(DOWNLOAD) "City Of Marshall V. City Of Uncertain" by In the Supreme Court of Texas * eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: City Of Marshall V. City Of Uncertain
- Author : In the Supreme Court of Texas
- Release Date : January 09, 2006
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 77 KB
Description
In 1986, the City of Marshall received a certificate of adjudication recognizing a right to divert and use up to 16,000 acre-feet of water from Cypress Creek for municipal use, meaning that the water it supplied had to be potable. In 2001, the City applied to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality*fn1 to change the purpose of use in its certificate so that it could supply untreated water for industrial use. The City's application did not request a change in the amount of water or rate of diversion. The City of Uncertain and others opposed the application, alleging the amendment would have serious adverse environmental and socio-economic consequences, and sought a contested-case hearing. The Commission concluded that section 11.122(b) of the Texas Water Code mandated approval of the amendment without a contested-case hearing. We must decide whether that provision precludes a contested-case hearing when a proposed water-rights amendment requests a change in use but does not seek to increase the amount of water appropriated or the rate of diversion. We conclude that, while section 11.122(b) significantly restricts the issues that may be reviewed in a contested-case proceeding, it does not altogether preclude one. Depending upon the particular amendment application, a hearing may be necessary to allow the Commission to assess certain limited criteria other than the application's effect on other water-rights holders and the on-stream environment that the Legislature considered necessary to protect the public interest, including assessment of water conservation plans, consistency with the state and any approved regional water plans, and groundwater effects. Accordingly, we affirm the court of appeals' judgment in part and remand to the Commission for further proceedings.