Green Leaf Report

For so long, people have thought of water as free, this plentiful thing that falls from the sky. Things start getting a little nastier when water restrictions kick in and the North Texas homeowners want to protect their expensive petunias and banana trees.  Kudos to Brandon Formby of the Dallas Morning News for calling attention to this issue: it’s time to close this wasteful loophole.
Interestingly, the historical rules around water in Texas include the Rule of Capture: if you get it out of the ground, it’s yours.  Local organizations have the right to restrict this water extraction, but apparently, no one saw this need in the Dallas/Fort Worth area- there aren’t a lot of ranches in the city.  So now we have rich fools digging wells down into our underground water table and thus avoiding all water restrictions.  It makes me sick, and any real estate agent or developer should be ashamed of themselves for selling this as an exciting feature. 
This is just another example of how people will manipulate and destroy our environment, when they’re too concerned about their little household at the expense of everyone else.  The restrictions are in place because the North Texas water supply is dangerously low.  Figuring out a way to get around restrictions at the expense of the community does not earn you a gold star.