COMMENTARY: The Water Commons – An Old Story, A New Chapter

For centuries, communities thrived around shared resources – springs, streams, forests. People understood that some things belonged to everyone and no one. For over a thousand years, English villages flourished around the commons – shared meadows, forests, streams. Families grazed cattle, gathered wood, drew water. No one owned the spring, but everyone protected it. The land sustained the people, the people sustained the land. 

Then came those with capital and clever words. Beginning in the 1500s, wealthy landowners discovered they could make more money if they “enclosed” the commons. They used the language of progress: “Scientific agriculture,” “efficient land use,” “economic improvement.” Parliament passed laws blessing these takeovers. Within 300 years, 95% of England’s commons were gone. 

Our ancestors fled that system, only to watch it follow them here. Native lands became “unimproved wilderness” needing “development.” Family farms gave way to corporate agriculture. Town squares became shopping centers. Always the same promise: “We can manage this better than you.” 

Today’s enclosers don’t speak of “improvement” - that sounds too colonial. Now it’s “sustainability,” “conservation,” “environmental stewardship.” The words change, but the outcome remains: What once belonged to everyone ends up owned by someone. 

Here in East Texas, we thought our water was different. Springs that ran through our grandparents’ time, aquifers that seemed endless. Surely no one could “improve” groundwater that's been here since before recorded history. 

Today’s commons aren’t village greens – they’re the aquifers beneath our feet, the watersheds that feed our springs, the air we breathe. And today’s enclosers don’t ride horses or wear powdered wigs. They manage hedge funds and speak the language of environmental responsibility. 

The pattern remains unchanged: Identify a resource that communities have shared sustainably for generations, declare it inefficiently managed, propose a “solution” that benefits distant investors. What’s remarkable isn’t the audacity – it’s how the same script works, century after century. 

Where once they spoke of “civilizing the wilderness,” now they speak of “optimizing natural resources.” Where they once promised “economic development,” now they promise “environmental sustainability.” But listen carefully to who benefits from these improvements, and who pays the cost. 

In Cherokee County, we can see both sides of this story. We know what real stewardship looks like – it’s the farmer who rotates crops to protect soil, the landowner who preserves creek beds, the family who’s drawn from the same well for three generations without it running dry. 

Now we’re told that extracting 25 billion gallons annually from our aquifer represents “conservation.” That shipping our groundwater elsewhere serves “environmental equity.” That what our great-grandparents managed sustainably needs professional management by … well, by people who’ve never lived here. 

But this isn’t just about Cherokee County. This is about who controls Texas’s water future. Today’s 

“conservation” becomes tomorrow’s monopoly. When Austin faces its next drought, when Dallas needs emergency water supplies, when Houston's population explodes – who will they buy from? And at what price? 

Every rural aquifer that gets “professionally managed” is one less option for Texas communities facing water emergencies. Every billion gallons extracted for distant profit is water that won’t be available when Texas cities need it most. The irony is perfect: Urban Texas voters support environmental “conservation” projects, not realizing they’re funding the privatization of their own future water security. 

Today’s “sustainable resource management” becomes tomorrow’s water cartel. Your future water bill is being written in places like Cherokee County right now. 

Perhaps it’s time we asked ourselves some old questions with new urgency: When someone proposes to “conserve” our water by extracting billions of gallons annually, what exactly is being conserved? When “environmental sustainability” means industrial-scale extraction from rural communities, who is being sustained? And when rural aquifers become investment portfolios, what happens to Texas when the next real drought hits? 

Walk along any spring-fed creek in Cherokee County and you’ll see conservation in action – not the kind that requires permits and profit margins, but the kind that’s sustained life here for centuries. Hardwood bottomlands filtering runoff, aquifers recharged by gentle rains, springs that run clear year-round. 

History suggests we’re at a familiar crossroads. We can accept that distant experts know better how to manage what we’ve stewarded for generations. Or we can remember that the commons survived for centuries not because they were efficiently extracted, but because they were carefully protected. 

Our ancestors who lost their village commons probably never imagined their great-grandchildren would face the same choice with groundwater in East Texas. They might be surprised to learn we’re still hearing the same promises, wrapped in newer words. 

The question isn’t whether we trust progress – it’s whether we can tell the difference between conservation and enclosure. Between stewardship and extraction. Between protecting the commons and privatizing them.