Tom Hicks Will Drink Your Water. Drink It Up!

As mentioned Monday, KERA-FM (90.1) is running throughout this week a series of stories about where Dallas gets its water and how we use it. Which brings us to today's contribution from B.J. Austin concerning water consumption. Says the story, the average Dallas homeowner is billed for 100,000 gallons used...

By Robert Wilonsky

May 14, 2009

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As mentioned Monday, KERA-FM (90.1) is running throughout this week a series of stories about where Dallas gets its water and how we use it. Which brings us to today's contribution from B.J. Austin concerning water consumption. Says the story, the average Dallas homeowner is billed for 100,000 gallons used per year. Unless you're Tom Hicks. Reports Austin, Hicks is far and away Dallas's bigger user of water: The owner of the Dallas Stars and Texas Rangers guzzled 10 million gallons at his 20-acre spread off Walnut Hill Lane and the Dallas North Tollway in 2008.

Says Dallas Water Utilities director Jody Puckett of Hicks's water use, well, the city just assumes he's being smart about it: "He seems to be a pretty good businessman, so I figured he'd make those choices on his own." Says Hicks in a statement, yeah, that is a lot of H₂O, but "as a family, we are always concerned about conservation, and we constantly examine ways to preserve water, our state's most precious resource."

Bonus: Speaking of Hicks, his Hicks Acquisition Co. noted this week in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that if it doesn't hold a stockholders meeting by August 11, the New York Stock Exchange will delist the company. Why? "Because the Company did not hold an annual stockholders meeting during the year ended December 31, 2008." The company also needs to close a deal, right pronto.

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