In its weekly orders, the Texas Supreme Court issued only one new opinion, but it is an important case about ownership of groundwater (in this case, water in the Edwards Aquifer). Click here to read the opinion in Edwards Aquifer Auth. v. Day.
The court held that a landowner does have an ownership interest in groundwater in place. This means that the owner is constitutionally entitled to adequate compensation if the water is taken for a public use. The specific context of the case involves an administrative ruling that restricts the landowner's right to withdraw water from the aquifer, which the court found could be a government "taking" under the constitution.
Click here to read the Supreme Court's order list for this week.
-- Scott Stolley, Thompson & Knight
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