Sentence:  Cotten construed this as a veiled effort by Parkhouse to help Dallas and other large cities get money which Cotten felt could better be spent providing <WSD>water</WSD> for rural Texas . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  binary compound that occurs at room temperature as a clear colorless odorless tasteless liquid; freezes into ice below 0 degrees centigrade and boils above 100 degrees centigrade; widely used as a solvent