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JACKSONVILLE, Texas (KETK)– Hundreds of people across East Texas packed into Jacksonville’s City Hall for the groundwater board’s public hearing on the 21 high capacity well drilling permit.

The Neches and Trinity County’s Groundwater Conservation District voted unanimously to send the contested hearing to an independent state agency for mediation.

People who spoke at the meeting were resident, mayors, county commissioners, county judges, water companies and state representatives.

“All of rural East Texas, all of our rural East Texas counties, will be affected. Our cities will not be able to have businesses. Everyone’s going to have to move away,” New Summerfield resident, Jennifer Murphy-Vick said.

Other community members spoke out about how this issue may be the size of a drop of water now, but could turn into an ocean of problems if nothing is done.

“We’re going to bring the folks in (new residents) and then we are going to give one tenth of our water away?” one resident said to the city. “That doesn’t make sense to me, one tenth is a lot.”

The company, Red Town Ranch Holdings LLC spoke at the meeting and said the well is for exploratory and data collection. The data would prove that the aquifer is capable to support the application of production.

The company added that the filed permits would not drain the county dry.

“The state water development board says there is 170-million-acre feet in Anderson County in the aquifer. I am asking for less than one tenth of one percent of the water,” the applicant, Kyler Bass said.

Private well residents and water companies said in the meeting that the aquifer is drying up and this project is critical to their livelihood.

The board did not make a final decision on the application, but they did vote unanimously to turn the hearings over to the State Office of Administrative Hearings. SOAH is an independent agency that manages and conducts inquiries in contested cases. The board also requested that SOAH does not schedule a hearing for 90 days.

“SOAH also has the ability and training in mediators to do mediation,” said Ed McCarthy LLP.

Chairman of the Natural Resource Committee and state representative, Cody Harris announced that he is calling an investigative hearing into the motives of the company and how this would affect East Texas.

“I hope we actually find the root motive behind why they want to drill this many wells and export this much water,” Rep. Cody Harris said.

The committee hearing will take place at the capitol July 15th and 1pm.