Water Priates

April 30, 2009

WATER PIRATES:

We have Pirates on Water and now we have Pirates of Water. In the form of T. Boone Pickens and Clayton Williams, with the help of ousted speaker of the house, Tom Craddick. I have been in all areas that these men are trying to steal. It is good for men to labor and prosper that is the way of life, but not at the expense of other people by sucking the water out from under their land that they own and pay taxes on and their families and ancestors have for hundreds of years. This is their livelihood, their crops, cattle or any kind of stock. Most are people he has known all his life, might have considered friends, as they might have him. But what he is trying to do now will never garner him a kind word. He is in an area of the country where I spent part of my young life and know well. Balmorhea pool was the height of a summer day, even though we had to drive 45 miles from Pecos to swim. Wade in what we called Phantom Lakes those many years ago. This was the only excess water in that part of the country. Pecos River had a few pools big enough to swim in sometimes, the rest not much, never enough water. The Concho down close to San Angelo you could swim and wade in some areas. Most other places you found water was the stock tanks, but always with snakes. If it was hot enough you ran the snakes out or shot them and went right in. NEVER enough water. I have ridden horses all over that country. It is beautiful country, not the greenest in the world. But the people who settled there, molded their lives to the land and learned to love it. They have improved it in many ways to make life better for them and their children, as the world progressed. When I talk about that part of Texas that people have never been to they think it is another country.

Clayton Williams has lived in that part of the country all his life. Born in Alpine, went to A&M, got a degree in animal husbandry. We used to think most people who went to A&M, were interested in the land, agriculture, farming, cattle and ranching. But has tried his hand at many things even politics. He more than most knows that there is no abundance of water. In some places enough to get by and in other places, never enough. He should also know more than most to conserve and protect what there is.

I thought I had seen a lot of low down things by Texas politicians. I have and so has all other Texans. But this is the lowest of low. We have had land grabbers, oil and gas bandits, corporate raiders and now water pirates.

The piracy bill 4805, proposed by would be governor Clayton Williams, sponsored by the ousted speaker of the house, Tom Craddick. This new bill gives power to the new district to do basically anything it wants to acquire, store, sell, water and sewage within 130 miles of Midland in the counties of Pecos, Crane Upton, Ector or Midland. The new entity can also use water or sewage it obtains for oil flooding “or other useful purpose”.

The new district will have power of eminent domain and can issue bonds without any election or vote than that of the members…Can also tax under some conditions (would you want to be taxed by the district so it can build pipelines to take all the fresh water it wants and sell it to whoever it wants, including oil flooding…for example??)
This will be seen as a “local bill”, so other members don’t really get involved in the discussion. It is being to House
Natural Resources which is chaired by Allen Ritter, (Nederland).

When I think of the evil that men do and have all through our history, it never ceases to amaze me the reason for their actions. I sum it up in one word AVARICE, it is a terrible disease of the soul. I am sure both Clayton Williams and Boone Pickens have enough money, that neither want for anything and damn sure don’t need the water, only as another way to make money. Maybe Pickens needs it for his wife’s wild mustangs (the people that they want to steal water from need it for the same purpose). Williams will use it for his oil and gas business.
Politics is a nasty business. 99.6% of politicians are consumed with Avarice, Texas I know is. They do not get rich off of taxpayers welfare (their salary, benefits, perks and pensions) in fact they do not even earn it. They make their money doing favors for wealthy friends and corporations all under the table and on the side. They wind up with stock in all the big money corporations. This is not random dreaming, these are facts, they know it, I know it and so does all the rest of Texas. All of them live under this self deception!! It is always someone else who does the bad things (democrats). They go around smiling, glad handing, back patting with a shiny face and a do-gooder smile on their face, always covered by this veneer, hiding the dark side of their soul. I do not mean that they do not do charitable things, but always for show, plus a tax write off. Williams made lots of contributions to A&M, including underwriting half the cost for an alumni center, which bears his name. The one that sort of befuddled me. He was founder and director of the Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute, which is dedicated to the study of desert animals and plants of southwest Texas and Mexico. Maybe he found out how the animals and plants can live without water and that is the reason he wants to suck everyone’s water from under ground, as he knows they can adapt.
Does he expect to live in a country where he has lived all his life and think people will accept what he is trying to do? Take their water (the life blood of a country like west Texas) by hook or crook and then good old EMINENT DOMAIN is they don’t agree. I know that law and there is no way in hell that it applies. It is already being applied by the people for their personal, private and public use, schools, hospitals, some towns might now be able to have a community pool for kids (I can remember when they didn’t).
I have a landowners bill of rights and I have used it. It is the old range law. SADDLE YOUR HORSES, LOAD YOUR RIFLES AND PROTECT YOUR CASTLE. Mine was over a gas pipeline. If it had been my water, that is another story and no one would have liked the ending. I hope the people in all that country lock their gates, patrol their fences and wait for them like they would a herd of elephants and felt no different than if they were. Which frankly they remind me of a bunch of marauders or pirates.
Since Williams and Pickens have so much money and want water enough to take it from the citizens of Texas by the sleazy ruse of public use, why don’t they go to the oceans on all 3 sides of the US and build plants to remove the salt and pipe it where ever they want it to go, to work with their oil and gas drilling, as I am sure that’s what they have in mind, as that is their forte.
Since Craddick was ousted as speaker he went back to Midland and is a sales representative for Mustang Mud, an oilfield supply company, also a real estate speculator and developer. I hate that name and hated when that file came to my desk. We handled their insurance in Dallas.
I know his background, and I know how much he was disliked as speaker of the house, accept by a few. In 1975 Craddick was names chairman of the House Naturals Resources Committee, the first republican to have chaired a Texas legislative committee in more than a century, and in 2003, after thirty-four years in the House, Craddick became the first Republican Speaker in more than 230 years. Seems he is calling in favors, as all politicians do. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. He has a lot of Republican friends of the same ilk.
Pickens is not well liked anyplace. He is not a real Texan. He was born in Oklahoma. (But in December 2008 the Texas Legislative Conference honored him “Texan of the Year”). Known as the take-over artist. Takes over or raids any company he can get his hands on. His takeovers put many independent oil producers out of business. He graduated from Oklahoma A&M with a degree in geology and went to work for Phillips Petroleum. Stayed for a while then, went wildcatting. He founded a company that would later be known as Mesa Petroleum. Mesa grew into one of the largest independent oil companies in the world. He shifted his focus to acquiring oil and gas companies. He spent much of the decade targeting undervalued companies, making solicited and unsolicited buyout bids and other merger and acquisition activity. This made him a celebrity during the ‘deal-making’ 80s. Gulf Oil, Unocal, Cities Service and Phillips Petroleum, these were attempted buyouts. I know for sure in Bartlesville, Washington county, Oklahoma, many hated him a like a rattlesnake. His marauding and raiding went on.
Pickens founded BP Energy Fund, now BP Capital Management. He kept his finger in every pie and every energy company and attached his name to every moneyed company, group and institution he could. Pickens made many donations to Oklahoma State U. They have the Boone Pickens Stadium. He spearheaded an extremely controversial effort to create an athletic village just north of the existing campus. In order to do so, hundreds of homes were acquired by the OSU administration via eminent domain and demolished using Pickens contributions. 66% of his donations have been toward athletics. And many academic gifts, particularly to the School of Geology, which is named for him. Got his name on everything he could. Much of the moneys given to OSU, was invested into BP Capital in Dallas. Pickens goes into anything new in regard to energy. Most would help his personal financial position.
Pickens, company, Mesa Water, bought ground water rights for 200,000 acres in Roberts County, Texas. Over CBS he made the comment, “I know what people say—water’s a lot like air, Do you charge for air? ‘Course not; you shouldn’t charge for water,’says Pickens.’Well, OK, watch what happens. You won’t have any water.” Shows to go you—people like this do not give a tinker’s damn about other people. In 1997 Pickens Fuel Corp. was formed and he began touting natural gas as the best vehicular fuel alternative because it is a domestic resource that is clean-burning. The company now owns and operates natural gas fueling stations from British Columbia to the Mexican border. Pickens thinks the US is down near to the bottom of the barrel, as for as oil is concerned, or so he said. But, he will be drilling again and they have to have the water to help.
Since the Village Idiot is out of the White House and in Dallas, I note all the big oil friends are gathering around, there will be drilling in Texas and elsewhere. I think Bush still has his eye on Iraq oil. But people could be lucky enough that all those macho cowboy’s warranties could expire soon. Let’s hope so. Some of us still remember when there was such a thing as integrity, truth, ethics, common decency, man’s word was his bond and a handshake between men was a contract. Williams, Pickens and Craddick never had the integrity to start with.

Bill 4805, is being slipped through or trying to be, so as to go unnoticed. Sort of like Governor Perry slipped a bill through to remove funds from the Texas Unemployment Funds to transfer to his Texas Enterprise Fund.

It feels good to vent my spleen.