Watching from twitter, I’m saddened, disappointed, embarrassed and angry, if as tweeted by @impactnews_cta , the Austin Mayor, Lee Leffingwell said

strong conservation program is important, but “if we don’t use our water, somebody else will” #atxgov — Community Impact CTA (@impactnews_cta)

The water waste in Austin is monumental. It’s probably not significantly different from most major US Cities. However, Austin is the Capital City of Texas. The 2nd biggest state(1) in the union of the United States of America, and claims to be a liberal oasis and environmental hub. In east and west Texas right now the drought and water shortages are decimating communities, more than 50% percent of US States have now declared disaster because of the drought.

At a national level the US can’t agree: ‏@lifebits

As drought worsens, US Congress fails to agree on farm relief.: The rival parties fail to pass even a scaled-dow… http://lat.ms/PJ1Wo2

So it’s even more important for the States and Municipalities to lead.

Leffingwells comment though belies the arrogance of the majority of Texans about private property and their rights. Property is always owned and defended, the mineral rights are fiercely defended. Water isn’t something that comes from somewhere, flows through a property , and flows on to somewhere else. It’s a resource that belongs to a property owner if it’s under their property, they believe they should be able to extract it, sell it, waste it.

Austin deserves better, Texas needs to lead, not to waste water.

(1) Alaska is the largest, thanks to Scott for the correction.