[philman_36]

A candidate for public office recently stated that he thought that water rights should be handled "locally".
Since the redistricting here in Texas this person's district now constitutes an area including parts of the Golden Triangle and parts of Houston even though they are 80 odd miles apart.
If his preposition holds true then "local" water rights being handled "locally" could be construed to mean that Houston might be considered to be in charge of the water rights locally here in the Golden Triangle since his local district covers the same areas.

Sabine River Authority of Texas
In addition to studying potential impacts of large scale diversions to the ecology of the Sabine River and Sabine Lake, the Phase II scope included an evaluation of several alternative routes for conveying water from the Sabine River to the greater Houston area.

Note that in the Regional Directory map, on the right middle, that Jefferson County isn't in their area. If the Sabine River Authority of Texas plans should go into effect we would, by default, be incorporated into the H-GAC area.
We'll see what the future holds...

[Ben Ficklin]

Texas' 16 Regional Water Planning Groups don't really have any thing to do with who owns the rights. This all came out of the '99 Texas Water Development Plan which decentralized power of planning and has created a lot of unintended consequences.

Where as the article above deals with Prior Appropriation Rights, Texas straddles the wet-dry line so it uses a dual doctrine of both Riparian Rights and Prior Approriation Rights.