About Us

The mission of the Simsboro Aquifer Water Defense Fund (SAWDF) is to take action to protect and conserve the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer in central Texas, as well as the rivers, streams and springs that are nurtured by it, and to defend the rights of those who live over the aquifer and who seek to leave a legacy of sustainable water resources for future Texans.

Veterans of several organized efforts to protect the central portion of the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer have determined our communities need an organization with substantial financial resources, ready to take actions to ensure the public right and our government’s duty to conserve and protect our aquifers in perpetuity, and to preserve landowners’ access to their own groundwater.

A non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization, Simsboro Aquifer Water Defense Fund was formed to provide a unified and well-funded response to the abuse of our region’s groundwater resources and landowner rights, and to assure that the constitutionally mandated balance between development and conservation of our natural resources is achieved.

Private water marketers discovered decades ago they could lure public officials into pursuing long-term contracts for expensive and massive water projects. They joined other for-profit interests to paint a picture of future water scarcity, with limited supply to satisfy unlimited demand.
 

The resulting gold rush mentality convinced the decision makers in cities along the IH-35 corridor that someone else’s water – the rich Simsboro formation of the central Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer, among others -- is critical to urban growth and prosperity, and must be rendered for the “greater good” of urban development.
 

Special interests on both ends of the proposed grid of pipelines (dubbed “Gridzilla” by the opposition) are focused on shaping Texas groundwater law and policy to fit the water marketer’s model. Those who stand to gain from huge infrastructure projects –the marketers, business interests, landmen, attorneys, hydrologists, investors, lenders, financial advisors and others--- compete with one another for profits, but work cooperatively to serve their model.
 

The marketers first rushed to obtain water rights from landowners, and huge export permits from local groundwater districts, whether or not there was any actual demand for the water. The absence of effective regulation leaves most landowners vulnerable to one-sided deals when they lease or sell their groundwater. Groundwater law and policy have been manipulated by friendly legislators and agencies, to allow permits that will result in mining the Simsboro – allowing withdrawals of water far beyond what this extremely slow recharge aquifer will ever replace.
 

Ultimately, these special interests are willing to put existing communities and ecosystems that depend on the Aquifer in peril, as well as threaten the Aquifer’s ability to sustain itself as a precious natural resource of our state. They manipulate the private ownership of groundwater to benefit only those who are willing to sell their water. And they count on the “rural donors” of the water they covet to be rendered helpless to do anything about their water grabs.
 

Rural Texas must be healthy in order to contribute to the welfare of all Texans through agricultural, livestock, industrial, recreational and other pursuits that make Texas unique and prosperous. When Texans unite to protect and conserve our water resources, we are acting not only to preserve the rural way of life in Texas but also to enhance the ability of our entire state to sustain itself indefinitely.
 

Past civilizations have ceased to exist when they ignored threats to the sustainability of water as their most essential natural resource.

SAWDF educates, advocates for and supports central Texas farmers, ranchers, landowners and citizens whose livelihoods depend on the Simsboro and the rivers, streams and springs it feeds. We conduct direct educational outreach through sponsored civic activities, printed and online materials, and collaboration with existing local organizations who have been conducting such outreach in an effort to broaden awareness of groundwater-related issues, both locally and regionally.
 

SAWDF’s assistance includes engaging with communities and their citizens in formal efforts to deliver healthy aquifers to future generations. We interact with groundwater conservation districts, regional groundwater managers, state planning agencies, and legislative and governmental bodies.
 

SAWDF is involved in groundwater-related public policy issues for the benefit of local citizens, economies and ecosystems. Because landowners with water wells are typically the class of citizenship necessary to establish standing to challenge groundwater legal issues, SAWDF directly assists landowners who participate in civil or administrative proceedings involving important legal precedents, to defend their due process rights and their legal property rights to groundwater that in turn affect the sustainability of aquifers and community rights.
 

Our overarching concerns are to:

• Ensure the water resources of the region – aquifers, rivers, tributaries and springs – are conserved and protected in perpetuity by achieving a true balance between the duty to conserve water resources (both groundwater and surface waters) and the desire to develop such resource.

A “true” balance is one that balances, on the basis of the best science available, the amount of withdrawal from the aquifer that will maintain it as a sustainable resource, without unreasonable negative impacts, rather than simply claiming the “conservation” side of the equation is met when “development” (permitted withdrawals) matches projected demand. See SAWDF July 2016 written comments to Lost Pines GCD in our News Section.

Ensure communities in the region that depend on the central Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer are educated about the risks to their own economies and ecosystems, as well as to future generations. of allowing over-production and depletion of the Aquifer.

• Ensure local economies and ecosystems are protected in the groundwater permitting process.
• Ensure landowner participation and protection in the groundwater permitting process and in other actions that threaten to drain groundwater from aquifers in which they have ownership. (Under state law, landowners own groundwater in place beneath their property whether or not they have active wells; consequently, landowners who have no well or have a well in a formation of the aquifer that is different than the formation in which a permit is sought should nevertheless have the potential status of an "affected person", qualified to challenge such permit).
• Ensure rights of all landowners are protected in the permitting process, when water marketers sever landowners’ groundwater ownership by leasing or purchasing groundwater rights to support massive projects.
• Raise substantial funds to assist community outreach, education and public policy advocacy, as well as ongoing landowner actions in the public interest, and anticipated future actions, in order to mount a sustainable effort to accomplish the above goals.

SAWDF's application for tax-exempt status was approved by the Internal Revenue Service, effective June 17, 2016 and making donations to SAWDF tax-deductible. As a part of its activities, SAWDF attempts to influence public policy and legislation to the extent permitted by Section 501(h) of the Internal Revenue Code, however, it does not participate in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office.

SAWDF was not established to be a public interest law firm, and will not provide or employ staff attorneys to provide or accept compensation for, legal advice or legal services to any individual or any other organization.