The State of Texas is endowed with many valuable resources. It has vast oil and gas deposits, huge timber reserves, and land in abundance. Not least among its re sources is water, the key resource. It is water, even before food, which sustains all life on this earth. Without water the human processes of agriculture, industry, and commerce would be impossible. Water serves as a major source of energy, transportation, and recreation. It is not a risky statement to make that water, above everything else on this earth except land, permits man to exist.