Fairfield Lake Park saga proves Texas loves property rights, except when it doesn’t | Opinion
Watch the law-making frenzy in the Legislature’s final few weeks and you’ll sometimes see the opposite of the intended outcome — taking a bad idea and making it worse.
Take Fairfield Lake State Park. After the state enjoyed decades of generosity from the park’s corporate owners, it was caught flat-footed when the company decided to sell the land. Austin harrumphed that it might use eminent domain, the government power to seize private land for the public good.
That was too blunt a tool, so lawmakers invented a new one — but it’s another terrible shot at property rights, a gross abuse of power targeted at one situation, one landowner and prospective buyer.
Vistra Corp. and, before it, subsidiary Luminant, operated a power plant at the site, nearly halfway between Dallas and Houston, until 2018. But going back to the 1970s, the owner leased the land for the state park. It never charged Texas a dime. The state eventually offered to buy part of it, officials have said, but Vistra didn’t want to break it up.
The company struck a deal with Todd Interests, a Dallas developer who wants to build a gated luxury-home community and reportedly sell water from Fairfield Lake to the Fort Worth area.
That last detail apparently sparked what passes for creativity in the Legislature. Rep. Angelia Orr altered her bill, which would have authorized eminent domain to seize the park. Now, the Itasca Republican would require environmental regulators to get the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission’s approval to modify water rights from the lake or nearby Big Brown Creek.
That arrangement exists for no other body of water in Texas, a parks department spokeswoman confirmed. It’s entirely made up to thwart development of the land, presumably scuttling the deal and giving Vistra no option but to sell the land to the state for a fraction of what it would get from Dallas developer Todd Interests.
To sum up: The state accepted charity for 50 years, dawdled on protecting a gem of a park, and wants to change the rules when the property owner doesn’t acquiesce — in a state that supposedly cherishes property rights. It’s gangster government, and it won robust approval in the House.
But then, it’s not like the House seriously debated the matter. Orr is a first-term lawmaker, and this was her first bill to get to the floor. So when the bill came up April 20, her colleagues were much more interested in their ritual hazing of a freshman than noticing the state overreach they were about to approve. They yukked it up about Orr being part of a new “dimples caucus” and joked about the possibility of a nude beach at Fairfield Lake. The bill won final House approval the next day on a 131-8 vote.
Across the Capitol, Sen. Charles Perry is trying to clean up Orr’s bill little. The Lubbock Republican, who leads the Senate’s Water, Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee, has altered the bill to apply to all state parks. That’s a mostly meaningless gesture, though. The state owns most of its parkland, and nearly all of its other leases are from other governments, so this kind of dispute is much less likely.
Besides, a bad idea spread a little wider is still a bad idea, just with more potential impact.
A right as precious as private property is endangered if the state acts capriciously.
In this case, the political facts are heavily in the Legislature’s favor. No one wants to lose Fairfield Lake State Park, which has seen a boost of visitors since its probable closure made news. After all, the “villains” here are an energy company and a developer aiming to serve the wealthy and make a killing on the deal.
It won’t be surprising if the bill wins final approval, launching Todd Interests and the state into years of expensive litigation.
Good, you might say. We need these open spaces for our growing population.
We agree, and we’ve urged the Legislature to bolster the budget for land acquisition and help ensure that this kind of situation never happens again.
But remember: If the state can target a bill directly at the property rights of Vistra and Todd Interests, it can do it to anyone. Even you.
