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Senate Bill 313 |
Senate Author: Seliger |
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Effective: 6-17-11 |
House Sponsor: Price |
Previous law required the executive director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and the executive administrator of the Texas Water Development Board to meet periodically to identify those areas of Texas that are experiencing or that are expected to experience within the immediately following 25-year period critical groundwater problems. Senate Bill 313 amends the Water Code to increase that period to a 50-year period. The bill authorizes TCEQ to adopt rules regarding the creation of a district over all or part of a priority groundwater management area that was designated as a critical area under Water Code provisions relating to groundwater studies as such provisions existed before September 1, 1997, or under other prior law. TCEQ may also adopt rules regarding the addition of all or part of the land in such a priority groundwater management area to an existing district.
Under previous law, if a TCEQ order designating a priority groundwater management area recommended that all or part of the management area be added to an existing district, the board of the district was required to vote on the addition of the applicable territory and, if approved, to call an election within that territory on the territory's inclusion in the district and, if the district had outstanding debts or taxes, the assumption by the territory of a proportional share of the district's debts or taxes. If the addition was not approved by the board or voters, TCEQ was required to create one or more districts covering the priority groundwater management area. The bill removes the required voter approval for inclusion of such a management area in a district but provides that if the district has approved a property tax on the date of TCEQ's order and voters do not approve the assumption of a proportional share of the debts or taxes of the district, the board of the district is required to assess certain production fees in the added territory based on the amount of water authorized by permit to be withdrawn from a well or the amount actually withdrawn. If the assumption is not approved or the board votes not to accept the addition of the area, TCEQ is required within a year following such action to create one or more districts covering the management area or recommend that the area be added to another existing district.
Senate Bill 313 authorizes TCEQ to amend the territory in an order designating a priority groundwater management area or creating a district for such an area to adjust for areas that in the time between the issuance of the order designating the area and the issuance of the order creating the district have or have not been added to an existing district or created as a separate district. In making such a modification, TCEQ is authorized to recommend the creation of a new district in the area or that the area be added to a different district.