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Kaufman commissioners delay proposed Pickens development

Sep 5, 2007

T. Boone Pickens lost in Kaufman County Tuesday, but won in the Panhandle. That means a project to build water and electric transmission lines paid for with lower-cost revenue bonds can go forward.

BP Capital, a Pickens company, wants to set up a fresh water supply district, Wolf Creek Fresh Supply District, along CR348 on the Kaufman/Van Zandt county line. If created, the district would have many of the same powers of a city – it could sell bonds, levy taxes and, in the public good, condemn property.

The company had proposed a similar district in Roberts County in the Panhandle, a way of assuring the project could go forward. And Roberts County commissioners approved that district Tuesday on a 4 to 1 vote. Kaufman County commissioners tabled the project here.

“We accepted the petition. I don’t know that’s the smart thing to do,” Roberts County Judge Vernon Cook said.

Here, BP Capital will file a new request for the project, Kaufman County District Attorney Rick Harrison said late Tuesday. He met with BP Capital representatives Tuesday afternoon trying to resolve legal questions about the petition to set the district.

For Kaufman County commissioners it came down to timing and changes in the law.

Previously, people living on the property had to petition for such a district. Companies frequently put up employees in mobile homes on the property to sign the petition and then vote to create the district.

But that law changed Sept. 1; residents are no longer required.

There were no residents on the Wolf Creek property when BP Capital filed the petition in August. Officials believed that since commissioners would not act on the petition until after Sept. 1, no residents were required.

But Mr. Harrison said he disagreed with that interpretation -- the rules in place when the petition was filed governed. Meaning that residents were needed.

“What I’m hearing is…this particular petition has a problem,” County Judge Wayne Gent said.

Mr. Cook said that was not a problem for commissioners there. “We took the slant that they had only presented it and the new legislation covered it,” he said.

The project still must be approved by a vote of the land owners, directors of the company. Wednesday is the last day that the project could be placed on the November ballot.

Since the company must file a new petition, the Kaufman County vote will be delayed until at least May.

The Roberts County district covers only eight acres and is strictly for the purchase of right-of-way for a $100 million water pipeline that also can be used for electric transmission lines.

Mr. Pickens is building the world’s largest windmill farm on Panhandle property that is planned to produce as much as 4,000 megawatts of electricity, enough power for a million people. The right-of-way would be used for lines to bring that power to other parts of the state.

Mr. Pickens also is working on a project to bring water from the Ogalla aquifer to the Dallas area. He has been working on that water project for years and, so far, has no buyer.

“The way they presented it to me was primarily they did not have a buyer for the water and it was not a doable deal, but they had a buyer for the electricity and it is a doable deal,” Mr. Cook said.

In Kaufman County, the proposal also includes a development of 69 high-end homes to be built around an abandoned quarry that has become a lake.

BP Vice President Mike Boswell, who grew up in the county, said his family has owned the property for years and had long planned to develop it. He said pipeline was an addition.

“I don’t know if we’ll ever do the pipeline,” he said.

Residents crowded the meeting Tuesday, most more concerned about the proposed houses than the pipeline.

They also didn’t like the idea of the company having the right to condemn property.

“From what I understand this district has been formed for private profits for private business,” said Gordon Sanders, who lives near the property.

But BP attorney Lila Marsh explained that all special districts have that power and that it is rarely used.


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