LUBBOCK, TEXAS -- Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens wants a court to derail state approval of a water management plan he claims would take $10 million off the value of his groundwater rights in the Texas Panhandle.
Pickens attorney Marty Jones said Tuesday his client filed a lawsuit last month.
The suit came after the Texas Water Development Board endorsed a plan that Pickens claims will take as many as 18,000 acre feet of water annually from the Ogallala Aquifer under land belonging to him and another rancher.
The lawsuit says the combined plans of three groundwater districts in the management area will devalue Mesa Water L.P.'s rights and those of a nearby rancher.
Pickens wants a Travis County court to declare the plan unreasonable, which would force groundwater districts to revise their proposals.
