Posted: Sat, 13 Mar 2010 07:24 AM - 9,919 Readers

By: Asher Price

A man who owns land on Lake Travis is trying to keep the Lower Colorado River Authority from releasing water from the Highland Lakes.

Robert Wynne, a dentist, filed a suit in Travis district court in January, claiming that the LCRA has damaged his property by sending water down river for electrical generation. He also argues that the LCRA releases excessive amounts of water to satisfy fish and wildlife downriver and for agricultural irrigation. The LCRA denies the claims.

“Absolutely nothing in either the Constitution or the LCRA’s enabling legislation even mentions, much less authorizes, the LCRA to engage in generating or selling thermoelectric power, yet that today is the LCRA’s overwhelming preoccupation,” according to the suit, which was filed by Wynne’s brother, a Houston attorney.

Releasing water from Lake Travis to make those sales is a “substantial contributor to the LCRA’s depleting of Lake Traivs.”

In short, LCRA is “engaging in the antithesis of its obligation” to conserve waters of the state for the use and benefit of the public, according to the lawsuit.

“In the eyes of LCRA, something has to give, and that something is Lake Travis,” says the suit, which claims that LCRA releases the water to make money to enlarge itself.

In the end, Wynne asks the court to require LCRA to maintain a minimum level of Lake Travis, and to declare that the river authority is not permitted to own or operate gas or coal-fired power plants, among other things, and that the judge award him court costs and unspecified “other and further relief” to which he may be entitled.

LCRA responded in a filing that “the public would be greatly harmed if Plaintiff prevails, causing the water supply of the South Texas Nuclear Project and other water customers of LCRA to be curtailed, the electric supply to large areas of Central Texas to be cut off, and the environmental health of Matagorda Bay to deteriorate.”

It further makes the point that Wynne bought his lakeside property “with full knowledge of the uses of Lake Travis for water supply, storage, and flood control and its resulting variable level. Plaintiff has therefore relinquished any rights he may have had to claim some injury to his property, if any.”

LCRA also throws the law at the suit. The river authority basically says Wynne has no standing because the statute of limitations passed long ago: More than 60 years ago LCRA built — and has long maintained — Mansfield Dam, which impounds the state’s water.

Furthermore, the river authority also argues that as a political subdivision it is immune from suit. And it basically closes out its suit by saying Wynne has the wrong man — if anybody, he should be going after the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which authorizes LCRA’s releases from Lake Travis.

So who do you find persuasive?

*  Story Contributed by: Asher Price