and lakes) to provide, which again pushes the burden onto groundwater.

The problem, however, is that groundwater isn't always near potential customers. Part of the cost of the pipelines and water treatment plants then gets passed on to consumers in the form of taxes and increased water rates.

Because the State of Texas has divided its territory into a slurry of water conservation districts and public entities, the battle for who controls the H20 is one in which the average citizen has little direct say.

Water district boards are empowered to sell water to companies representing water-hungry industries and cities. These competing interests have been such a source of contention that this year the Texas Legislature, long dominated by climate-change-deniers, finally passed the State Water Plan.

Texas voters will decide in Novemberpart of IFAIR’s cooperation with the Diplomatic Magazine and was published in August’s issue.

Tom Reutemann coordinates the German-Russian student exchange series of the Impact Group “Memory as a tool of change”. Tom is currently enrolled in the postgraduate Master program at the HU Berlin in European Studies. Before, he graduated from the University of Leipzig and MGIMO with a Masters in International Energy Economics and Business Administration. Meanwhile he worked in a major international consulting firm. He did his Bachelors in Business Administration at the FHDW Paderborn, and worked in the Banking-IT industry in Frankfurt/Main afterwards. He also did an internship at the German Federal Foreign Office and worked as a research student at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin). Tom speaks German, Russian and English.