Texas Water Baron Seeks Billions

In 1971, oilman T. Boone Pickens bought property in Roberts County located in an out of the way corner of the Texas Panhandle. The county consists of nine-hundred and twenty-four square miles, home to less than nine-hundred people.

His original plan was to own property to hunt quail. His property now consists of 68,000 acres. He also bought the rights to a substantial amount of water that lies below his land in a vast aquifer that dates back millions of years. Pickens owns more water than any one person in the United States, and is looking for more to buy. He hopes to sell the water he now owns-some sixty five billion gallons a year to Dallas, transporting more than two-hundred-fifty miles, into eleven counties and about Six-hundred-fifty sections of private property. Pickens would sell wind, water, or natural gas. There will be a need for all of it someday and people will buy it, he told BusinessWeek. Berfield states that by the year 2030 nearly half the world's population will be living in areas with extreme water shortages, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The rush to control water resources around the planet is gaining momentum. Australia is in its sixth year of drought, brokers are buying water from the farmers. In the U.S. land-owners are trying to sell their property and water to companies like Nestle (BW 4.14.08). Companies like these using large quantities of water to run their business are seeking to monopolize this necessary resource. Enter T.Boone Pickens who made a good living through the oil fields. Now in his eighties, he has spent eight years and one hundred million dollars in his endeavour to sell his water, and has not found any city in Texas willing to buy his water. If Dallas would buy from Pickens he could feasibly profit one hundred sixty five million dollars each year. The idea that water can be sold for private gain is still considered unconscionable by many, says James Olsen, one of America's top attorneys specializing in water-and-land-use law. Water is a commodity says Pickens. Heck isn't it like oil? You have to come back to who owns the water. The ground water is owned by that landowner. That's it. Pickens started as a wildcatter in the middle nineteen-fifties, eventually becoming the largest independent exploration company in the U.S. He sometimes made hundreds of millions selling his stakes. He saw that the shareholders benefited also. For a brief period he was the most famous business man in America.