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Study Commission on Water for Environmental Flows Senate Bill 1639 established a 15-member study commission that will provide recommendations to the next regular session of the legislature (2005) on how to ensure protection for environmental flows in the water permitting process. The bill also placed a two-year moratorium on the issuance by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality of new surface water permits for protection of environmental flows.  Who was on the Study Commission? What was the Study Commission's charge? What is the moratorium and what type of water permits does it affect? Online ResourcesWho was on the Study Commission? The study commission was composed of 15 members: 12 appointed by Lt. Governor Dewhurst, Speaker Tom Craddick, and Governor Rick Perry; plus the presiding officer of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality; the chairman of the Texas Water Development Board; and the presiding officer of the Parks and Wildlife Commission. The appointed Commission members were:
What was the Study Commission's charge? The study commission held public hearings and studied public policy implications for balancing the demands on the water resources of the state resulting from a growing population with the requirements of the riverine, bay, and estuary systems. This included looking in to granting permits for instream flows dedicated to environmental needs or bay and estuary inflows, use of the Texas Water Trust, and any other issues that the study commission determined to have importance and relevance to the protection of environmental flows. The study commission appointed an Advisory Scientific Committee that served as impartial scientific advisors and reviewers for the study commission. This committee had nine members who represented a variety of areas of relevant technical expertise. What is the moratorium and what type of water permits does it affect? Senate Bill 1639 also created a moratorium on new permits for instream flows dedicated to environmental needs or bay and estuary inflows. The moratorium does not apply to amendments to an existing permit or certificate of adjudication to change the use to or add a use for instream flows dedicated to environmental needs or bay and estuary inflows. The moratorium does not affect applications for new permits for other uses. This fact has many worried that there will be an increase in consumptive water use permit applications over the interim, thereby further limiting water available to meet environmental flow needs. The moratorium was enacted in response to several applications that had been filed seeking new permits to ensure that reasonable amounts of water would continue to flow in Texas rivers and into coastal bays. The permit that received the most attention was filed by the San Marcos River Foundation [link to existing pop-up on SMRF application] seeking a new permit for up to 1.15 million acre-feet of water for flows in the San Marcos and Guadalupe Rivers and for inflows into the Guadalupe estuary system. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) dismissed that application in March of 2003, contending that the Legislature had not authorized such permits. Additional applications, seeking new instream flow permits to protect Caddo Lake in East Texas, Matagorda and Galveston Bays, the Colorado River, and Lavaca Bay, were pending at the time of enactment of S.B. 1639. TCEQ later dismissed all of those applications. Court appeals of the dismissals are currently pending for the application by the San Marcos River Foundation and the application by the Caddo Lake Institute Online Resources Study Commission on Environmental Flows
Read the Joint Committee's Interim Report to the 79th Legislature
Read the Science Advisory Committee Report on Water for Environmental Flows
Read the Proposal for Environmental Flow Protection
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