Where in Texas has ditch irrigation? (El Paso, Menard: real estate, homes, neighborhoods)

[ranchito]

I am from New Mexico and we have acequias (irrigation ditches). They can be used for agriculture or just watering your lawn and garden. It is not uncommon for them to be in suburban areas, right inside of a housing tract.

Where in Texas can I find residential (not rural) real estate with rights to ditch irrigation?

[elnina]

You need to get familiar with Texas water laws
https://texaswater.tamu.edu/water-law

[TheOverdog]

Menard Texas, built in the 1920s I think. The irrigation ditch runs directly through town and you can buy homes adjacent to it. Due to the modern water regulations and river access, it only has water in it when the rains are falling, and you can't pump from it to water your lawn, but you can bucket or run underground pipes.

[EDS_]

Generally, trench irrigation is by far and away the most water wasteful style of irrigation. The other side of that tho. is using trench irrigation as a means to control and use stormwater run-off is a great idea.

I don't want to go off on a long ag. discussion but we have a soybean farm in Southern Illinois......we are 3/4 done moving from ditch irrigation to a style of tiling. Essentially, we bury ultra-high quality French Drain tubing and sometimes rock and sock lining but the process is backward.....we either gravity feed water down or pump water up the drains watering the soybeans from underground. Very simple solar/battery powered valves and soil water content controllers manage each run without much human intervention.

I say all that to make the point the farm manger and the University of Ill. people who came up with the idea and track our install say in our case tiling cuts water use between 85 and 95% per run vs. trench irrigation and our crops are better watered = more yield.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by TheOverdog

Menard Texas, built in the 1920s I think. The irrigation ditch runs directly through town and you can buy homes adjacent to it. Due to the modern water regulations and river access, it only has water in it when the rains are falling, and you can't pump from it to water your lawn, but you can bucket or run underground pipes.

Did not know that. Good info.

[ranchito]

Originally Posted by elnina

You need to get familiar with Texas water laws
[url]https://texaswater.tamu.edu/water-law[/url]

That didn't tell me anything about ditch irrigation.

[TheOverdog]

That didn't tell me anything about ditch irrigation.

The gist is that that river water is managed by conservation districts, is a public resource, and land owners adjacent to it have no special rights due to proximity, basically meaning if you pump from a river and get caught, you will get a hefty fine. This also effects ditch irrigation (like the one in Menard Texas) such that they cannot divert water from a public waterway to fill the ditch and use it for irrigation.

[BobTex]

As far as I know all of SE Tx water is provided via entities such as the Lower Neches Valley River Authority canal systems. Municipal water along with ag water is provided vial canal but the water use is metered and sold.

[HookTheBrotherUp]

I grew up in El Paso, so not far from New Mexico. The only place I saw this was in the Lower Valley, it was flat, and the elevation not much higher from that of the Rio Grand, which is what was used to irrigate the valley. Certain areas used to be pecan orchards before those huge orchards you see now existed. Those Lower Valley orchards became people's property, so they would water their huge yards from the ditches. The ditches, as I recall, were filled certain times of the month, and you would need to irrigate your property during that time, so they only irrigated like once a month.

I've seen irrigation from the Brazos river in these parts, but these were to huge agricultural fields, not neighborhoods like in El Paso. Are you interested in irrigation for a field, like to grow produce?