offices to Dallas and Houston. Other factors involved a boycott of the Amarillo paper and backing of the not so well liked president of WT. Sale of assets to the Rainwather group to restructure debt. Gulf Oil take over attempt. Hostile takeover attempt involving Batchelder. Blow up of banking relationships here.
I have known Boone since Lincoln was a cadet. His decision to move Mesa was made for a lot of reasons, the lawsuit was a minor but irritating part of it. At the time the lawsuit was heating up Mesa filed for a change of venue because the feeling of the attorneys representing mesa was that Mesa would not get a fair jury in Amarillo due to among other factors, the war with the paper.
The decision to move Mesa was a big loss to Amarillo as was the loss of the corp headquarters of the others. All were impacted by the difficulty to attract professional level employees to move to Amarillo, business relationships, difficulty of travel and the attitude of the city gov. Very little to do with whom was mayor. Mesa maintained a smaller office here until 97'/98' when operations were finally closed.
The lawsuit was somewhat the icing on the cake of the perception of small minds in amarillo which we deal with on an ever growing basis. Downtown ballpark for god's sake.
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Bubba_Billybob 06/08/14 - 11:39 am
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"main one was that the city sued Mesa," or "the lawsuit was a minor but irritating part of it"? All those other issues also factored into the move as well, but the sequence was as I recounted it: Boone's slate won the 1987 election, they settled the lawsuit as he wished, but then they were voted out because of it and then Mesa moved. The expression is, "My way or the highway"; he didn't get his way, so he hit the highway.
The important point is that Boone fought with damn near everyone in Amarillo (and everywhere else), especially the AGN, and they are fools to provide him space for an opinion column.
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Dividend 06/08/14 - 12:09 pm
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From one of your googles. You don't know what you are talking about. The lawsuit was perhaps the catalyst.
Boone is now focused on wind and nat'l gas as replacement for oil based energy. That alone will get him all the column inches available in every paper on the planet. If you think a paper should not print something because somebody fights with paper you would be a voice crying in the wilderness.
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Bubba_Billybob 06/08/14 - 02:50 pm
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I Googled for documentation that my memory was accurate. Boone is now focused, just as he has always been, on what is good for Boone. To that end, he has tried to control both the press and the political process, by whatever means necessary, and he has been merciless when opposition rises up. He got newspaper executives fired, he quit and then rejoined the WT board (by promising money for the business school with his name on it, which he eventually demanded be removed), and he relocated when his political puppets were rejected by the citizens. He is (and is proud to be) mean and nasty, and intentionally damaged Amarillo and then tried to damage the rest of the Panhandle by selling the water out from under us. If he wants his column published, it is because it benefits him, not us. Let him buy ad space.
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Dividend 06/08/14 - 05:37 pm
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Your bitter attitude and googled opinion is part of the reason that hundreds of professional jobs moved out of Amarillo. If you lived through it, it was on the edges.
Successful "corporate raiders" do not pour tea and sing kumbaya. Sounds like you were on the wrong team. :)
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hfred 06/13/14 - 05:03 pm
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Bubba is spot on - T Boone Pickens Jr. has never been anything other than a spoiled abusive bully who throws a temper tantrum when he doesn't get his way - now coercing the Globe News to print this ridiculous "letter" letting us in on how he "recognized the region was experiencing drought conditions and therefore didn't move our water out of the Panhandle".
Pickens' had no other offers for the water, after trying, desperately, to sell it downstate for well over a decade, and he damn well knows it:
http://goo.gl/ex8NVd
Is this self-absorbed phony really so delusional to think the people of Amarillo would fall for this, more of his ongoing 60+ year old effort to shape and control how the public sees him, through his manipulation of, in this case again, the press.
Pickens' had no other offers for the water, after trying, desperately, to sell it downstate for well over a decade, and he damn well knows it:
http://goo.gl/ex8NVd
Is this self-absorbed phony really so delusional to think the people of Amarillo would fall for this, more of his ongoing 60+ year old effort to shape and control how the public sees him, through his manipulation of, in this case again, the press.
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