Texas House is interfering in Fairfield Lake deal | Opinion
The 2,400-acre Fairfield Lake has been the subject of much debate in Austin.It was the 19th century politician and newspaperman Gideon John Tucker who once quipped, “No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session.” That proved true in Austin on Thursday when lawmakers took steps toward interfering in the sale of private property in Freestone County. The Senate should reject this troubling overreach before it becomes bad law.
House Bill 4757, the first by freshman Rep. Angelia Orr, R-Itasca, requires any application to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for a change in water permit at Fairfield Lake to get approval from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. What business does TPWD have monitoring water, you ask? None at all. But that’s not the point. This isn’t about water; it’s about interrupting a private land deal.
That park sits on land owned by Vistra Corp., which operated a power plant there until 2018 and gave the state free access. In preparation for selling the land, Vistra applied for a permit to change use of the lake water from industrial to residential, agricultural, recreational and other uses.
“It doesn’t change anything about the amount of water being used. So that wouldn’t impact other water right holders differently than it does today, nor would it affect the river any differently than it does today,” Nygren said.
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