Attendees at a Thursday meeting sponsored by the Marshall/Harrison County League of Women Voters asked Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge Manager Mark Williams all kinds of questions.

Some of those questions concerned water rights.

Two factions are fighting over a portion of Longhorn Army Ammunition Plant acreage. One faction wants to include the land in the already created refuge and the opposing faction wants the state of Texas to take a portion, for industrial development.

But land is not the only asset in question.

The U.S. Army is still holding some water rights and the fate of those rights has not been determined.

In the meantime, Williams, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife employee, believes the Army should transfer all the land and all the water rights to his agency.

About 5,915 of the original 8,415 Longhorn acres and 75 percent of the water rights have already been transferred to the wildlife refuge – over which the U.S. Department of the Interior and its subagency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department, has jurisdiction.

That leaves about 10,000 acre feet under Army control. A full 100 percent of the water would total 40,000 acre feet, Williams explained in the meeting.