Blue Gold: T. Boone Pickens Hoarding Water Rights

BusinessWeek:

Roberts County is a neat square in a remote corner of the Texas Panhandle, a land of rolling hills, tall grass, oak trees, mesquite, and cattle. It has a desolate beauty, a striking sparseness. The county encompasses 924 square miles and is home to fewer than 900 people. One of them is T. Boone Pickens, the oilman and corporate raider, who first bought some property here in 1971 to hunt quail. He's now the largest landowner in the county: His Mesa Vista ranch sprawls across some 68,000 acres. Pickens has also bought up the rights to a considerable amount of water that lies below this part of the High Plains in a vast aquifer that came into existence millions of years ago.

If water is the new oil, T. Boone Pickens is a modern-day John D. Rockefeller. Pickens owns more water than any other individual in the U.S. and is looking to control even more. He hopes to sell the water he already has, some 65 billion gallons a year, to Dallas, transporting it over 250 miles, 11 counties, and about 650 tracts of private property. The electricity generated by an enormous wind farm he is setting up in the Panhandle would also flow along that corridor. As far as Pickens is concerned, he could be selling wind, water, natural gas, or uranium; it's all a matter of supply and demand. "There are people who will buy the water when they need it. And the people who have the water want to sell it. That's the blood, guts, and feathers of the thing," he says.

Read the whole story: BusinessWeek

Comments

[Hjalmer]

It's the overpopulation, stupid.

[Mike169]

Ah the privatization of almost everything. What genius new idea will the Republicans come up with next - $4.00/gallon gas prices? Line up for your water fols - it don't get better than this!

[awitness]

He's following the lead of our very own Prez Bush who, last year purchased a 98,842-acre farm in northern Paraguay, between Brazil and Bolivia. It's located on the Guaraní Aquifer - arguably the largest single body of groundwater in the world!!!! Guess who else owns a piece of the aquifier? Sun Myung Moon! Are water pipelines in our future? I'd say yes.

[mergina]

Water barons? Hmmm. Does this mean we are going to finally make a move from fossil fuels to vehicles powered by water?

Every state west of the Missouri should be very concerned to very worried about fresh water in the coming years.

Oh this country is going to be one hell of a mess in a few decades.

[Mike169]

Can't wait til we get the sun barons.

[Chubbster]

Hoarding? Excuse me. Pickens owns the water rights. Yes indeed daydreamers, people actually own water rights.

[ErnestineBass]

Actually, chubb, the VAST majority of American property owners don't know squat about mineral rights...i.e., they erroneously think they "own" a piece of land, and everything under it, but the reality is that 6 feet below the surface their rights END unless they demand mineral rights at the realtor's closing table.
Just another way smarter-than-we-are scumsukerz like T. Boone bend hard-working Americans over the kitchen table.

[vippy]

You are wrong, when I purchased my house I was told that the mineral rights of my
1 acre don't belong to me. Water will be the next thing they will hit us with. They are
looking at charging for well water, mind you! Good to know that once those bastards die
they cannot take it with them. And religion, that is only for the poor who hope!

[mergina]

Actually, he is a rather smart man. Take a look at Lake Mead. Already more than 1/3 depleted, and will be bone dry in the next 10 years. Now take a look at just how many lives will be affected by this one lake disappearing. Can you say MAJOR CATASTROPHE? Yet, people are still allowed to fill their swimming pools and water their green lawns day, after day, after day, and waste water even with the inevitability of having none very very soon. Welcome to America, Land of the gluttons and Home of the delusional.

[algupta]

Greetings,

We need more people like Mr. Pickens. I was impressed by his investment in Wind farm. This encoraged me to prapare a People's Petition. The aim of the Petition to force the Government to achieve Energy independence. Interested go to
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/windenergycorporation
I need your support. Remember energy availability at a reasonable cost is our problem. WE can either continue complainig about it and deeper in the problem or get united and solve the problem. I believe the problem can be solved at a reasonable cost within a few decades if we get united and resolve to solve it.
Regards andbest wishes,

[anastasiabeaverhousen]

I was so excited to see pickens in an orange jumpsuit.........then I realized it was just his poor taste in clothing.................crap.

[ErnestineBass]

Spiiiiiiiiiiiiiit...dang it gal, you owe me part of a cocktail and a screen cleaning...LMFAO!!!

[Jason357]

This has gone far enough!! What right does he have to eventually make that property unable to sustain life. There's a big difference between mining coal, or drilling for gas and oil and pumping the water out of an area. It's time for a revolution, because the people in charge aren't doing their jobs.

[PeterM]

Can't wait for privatization of AIR.
One day, these people will regret the ownership of what most consider a national resource.

[LiberalBuzz]

To hold water hostage for profit is pure evil. NOT that Pickens has gotten that far, but it is easy to see him and quite a few others holding water "rights" hostage for huge amounts of cash and that is pure evil.

We could, if absolutely necessary get by on what oil this country produces, IF we had no other choice, BUT no one anywhere can get by without water. And in fact the rising prices of water bills lately is unconscionable. We've cut our lawn to half it's size and put in drought resistant plants and our water bill is STILL GOING UP.

I remember back in the late 80's when L.A. was going through a serious drought and the mayor went on TV several times asking Angelenos to cut back water usage and brought into existence the "If it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down" Within a month Los Anglenos cut water consumption TWENTY PERCENT.

First thing the water company did was raise rates claiming that because of the people using less water their PROFITS had gone down and they needed to recoup that money.

WTF is up with that sort of thinking.

NO PROFIT FOR WATER EVER!!!

[JScott]

And watch the Ogallla Aquifier be sucked dry, it's Chinatown and William Mulholland all over again.
Don't folks learn anything from Calif. and Los Angeles experience with water, sadly it seems not.

[eternalkerri]

news from 2025

"Water hit four dollars a gallon today..."

[marijam]

Water should not be held hostage by one person.

[Chavez08]

Capitalism is both evil and stupid.

[Chavez08]

An oil baron controlling water? What a nifty idea!!