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ability to move water throughout the State to spur growth. There
was also opposition to interbasin transfers because of the
potential for restraint of economic growth within certain areas.
As a result, before the 1997 session began, it was unknown what
the legislature would do regarding water rights.
D. Petitioner’s Unused Water
As of the valuation date, 68,000 acre feet of water flowed
unused past petitioner’s diversion point into the Matagorda Bay
each year and did not generate any income for petitioner. A
35,000 acre-foot portion of this was involved in the Corpus
Christi transaction. This left 33,000 acre feet of petitioner’s
water right unused. Under petitioner’s certificate, the 33,000
acre feet of unused water, as well as the 100,000 acre feet of
irrigation water, were authorized to be used only for
agricultural use, and only in petitioner’s service area. There
was a reasonable probability that at some point in the future,
the unused water could be converted to municipal or industrial
use, inside or outside the Colorado River Basin, which would make
the water more valuable, but such a conversion would have
required time, money, and regulatory approval. A transfer of
petitioner’s unused water out of the Colorado River Basin, after
the transfer of 35,000 acre feet to Corpus Christi, would have
increased the likelihood that inbasin users would be impaired and
that inbasin development would be impeded. If petitioner applied
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