Latest news with #RunningOut
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
East Texans united to stop a water sale to Dallas suburbs — for now
This article is part of Running Out, an occasional series about Texas' water crisis. Read more stories about the threats facing Texas' water supply here. DAINGERFIELD — Mary Spearmon owes everything to Lake O' the Pines. It's where she met the love of her life. It's where they raised their family. It's where her husband of 57 years, Sammie Ray, died. 'My children grew up on the lake,' Spearmon said. 'We spent weekends on the lake, swimming, fishing and picnicking. My husband would take me around the lake, and we would just ride and look at the beauty.' That's why, one evening in March, she stood with more than 100 of her fellow East Texans and demanded the regional water utility not sell one drop of the majestic lake to North Texas. 'What about our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren?' Spearmon asked. 'Not only mine, but everyone's in here. What legacy are we leaving for them?' For most of this year, residents like Spearmon in this corner of northeast Texas have been on a singular mission to stop a potential sale of Lake O' the Pines water to a cluster of North Texas cities. Dallas suburbs like Frisco and Forney, dominated by single-family homes, expansive shopping centers, and towering office buildings that have spread far out from the urban core, have driven much of the growth in North Texas, increasing that region's need for more water. [Texas is running out of water. Here's why and what state leaders plan to do about it.] Lake O' the Pines is one of the state's 188 reservoirs built for drinking water. The lake's almost 18,700 acres of surface water stretch across five northeast Texas counties: Marion, Harrison, Upshur, Morris, and Camp. Built in the 1950s, deep in the thick pine forest near the Louisiana border, the lake has provided drinking water to seven cities surrounding the lake: Avinger, Daingerfield, Hughes Springs, Jefferson, Lone Star, Ore City and Pittsburg. Over the next 70 years, Lake O' the Pines became a defining force in the region's economy and culture. Boats regularly dot the lake while visitors cast lines for bass, catfish and crappie. Christopher Lepri, a Jefferson resident, said selling the water would result in a decline in tourism, growth and property values. 'Lake O' the Pines is East Texas' lifeblood, and that lifeblood should never be for sale,' Lepri said at one town hall meeting. 'If Lake O' the Pines is drained or sold, there would be a decline in tourism, growth and property values.' News of the Northeast Texas Municipal Water District's potential sale kicked off months of angry meetings, online speculation, and criticism of secrecy. By March, one official had resigned, and talks of a sale had paused. However, that's done little to assuage fears. The heated conflict and lingering tensions portend what could be Texas' future if lawmakers do not act this spring, as they have promised, to solve the state's water crisis. Rapid growth like that in the sprawling Dallas suburbs, climate change and decaying water infrastructure threaten the state's water supply. Texas does not have enough water to meet demand if the state is stricken with a historic drought, according to the Texas Water Development Board, the state agency tasked with managing Texas' water supply. East Texas is the most saturated part of the state, making it a natural target for thirsty regions. The idea of piping water from East Texas to fuel growth in another region touched a nerve for many residents, raising the question of whether one area should bear the cost of another's expansion. Lake O' the Pines was created when the Ferrells Bridge Dam was built on Big Cypress Creek, an 86-mile-long river. Before construction, the Cypress ran freely to Caddo Lake, a 25,400-acre lake and wetland bifurcated at the Texas-Louisiana border. After the dam went up, Caddo Lake, 30 miles west of Lake O' the Pines, nearly disappeared. In the early aughts, the Northeast Texas Municipal Water District, which manages Lake O' the Pines, began voluntarily releasing water to Caddo. That decision reinforced the fact that the fate of Caddo Lake has been directly tied to Lake O' the Pines. So when in 2023, Laura-Ashley Overdyke, the executive director of the Caddo Lake Institute, saw Wayne Owen, the executive director of the northeast water district, speak at a conference in Denver, she paid attention. Later that day, Overdyke heard a Dallas-area utility director tell Owen: 'Wayne, I'd love to buy your water, but you've already sold it to North Texas.' Overdyke was shocked. No sale had been publicly discussed. 'Was Caddo's water going to be sold off to the highest bidder?' she recalled wondering. 'Was East Texas a willing participant in her demise?' Before moving to East Texas to help manage Lake O' the Pines, Owen was a water planner in Tarrant County, which includes Fort Worth. He said, in an interview with The Texas Tribune, he was hired in part to help facilitate a sale of water to North Texas. 'There has been … interest from the water suppliers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to secure additional water supply,' Owen said. 'And, ostensibly, water supply that is a surplus in the Cypress Basin.' Overdyke returned to Shreveport and went to work, understanding what a potential sale would mean for Caddo. In late 2024, scientists determined Caddo Lake would be fine if water were diverted away from East Texas about 70% of the time. But any more than that and lake levels could be cut by a foot. 'For a lake that shallow, it averages about five or six feet deep, losing another foot would be devastating,' Overdyke said. Two months later, the proposed water sale was publicly discussed at a northeast water district board meeting. The possible sale was then brought to the Jefferson City Council, which met the next day. 'The local people saw it and they started calling me,' Overdyke said. 'I was terrified.' Hundreds of East Texans took notice and went on a mission to save both Lake O' the Pines and Caddo. Anytime a city council or county commissioners met, they went. They drove along winding two-lane highways lined by 80-foot tall pine trees to cities like Jefferson, population 1,875, and Daingerfield, population of about 2,500. More than 400 people attended a February town hall at the Mims Fire Station in Avinger hosted by state Rep. Jay Dean, a Longview Republican. Weeks later, more than 100 people filled the largest courtroom at the Marion County Courthouse to tell county commissioners their concerns. Water is the new oil, Jerry Thomas, a Jefferson resident, said. 'We all grew up in East Texas and know people who sold rights to their oil and watched others get rich from it,' Thomas said. Others wrote letters to any elected official they could think of. They submitted opinion pieces to local newspapers covering the fight, like the Marion County Herald & Jefferson Jimplecute, the Marshall News Messenger and the Longview News-Journal. Residents spoke at length about the impact they believed this sale would have on the local economy, ecology and culture. The lake, as a 2020 report from Texas A&M Forest Service put it, is vital to the timber industry, the poultry industry, dairies, cow/calf operations, and for irrigation. Each year, the report said, boating and fishing — especially for trophy bass, catfish and crappie — attract a lot of visitors. These activities bring in significant income for people living on its 144-mile shoreline. The incensed East Texans had few details on how much water would be removed or how often. In lieu of facts, many painted a picture of a pipe the size of a train car draining the lake at an impossible speed. They looked at other reservoirs used by North Texas cities and were worried. The northeast water board — each member appointed by one of the seven cities they represented — did little to assuage those fears. They were bound by a 2023 nondisclosure agreement signed by Owen to keep details quiet. What little information was available was often released by the North Texas utility. That self-imposed silence only made the unrest worse. The response of water board members at one city council meeting stood out to Lone Star Mayor Brianna McClain. 'We had a full house, and on the front row there were three Northeast Texas Municipal Water District members,' McClain said at the Daingerfield meeting. 'One individual immediately rolled her eyes and sighed loudly.' Sharilyn Parr, a Marion County resident, worked with many others to find and disseminate whatever information they could. 'There's a lot of misinformation out there,' Parr told the Tribune after the Marion Commissioners Court meeting. 'And water, itself, is a complicated thing.' In Texas, surface water — water in rivers and streams, lakes and reservoirs — is owned by the state. However, the state issues water rights to agencies, like the Northeast Texas Municipal Water District, to use or sell. The northeast utility has held the permit to water in Lake O' the Pines since 1957. The northeast water district is permitted to use 203,800 acre-feet of water per year, according to data provided by the Caddo Lake Institute. That amount is divided into two allocations: 47,000 acre-feet per year for member cities and 156,800 acre-feet of water per year for the Northeast Texas Municipal Water District, which is sold to other East Texas cities such as Longview. In normal weather conditions, the lake holds 241,363 acre-feet of water, according to the Texas Water Development Board. In flood conditions, which raise water levels into the flood pools, the lake can hold up to 842,100 acre-feet of water. The North Texas water utility, which serves cities like Allen and Rockwall and was negotiating the purchase or lease of water with Northeast Texas, wanted 75,000 acre-feet, enough for 450,000 Texans a year. A draft water plan for the region said that water would be transported 91 miles by pipe to Lake Tawakoni, a reservoir about 48 miles east of Dallas. Jenna Covington, executive director for North Texas Municipal Water District, told the Tribune she believed the project was a 'win-win' — a way to share a resource that would otherwise go untapped. 'They've got excess water that is valuable, and we want to properly compensate the folks in that area for the purchase of that water,' Covington said. No dollar figure was ever disclosed. The sale of water rights has become complicated and rare, even as demand for water increases, said Gabriel Eckstein, a professor at Texas A&M University who specializes in water law. Most of the current deals are leases, which give buyers access to water for a specific amount of time but leave the original permit holder in control. That money could be used to upgrade the northeast region's water infrastructure. Officials said those upgrades — projected at around $74 million — would allow the district to hold more drinking water and for longer, reduce daily operational costs and help keep current rates steady. After the criticism arose with such ferocity, Owen, the northeast water district executive director seen by many as the mastermind of the sale, resigned in March. Owen called his tenure in East Texas a 'career milestone.' He maintained he was following orders to execute a sale. 'I was just trying to do the best job I could do,' he said in an April interview. The Northeast Texas Municipal Water District board accepted his resignation at a meeting in Daingerfield and told attendees they were never seriously considering selling water from Lake O' the Pines. 'If and when there is ever a proposed sale on the table that we think is worthy of consideration by the cities, we, being the district, are going to go to the cities,' said Jimmy Cox, the board's chair. 'We'll present that sale, explain it, review the pros and cons, answer any questions they may have. And then they will make the decision.' The more than 100 angry East Texans in attendance didn't buy it. That's when Spearmon told the story of her family. 'If we sell our water to Dallas, what are we going to do? Are we going to move to Dallas to have water or purchase our water from Dallas?' Spearmon asked. 'No. We don't want to do that. No. We want our water. Please vote no.' Sammie Ray would have loved that she spoke up, though probably would have told her to be meaner, Spearmon said later. Kim Hall, another resident, suggested that instead of sending North Texas water, East Texas could send folks to fix North Texas' aging water infrastructure. Leaking pipes cause cities to lose what water they do have. 'Were it not for the public outcry, your plans may have been consummated,' said former Republican State Rep. David Simpson. Several called for board members to resign with Owen. As the meeting ended, the board appointed Osiris Brantley, a lifelong East Texan and the water district's chief financial officer, as interim general manager. It was a small win. But the fight isn't over, East Texans said. 'This is just the beginning,' said Marion County Judge Leward LaFleur. Last week, Dean, the state representative who hosted a town hall, posted on Facebook that the threat was over. 'WE DID IT! WE SAVED OUR LAKES!' his post said. 'The North Texas Water District Board has negotiated a deal to get water from resources closer to them,' it went on. 'And they have abandoned their proposal to buy the water rights to Lake O' the Pines!' Hundreds of his constituents liked the post and shared it. Dozens of self-congratulating comments followed. But any celebration appeared to be premature, as the North Texas Municipal Water District countered in its own statement Friday. 'While we're not currently in active negotiations with the Northeast Texas Municipal Water District regarding a water purchase from Lake O' the Pines,' it said, 'we continue to believe a future agreement for the sale of water could make sense for North Texas and Northeast Texas.' Disclosure: Facebook and Texas A&M University have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here. Tickets are on sale now for the 15th annual Texas Tribune Festival, Texas' breakout ideas and politics event happening Nov. 13–15 in downtown Austin. Get tickets before May 1 and save big! TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.
Yahoo
13-04-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
To avoid water crisis, Texas may bet big on desalination. Here's how it works in El Paso.
This article is part of Running Out, an occasional series about Texas' water crisis. EL PASO — The wind swept through El Paso one day in March, lifting a fine layer of dust that settled onto windshields, clothes and skin. The air was thick with haze from a dust storm. This border city, perched on the edge of the Chihuahuan Desert, receives on average less than 9 inches of rain each year. Water in the city of 679,000 people is a challenge. Inside El Paso's Kay Bailey Hutchison Desalination Plant, Hector Sepúlveda, the plant's superintendent, walks through rows of towering steel tubes as a loud hum vibrates through the air. This machinery is essential to providing thousands in the city with clean water. 'This is a desert community,' Sepúlveda said. 'So the water utilities have to always think ahead and be very resourceful and very smart and find resources to take the water that we do have here and provide for a desert community.' Sepúlveda says the city's dry climate, compounded by dwindling ground and surface water supplies and climate change has made innovation essential. A key piece of that strategy is desalination — the process of removing salt and other minerals from seawater or salty groundwater so people can drink it. When it opened in 2007, El Paso's desalination plant was the largest inland desalination facility in the world. It was built through a partnership between El Paso Water and Fort Bliss, one of the nation's largest military bases, when water shortages threatened the base's operations. Today, at max capacity the plant can supply up to 27.5 million gallons per day — helping stretch the city's supply by making use of the region's abundance of brackish groundwater, salty groundwater with salinity levels higher than freshwater, but lower than seawater. The city wants to expand the plant's capacity to 33.5 million gallons per day by 2028. El Pasoans used about 105 million gallons per day last year. As Texas faces twin pressures of population growth and prolonged drought, lawmakers are looking to desalination as a way forward. The Texas Legislature took a major step in 2023, creating the New Water Supply for Texas Fund, to support desalination projects — including both brackish and seawater. This legislative session, lawmakers are pushing to accelerate that effort with a bill by state Sen. Charles Perry, a Lubbock Republican, that could dedicate millions for new water projects, including desalination. Senate Bill 7 cleared the upper chamber earlier this month and is now awaiting a House committee's consideration. 'We've developed all the cheap water, and all the low-hanging fruit has been obtained. There is no more of it, and it's depleting what's left. We're going into the second phase of water development through brackish marine, brackish produced water and brackish aquifers,' Perry said on the Senate floor before his colleagues gave the legislation unanimous approval. Sixty municipal water desalination facilities are already online, according to the Texas Water Development Board, the state agency that helps manage and finance water supply projects. Of those, 43 desalinate brackish groundwater. El Paso's is the largest. As of December 2024, the agency had designated 31 brackish groundwater sites as production zones, meaning they have moderate to high availability of brackish groundwater to treat. The board's 2022 state water plan proposes implementing an additional 37 brackish groundwater desalination projects in South Texas cities like McAllen, Mission, San Benito; and West Texas towns like Abilene and Midland. The plan states that if all recommended strategies are used, groundwater desalination could make up about 2.1% of the state's projected water needs by producing 157,000 acre-feet per year by 2070 — enough to support 942,000 Texans for one year. Still, desalination isn't without tradeoffs. The technology takes a lot of energy, and construction costs can be steep. There are also several factors to consider that affect the final price tag: How deep the water lies, how salty it is, how far it needs to travel, and how to dispose of the leftover salty waste. The water board estimates treating brackish groundwater can run anywhere from $357 to $782 per acre-foot, while seawater desalination ranges from $800 to $1,400. Lawmakers say water funding at a state-level is critical to help communities shoulder the upfront costs of these alternative water supplies. Sepúlveda, who has spent more than 30 years with El Paso Water, says the process at the desalination plant begins with brackish groundwater drawn from 15 wells near the El Paso International Airport. The salty water is transported to the plant where it is first filtered through strainers to remove sand particles. Then it is transported through cartridge filters. This process is similar to how household water filters work, but far more efficient. The cartridge filters trap fine sediments smaller than a strand of hair, further filtering the water before it reaches the heart of the system: reverse osmosis, often referred to as RO membranes. Sepúlveda, who wears a blue construction hat and highlighter yellow vest, stands amid a room full of long rows of stacked steel tubes, or RO membrane units. Here, brackish groundwater gets turned into fresh, drinkable water. It's pumped through these tubes — each with 72 vessels — at extremely high pressure, leaving behind salt and bacteria. 'We're separating the undesirable stuff from the potable water,' he said, as he opened a faucet and sipped the water. 'At the end you end up with safe drinking water. The process is just amazing.' Once cleaned, the water is divided between El Paso Water customers and Fort Bliss. Sepúlveda said they will soon expand the plant to produce 33.5 million gallons per day by adding a sixth row of RO membranes. The brine, or concentrated salty water left over from the process, is pumped 22 miles to deep well injection sites. The desal plant can separate up to 3 million gallons of brine a day. At the site, the concentrate is sent 3,500 feet underground into a fractured rock formation. While brackish groundwater desalination has proven to be a viable solution for inland communities like El Paso, environmentalists are raising concerns about the potential consequences of scaling up the water strategy. Seawater desalination is gaining attention as Gulf Coast cities like Corpus Christi start developing their own seawater desalination facility. For seawater desalination, Shane Walker, professor and director of a water research center at Texas Tech University, says the main concern is removing the excess salt. While most of the salinity comes from dissolved minerals that aren't harmful, Walker says, high concentrations — think of over-salted French fries — can harm marine life and disrupt coastal ecosystems. Seawater is much saltier than brackish water and salt levels vary widely depending on the source. In seawater desalination, the brine byproduct — which can be twice as salty as seawater — is often discharged back into the ocean. If not properly managed, this can increase salinity in bays and estuaries, threatening species like oysters, crabs and shrimp that are critical to local fisheries and ecosystems. Myron Hess, an environmental consultant for the nonprofit National Wildlife Federation, said that when plants take in water it could potentially suck in marine creatures with the ocean water. 'As you're diverting particularly massive amounts of water, you can be pulling in lots of organisms,' Hess said. For inland facilities like the Kay Bailey Hutchison plant, the environmental concerns are different. They don't kill marine life, but disposal is still a concern. In El Paso, Art Ruiz, chief plant manager for El Paso Water and the former superintendent of the utility's desalination plant, calls this disposal 'chemistry salts' and says that disposal is handled through deep well injection into an isolated part of the aquifer. Ruiz said El Paso is blessed with a geological formation that has a natural fault that prevents the concentrate from migrating and contaminating the freshwater supply. In regions where this is not feasible, evaporation ponds are used, but they require large amounts of land and careful management to prevent environmental hazards. 'Deep well injection is a common method used for larger desalination facilities, but the geology has to be right,' Walker said. 'You have to ensure that the injection site is isolated and won't contaminate freshwater aquifers.' Another concern raised by water experts is how Texas manages brackish groundwater and whether the state is doing enough to protect nearby freshwater sources. Senate Bill 2658 proposes to exempt certain brackish groundwater wells located within state-designated production zones from needing a permit. Experts say the move would bypass a permitting process in the state's water code that was specifically designed to safeguard freshwater aquifers. The central worry is that brackish and fresh groundwater are often hydrologically connected. While brackish groundwater can be an important part of the state's water portfolio, Vanessa Puig-Williams, a water expert with the Environmental Defense Fund, says there's a real risk that pumping brackish water could unintentionally start drawing in and depleting nearby fresh water if oversight is not required from local groundwater conservation districts. Experts also caution that the production zones identified by the water board weren't designed to guide site-specific decisions, such as how much a well can safely pump or whether it could affect nearby freshwater supplies. Hess, consulting for the National Wildlife Federation, authored a paper on the impacts of desalination, including the price tag. Constructing a facility is costly, as is the energy it takes to run it. El Paso's desalination facility cost $98.3 million, including the production and injection wells construction, $26 million of which it received in federal funding. The technology to clean the water is energy intensive. Desalinating water in El Paso costs about $500 per acre-foot of water — 46% more than treating surface water from a river. Seawater facilities require even more energy, which adds to the costs in producing or cleaning the water. TWDB estimates those range from $800 to $1,400 per acre-foot. Texas has no operating seawater desalination plants for municipal use, but the state's environmental agency, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, has authorized permits for two marine desalination facilities and has four pending applications for seawater desalination facilities, three in Corpus Christi and one in Port Isabel. 'The first seawater plant in Texas is going to be expensive,' Walker said. 'The first time somebody does something, it's going to cost way more than the other ones that come along behind it, because we're having to figure out all the processes and procedures to do it the first time.' Back at the Kay Bailey Hutchison plant in El Paso, Sepúlveda, the plant's superintendent, walks into a lab opened to students and professors from the University of Texas at El Paso, New Mexico State University, and Rice University to test new technologies to help refine the desalination processes or extend the lifespan of RO membranes. Sepúlveda said water utility employees have learned a lot since 2007 when the plant first opened. RO membranes, used to clean the salty water, cost anywhere from $600 to $800. El Paso uses 360 RO membranes to run its plant. To extend the life from five to 12 years, utility employees figured out a system by checking salinity levels before extracting from a certain well. 'When we first bring water in from the brackish wells, we know how salty each well is, so we try to bring in the wells that are less salty to not put the membranes under such stress,' he said. 'It almost doubled the life of the membrane.' He added that this technique is also helping plant operators reduce energy consumption. Plant operators have adjusted salinity levels by blending the brackish groundwater with less salty water, which helps prevent pipe corrosion and clogging. Their pipes are also now winterized. After the 2011 freeze, El Paso upgraded insulation and installed heat tape to protect equipment. As Texas moves forward with more desalination projects, Sepúlveda said the lessons from El Paso will be critical as more plants go online. 'You always have to be forward-thinking. Always have to be innovative,' he said, as the machines buzzed in the background. 'You always have to be on top of the latest technological improvements to be able to extract water from whatever scant resources you have.' Disclosure: Environmental Defense Fund, Rice University, Texas Tech University and University of Texas at El Paso have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at Store, harvest, fix: How Texas can save its water supply This is what the state decided on a desal permit requested by the city of Corpus Christi This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Texas may bet big on desalination. Here's how it works in El Paso.
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
To avoid a water crisis, Texas may bet big on desalination. Here's how it works in El Paso.
This article is part of Running Out, an occasional series about Texas' water crisis. Read more stories about the threats facing Texas' water supply here. EL PASO — The wind swept through El Paso one day in March, lifting a fine layer of dust that settled onto windshields, clothes and skin. The air was thick with haze from a dust storm. This border city, perched on the edge of the Chihuahuan Desert, receives on average less than 9 inches of rain each year. Water in the city of 679,000 people is a challenge. Inside El Paso's Kay Bailey Hutchison Desalination Plant, Hector Sepúlveda, the plant's superintendent, walks through rows of towering steel tubes as a loud hum vibrates through the air. This machinery is essential to providing thousands in the city with clean water. 'This is a desert community,' Sepúlveda said. 'So the water utilities have to always think ahead and be very resourceful and very smart and find resources to take the water that we do have here and provide for a desert community.' Sepúlveda says the city's dry climate, compounded by dwindling ground and surface water supplies and climate change has made innovation essential. A key piece of that strategy is desalination — the process of removing salt and other minerals from seawater or salty groundwater so people can drink it. When it opened in 2007, El Paso's desalination plant was the largest inland desalination facility in the world. It was built through a partnership between El Paso Water and Fort Bliss, one of the nation's largest military bases, when water shortages threatened the base's operations. Today, at max capacity the plant can supply up to 27.5 million gallons per day — helping stretch the city's supply by making use of the region's abundance of brackish groundwater, salty groundwater with salinity levels higher than freshwater, but lower than seawater. The city wants to expand the plant's capacity to 33.5 million gallons per day by 2028. El Pasoans used about 105 million gallons per day last year. As Texas faces twin pressures of population growth and prolonged drought, lawmakers are looking to desalination as a way forward. The Texas Legislature took a major step in 2023, creating the New Water Supply for Texas Fund, to support desalination projects — including both brackish and seawater. This legislative session, lawmakers are pushing to accelerate that effort with a bill by state Sen. Charles Perry, a Lubbock Republican, that could dedicate millions for new water projects, including desalination. Senate Bill 7 cleared the upper chamber earlier this month and is now awaiting a House committee's consideration. 'We've developed all the cheap water, and all the low-hanging fruit has been obtained. There is no more of it, and it's depleting what's left. We're going into the second phase of water development through brackish marine, brackish produced water and brackish aquifers,' Perry said on the Senate floor before his colleagues gave the legislation unanimous approval. Sixty municipal water desalination facilities are already online, according to the Texas Water Development Board, the state agency that helps manage and finance water supply projects. Of those, 43 desalinate brackish groundwater. El Paso's is the largest. As of December 2024, the agency had designated 31 brackish groundwater sites as production zones, meaning they have moderate to high availability of brackish groundwater to treat. The board's 2022 state water plan proposes implementing an additional 37 brackish groundwater desalination projects in South Texas cities like McAllen, Mission, San Benito; and West Texas towns like Abilene and Midland. The plan states that if all recommended strategies are used, groundwater desalination could make up about 2.1% of the state's projected water needs by producing 157,000 acre-feet per year by 2070 — enough to support 942,000 Texans for one year. Still, desalination isn't without tradeoffs. The technology takes a lot of energy, and construction costs can be steep. There are also several factors to consider that affect the final price tag: How deep the water lies, how salty it is, how far it needs to travel, and how to dispose of the leftover salty waste. The water board estimates treating brackish groundwater can run anywhere from $357 to $782 per acre-foot, while seawater desalination ranges from $800 to $1,400. Lawmakers say water funding at a state-level is critical to help communities shoulder the upfront costs of these alternative water supplies. Sepúlveda, who has spent more than 30 years with El Paso Water, says the process at the desalination plant begins with brackish groundwater drawn from 15 wells near the El Paso International Airport. The salty water is transported to the plant where it is first filtered through strainers to remove sand particles. Then it is transported through cartridge filters. This process is similar to how household water filters work, but far more efficient. The cartridge filters trap fine sediments smaller than a strand of hair, further filtering the water before it reaches the heart of the system: reverse osmosis, often referred to as RO membranes. Sepúlveda, who wears a blue construction hat and highlighter yellow vest, stands amid a room full of long rows of stacked steel tubes, or RO membrane units. Here, brackish groundwater gets turned into fresh, drinkable water. It's pumped through these tubes — each with 72 vessels — at extremely high pressure, leaving behind salt and bacteria. 'We're separating the undesirable stuff from the potable water,' he said, as he opened a faucet and sipped the water. 'At the end you end up with safe drinking water. The process is just amazing.' Once cleaned, the water is divided between El Paso Water customers and Fort Bliss. Sepúlveda said they will soon expand the plant to produce 33.5 million gallons per day by adding a sixth row of RO membranes. The brine, or concentrated salty water left over from the process, is pumped 22 miles to deep well injection sites. The desal plant can separate up to 3 million gallons of brine a day. At the site, the concentrate is sent 3,500 feet underground into a fractured rock formation. While brackish groundwater desalination has proven to be a viable solution for inland communities like El Paso, environmentalists are raising concerns about the potential consequences of scaling up the water strategy. Seawater desalination is gaining attention as Gulf Coast cities like Corpus Christi start developing their own seawater desalination facility. For seawater desalination, Shane Walker, professor and director of a water research center at Texas Tech University, says the main concern is removing the excess salt. While most of the salinity comes from dissolved minerals that aren't harmful, Walker says, high concentrations — think of over-salted French fries — can harm marine life and disrupt coastal ecosystems. Seawater is much saltier than brackish water and salt levels vary widely depending on the source. In seawater desalination, the brine byproduct — which can be twice as salty as seawater — is often discharged back into the ocean. If not properly managed, this can increase salinity in bays and estuaries, threatening species like oysters, crabs and shrimp that are critical to local fisheries and ecosystems. Myron Hess, an environmental consultant for the nonprofit National Wildlife Federation, said that when plants take in water it could potentially suck in marine creatures with the ocean water. 'As you're diverting particularly massive amounts of water, you can be pulling in lots of organisms,' Hess said. For inland facilities like the Kay Bailey Hutchison plant, the environmental concerns are different. They don't kill marine life, but disposal is still a concern. In El Paso, Art Ruiz, chief plant manager for El Paso Water and the former superintendent of the utility's desalination plant, calls this disposal 'chemistry salts' and says that disposal is handled through deep well injection into an isolated part of the aquifer. Ruiz said El Paso is blessed with a geological formation that has a natural fault that prevents the concentrate from migrating and contaminating the freshwater supply. In regions where this is not feasible, evaporation ponds are used, but they require large amounts of land and careful management to prevent environmental hazards. 'Deep well injection is a common method used for larger desalination facilities, but the geology has to be right,' Walker said. 'You have to ensure that the injection site is isolated and won't contaminate freshwater aquifers.' Another concern raised by water experts is how Texas manages brackish groundwater and whether the state is doing enough to protect nearby freshwater sources. Senate Bill 2658 proposes to exempt certain brackish groundwater wells located within state-designated production zones from needing a permit. Experts say the move would bypass a permitting process in the state's water code that was specifically designed to safeguard freshwater aquifers. The central worry is that brackish and fresh groundwater are often hydrologically connected. While brackish groundwater can be an important part of the state's water portfolio, Vanessa Puig-Williams, a water expert with the Environmental Defense Fund, says there's a real risk that pumping brackish water could unintentionally start drawing in and depleting nearby fresh water if oversight is not required from local groundwater conservation districts. Experts also caution that the production zones identified by the water board weren't designed to guide site-specific decisions, such as how much a well can safely pump or whether it could affect nearby freshwater supplies. Hess, consulting for the National Wildlife Federation, authored a paper on the impacts of desalination, including the price tag. Constructing a facility is costly, as is the energy it takes to run it. El Paso's desalination facility cost $98.3 million, including the production and injection wells construction, $26 million of which it received in federal funding. The technology to clean the water is energy intensive. Desalinating water in El Paso costs about $500 per acre-foot of water — 46% more than treating surface water from a river. Seawater facilities require even more energy, which adds to the costs in producing or cleaning the water. TWDB estimates those range from $800 to $1,400 per acre-foot. Texas has no operating seawater desalination plants for municipal use, but the state's environmental agency, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, has authorized permits for two marine desalination facilities and has four pending applications for seawater desalination facilities, three in Corpus Christi and one in Port Isabel. 'The first seawater plant in Texas is going to be expensive,' Walker said. 'The first time somebody does something, it's going to cost way more than the other ones that come along behind it, because we're having to figure out all the processes and procedures to do it the first time.' Back at the Kay Bailey Hutchison plant in El Paso, Sepúlveda, the plant's superintendent, walks into a lab opened to students and professors from the University of Texas at El Paso, New Mexico State University, and Rice University to test new technologies to help refine the desalination processes or extend the lifespan of RO membranes. Sepúlveda said water utility employees have learned a lot since 2007 when the plant first opened. RO membranes, used to clean the salty water, cost anywhere from $600 to $800. El Paso uses 360 RO membranes to run its plant. To extend the life from five to 12 years, utility employees figured out a system by checking salinity levels before extracting from a certain well. 'When we first bring water in from the brackish wells, we know how salty each well is, so we try to bring in the wells that are less salty to not put the membranes under such stress,' he said. 'It almost doubled the life of the membrane.' He added that this technique is also helping plant operators reduce energy consumption. Plant operators have adjusted salinity levels by blending the brackish groundwater with less salty water, which helps prevent pipe corrosion and clogging. Their pipes are also now winterized. After the 2011 freeze, El Paso upgraded insulation and installed heat tape to protect equipment. As Texas moves forward with more desalination projects, Sepúlveda said the lessons from El Paso will be critical as more plants go online. 'You always have to be forward-thinking. Always have to be innovative,' he said, as the machines buzzed in the background. 'You always have to be on top of the latest technological improvements to be able to extract water from whatever scant resources you have.' Disclosure: Environmental Defense Fund, Rice University, Texas Tech University and University of Texas at El Paso have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here. Tickets are on sale now for the 15th annual Texas Tribune Festival, Texas' breakout ideas and politics event happening Nov. 13–15 in downtown Austin. Get tickets before May 1 and save big! TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Store, harvest, fix: How Texas can save its water supply
This article is part of Running Out, an occasional series about Texas' water crisis. Read more stories about the threats facing Texas' water supply here. Bad news: Texas is running out of water. Good news: There are several solutions local and state leaders can take to make sure we don't. The state's water supply is threatened by a changing climate, rapid population growth, and outdated infrastructure, which loses billions of gallons of water each year. Texas' water demand is growing. By 2070, the state is projected to need an additional 7.7 million acre-feet of water per year to meet the needs of residents, farmers, and industries if strategies are not implemented. The answers to our water crisis range from the traditional (think reservoirs) to the innovative (think desalination). Texas lawmakers are expected to pledge billions of dollars to the state's water supply this spring. However, there is a big debate on which strategies to invest in. Do we invest more into creating new water supplies or repairing old, leaking pipes statewide? [Texas is running out of water. Here's why and what state leaders plan to do about it.] The Texas Water Development Board has recommended more than 2,400 water management strategy projects to increase water supply. The cost to implement those strategies is estimated to be $80 billion (in 2018 dollars) by 2070, not including inflation. No single solution can meet all of Texas' water needs. And it will not be cheap. Water experts say policymakers must invest wisely, ensuring the most cost-effective and sustainable solutions are prioritized. Here's a look at some of the solutions and their pitfalls. Many water experts say that conservation is the first line of defense. Cyrus Reed, a longtime environmental lobbyist at the Texas Capitol and conservation director for the state's Sierra Club, called conservation 'the most conservative and lowest cost approach' to meet our water needs. Conservation means using less water and using it more efficiently. That could look like reducing household and business water consumption through incentives, leak detection, and water-efficient appliances, improving irrigation techniques to minimize water loss, or encouraging industries to recycle water and reduce overall use. [Want to understand Texas' water crisis? Start with the guide to water terms.] One example is in El Paso. Since the 1990s, the city has had a toilet rebate program that has helped residents conserve water and save money on monthly water bills. The program offers a $50 rebate for customers who purchase water-efficient toilets that use 1.28 gallons per flush, as opposed to older toilets that use as much as six gallons per flush. So far, they've given 54,000 rebates to their 220,000 customers, which includes homes, businesses and government agencies. 'Conservation is often underutilized due to the need for behavior change and the lack of regulatory enforcement,' said Temple McKinnon, a director of water supply planning at the water board. Each of Texas' 16 regional water plans includes conservation strategies. One of the obvious solutions — at least to water experts — is to fix the state's aging water infrastructure. Leaking pipes and deteriorating treatment plants have led to billions of water being lost. In 2023 alone, 88 billion gallons of water were lost in Texas' most populous cities, according to self-reported water loss audits submitted to the Texas Water Development Board. 'The most efficient water source that we have is the water that we already have,' said John Dupnik, a deputy executive administrator at the Texas Water Development Board. Jennifer Walker, director for the Texas Coast and Water program with the National Wildlife Federation, said that fixing the infrastructure creates new water supplies because it's water that wouldn't be delivered to Texans otherwise. 'Anything that we can do to reduce waste is new water,' Walker said. The Texas section of the American Society of Civil Engineers released their infrastructure report card last month. Texas received a D+ for drinking water, with the report emphasizing the role of aging infrastructure and the need for funding for infrastructure operation and maintenance. One reason why the state's water systems have fallen behind is costs. Most water systems are run by cities or local agencies, which have tried to keep water rates and other local taxes low. This is particularly true in rural Texas communities that have smaller populations and tax bases. Texas 2036 has estimated the state's water agencies need nearly $154 billion by 2050 for water infrastructure. State Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, has proposed a bill that could dedicate millions for new water projects. His emphasis is on what water experts call 'new water supplies.' One example is removing salt from seawater or brackish groundwater through a process called desalination, which makes water drinkable. Most communities need to increase their water supply, especially as existing supply may be dwindling or face uncertainty, said Shane Walker, a professor at Texas Tech University who serves as the director of the Water and the Environment Research Center. Desalination is one of the most promising solutions, Walker said. Texas is rich in both seawater along the Gulf Coast, and brackish groundwater, with underground reserves of salty water. He said cities and towns shouldn't wait to tap into desalination until there are no options. 'Start now before you're in a jam,' Walker said. Coastal cities like Corpus Christi are turning to seawater desalination as a drought-proof water source. While desalination plants are expensive to build and operate, the gulf region provides a large supply of water. By 2030, Texas is recommended to produce 179,000 acre-feet of desalinated seawater annually, increasing to 192,000 acre-feet by 2070, according to the latest state water plan. That's enough water to support about 1.1 million Texans for one year. Texas also has vast reserves of brackish water underground, and cities like El Paso have already pioneered its use. The Kay Bailey Hutchison Desalination Plant is the largest inland desalination plant in the world. At max capacity, it can produce 27.5 million gallons of drinking water daily from brackish groundwater in the Hueco Bolson Aquifer. It also produces 3 million gallons of concentrate, which is the leftover water containing all the salt and impurities that was filtered out. A pipeline sends the concentrate more than 20 miles from the plant where it is injected underground. However, desalination comes with challenges: First, the process requires large amounts of energy to push water through membranes that separate salt and impurities, which is expensive. Then there's the disposal of concentrated brine, a highly salty liquid that's a byproduct of desalination. It must be carefully managed to avoid harming marine ecosystems or the environment. 'It'll always come back to the concentrate disposal,' said Art Ruiz, chief plant manager for El Paso Water and the former manager of the city's desalination plant. 'No matter how small or how big [the plant], you're going to create a byproduct. Recycling every drop of water is another solution. Water reuse allows treated wastewater to be reclaimed for various purposes, from irrigation to industrial cooling. One way of reusing water is direct potable reuse, which involves treating wastewater to drinking-water standards and either reintroducing it directly into the water supply or blending it with other sources before further treatment. Indirect potable reuse follows a similar process, but first releases treated water into a natural reservoir or aquifer before being re-extracted for use. Lubbock has recently started this practice with Leprino Foods, the world's largest mozzarella cheese producer. The company opened an 850,000-square-foot facility in January and will produce 1.5 million pounds of cheese a day. In return for the water the company uses, Leprino will return around 2 million gallons of clean water to Lubbock every day. This accounts for about 6.25% of Lubbock's daily water use. Leprino said they installed substantial capacity for water storage so the company could recover and store more water from the manufacturing process before it is cleaned. 'In Lubbock, we've designed and constructed the facility with water stewardship in mind from day one,' Leprino said in a statement. El Paso is leading the way with its Pure Water Center Facility, which recently started construction. It will purify already treated wastewater for people to drink and deliver 10 million gallons daily. When it's operating in 2028, it will be the first direct-to-distribution reuse facility in the country. While the concept, 'toilet-to-tap' might seem unappealing at first, water utility experts say the advanced treatment process ensures the water is clean and safe. San Antonio has embraced reuse for non-drinking water, sending treated wastewater from the city's Steven M. Clouse Water Recycling Center back into the city and its rivers. Purple-marked pipes carry recycled water to irrigate golf courses, cool industrial towers, and sustain the downtown River Walk. Some is diverted to an energy plant, while the rest flows to the gulf. In dry times, this steady outflow keeps the San Antonio River running. Aquifer storage and recovery is exactly what it sounds like. A water utility can store excess water underground during wet periods, allowing it to be withdrawn during droughts. El Paso has a program that injects treated water into the Hueco Bolson aquifer for future use. San Antonio stores excess Edwards Aquifer water in a certain site within the Carrizo Aquifer during wet periods, then recovers it during droughts. This method reduces evaporation losses compared to above-ground reservoirs and provides a reliable emergency water supply. However, this process requires specific geological conditions to be effective, and not all areas of Texas have suitable aquifers for storage. In some cases, it can also take a long time to move water through all the levels underground to reach the aquifer. One method being explored is creating and using playa lakes to recharge aquifers. Playas are shallow lakes that form in arid, flat regions and catch rainwater runoff. They are dry more often than wet, which is how they function — the water seeps through cracks in the dry soil of the playa's basin. 'Every time a playa dries out and we get a rain event, that's when recharge happens,' said Heather Johnson with Texas Parks and Wildlife in Lubbock. 'You'll get about three inches of rainwater infiltration into the playa basin annually.' Johnson said for every four acres of playa basin, approximately one acre-foot of water is recharged — about 326,000 gallons of water. That's enough water to cover a football field with nine inches of water. Ducks Unlimited, a nonprofit national organization that manages wetlands and habitat conservations, is working with Texas Parks and Wildlife in the High Plains to recharge the Ogallala Aquifer. Tavin Dotson, the first regional biologist in the region for Ducks Unlimited, said playa lakes store a seed bank and when playas fill, plants begin to grow. This creates a grassy buffer around the playa — which acts as a natural filter to wash out contaminants before water reaches the playa basin and aquifers. Most of the Ducks Unlimited work in Texas is in the coastal areas. However, Dotson said there is a push to get the practice going even more in the High Plains, where the Ogallala Aquifer is facing declining levels. One of the practices involves filling pits and ditches that disrupt how playas function. Filling the pits allows playas to properly retain and filter water. Johnson said the High Plains contains more than 23,000 playa basins. Rain harvesting — capturing and storing rainwater for later use — is another way of conserving. This technique provides a decentralized water source for irrigation and livestock. While rainwater harvesting is an effective conservation tool, it is limited by Texas' variable rainfall patterns. It rains more in East Texas as opposed to the West. Still, some Texas groundwater districts actively promote rainwater harvesting to reduce reliance on municipal supplies. High Plains Underground Water Conservation District in Lubbock — the first groundwater district created in Texas — monitors water use and levels in the Ogallala, Edwards-Trinity and Dockum/Santa Rosa Aquifers. The organization also encourages ways to conserve water, including rainwater harvesting. In recent years, the water district has helped raise awareness of the practice in the district gave away ten rain barrels and 12 rain chains in 2023. Most recently, the district sponsored several rainwater harvesting projects at the Lubbock Memorial Arboretum. Jason Coleman, general manager for the water district, said there are swales, or shallow areas, that catch rainwater. 'They are constructed in the landscape to help mitigate some of the runoff that was occurring at the arboretum,' Coleman said. 'They're nicely constructed. There's cobblestones and other nice features to make it a nice looking part of the landscape.' Historically, Texas has relied on reservoirs to store and manage water — a solution that boomed after a devastating drought that lasted seven years in the 1950s. There are more than 180 across the state. However, building new reservoirs has become increasingly difficult due to land constraints, environmental concerns, and the high costs of construction. Despite these challenges, regional water planning groups proposed 23 new major reservoirs in the 2022 state water plan. However, new laws now require realistic development timelines and feasibility studies, meaning that reservoirs may not be seen as the go-to solution they once were. Matt Phillips, the deputy general manager for the Brazos River Authority, told lawmakers during a House committee meeting that the population for the basin will double by 2080. The river authority serves Waco, Georgetown, Round Rock, College Station and other cities. Phillips said they would need an additional 500,000 acre-feet of water to meet those demands. 'All the cheap water is gone,' Phillips said. 'Every drop of water we develop from here on is going to be exponentially more expensive than anything we've seen in the past, so we're going to need help to get there.' State Rep. Cody Harris, R-Palestine, filed legislation that would promote reservoir projects. Perry's Senate bill mirrors the proposal for reservoirs. In both, the water development board would be able to use money from the Texas Water Fund to encourage regional and interregional project developments. This includes the construction of reservoirs and stormwater retention basins for water supply, flood protection and groundwater recharge. Disclosure: Ducks Unlimited, Texas 2036 and Texas Tech University have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here. We can't wait to welcome you to the 15th annual Texas Tribune Festival, Texas' breakout ideas and politics event happening Nov. 13–15 in downtown Austin. Step inside the conversations shaping the future of education, the economy, health care, energy, technology, public safety, culture, the arts and so much more. Hear from our CEO, Sonal Shah, on TribFest 2025. TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.
Yahoo
17-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
These are the proposals lawmakers hope will save Texas' water supply. Track them here.
This article is part of Running Out, an occasional series about Texas' water crisis. Read more stories about the threats facing Texas' water supply here. It will also be updated through the legislative session as bills advance. Texas' water supply is full of uncertainties. Leaking water pipes and deteriorating infrastructure plague the state's water systems. Prolonged droughts and record-setting heat waves are depleting the state's rivers. And a growing population is adding more stress to the system every day. One state figure estimates there could be a severe shortage of municipal water by 2030 if there is recurring, record-breaking drought conditions across the state, and if water entities and state leaders fail to put in place key strategies to secure water supplies. State lawmakers have proposed several possible solutions. Their proposals range from committing to annual funding for water projects to tapping into new sources, like oil and gas wastewater that comes from the ground during extraction, and making sure the quality of drinking water is safer. There are a number of steps to the legislative process, however, and they all have to take place before a bill can go into law. There are 10 bills the Tribune is tracking — some of them have moved quickly in the legislature, while others have failed to pick up steam. Here are the steps of the process we are tracking: [Texas is running out of water. Here's why and what state leaders plan to do about it.] Bill has been filed: This is the very first step in the process. A bill is written and introduced in one of the two legislative chambers, the Texas House or state Senate. In the works: Bills are assigned to committees where a panel of lawmakers vet the bill and take testimony from the public. Bills must be approved by at least one committee before the full chamber votes on it. Both chambers have to approve a bill for it to become law. A bill may also go to a conference committee to reconcile any differences between the chambers on the bill before it's passed. Passed the House: The bill received a majority vote of approval by state representatives. If it is a House bill, it must go to the Senate next for approval. If it has already passed by the Senate, then it is sent to Gov. Greg Abbott. Passed the Senate: The bill received a majority vote of approval by state senators. If the bill starts in the Senate, it will go to the House for approval. If it's already been passed by the House, then it is sent to Abbott. Signed into Law: Bills signed by Abbott become law. If there is a bill left unsigned but was not vetoed by Abbott, then it automatically becomes law. Vetoed or failed: A legislative proposal failed by missing a key deadline or did not make it out of the original committee for a floor vote. Abbott could also veto any bills sent to him. — A priority bill that establishes an administrative framework for how water projects — including building of infrastructure that would transport water across the state and fixing leaking pipes — would be funded under the Texas Water Development Board. The bill would also establish the Texas Water Fund Advisory Committee for oversight and the Office of Water Supply Conveyance Coordination to improve regional and statewide water infrastructure connectivity. Bill has been filed. — A constitutional amendment to dedicate $1 billion to the Texas Water Fund for up to 16 years beginning in 2027. The annual stream of state tax dollars and insurance premium taxes would help cities and local water agencies buy more water and repair aging infrastructure. It calls for 80% of the appropriated money to go to the New Water Supply for Texas Fund — prioritizing desalination projects and pipelines transporting water from the water-rich regions of Texas to arid, drought-stricken areas. The other 20% would go to fixing aging infrastructure. The bill would expire in 2043. In the works. Bill has been referred to a Senate committee on finance. — A sweeping priority bill that touches on water funds, flood plans, and the development of infrastructure to transport water into a water supply system. The bill would also create the Texas Water Fund Advisory Committee to oversee operations on each fund and report to the Texas Water Development Board. In the works. Bill has been referred to a House committee on natural resources. — A constitutional amendment to dedicate $1 billion to the Texas Water Fund for up to 10 years. The annual stream of state tax dollars would help cities and local water agencies buy more water and repair aging infrastructure. It gives the Texas Water Development Board full discretion over the $1 billion, allowing it to distribute the money as it sees fit. In the works. Bill has been scheduled for a public hearing. — Directs the Texas State University Meadows Center for Water and the Environment to study how Texas can develop seawater desalination plants along the Gulf Coast. Desalination is the process of removing salt from seawater or salty groundwater so it can be used for drinking water, irrigation and industrial uses. The study will examine international desalination plants in Israel and Australia to identify best practices and challenges, including financial barriers and explore ways to dispose of brine — highly salty and concentrated liquid — including its potential use in nuclear energy production. The findings must be reported by Jan. 1, 2027. In the works. Bill has been referred to a House committee on natural resources. — A bill that directs the Texas Water Development Board, the state agency that oversees water supplies and projects, on how to allocate money from the Texas Water Fund. The board would ensure a portion of the money is used for water infrastructure projects and prioritized by risk or need. It would go to rural areas with less than 20,000 people, and areas with at least 20,000 residents but no more than 150,000. It also calls for money to be spent on a statewide public awareness campaign about water. In the works: Bill is pending in a House committee on natural resources. — Authorizes the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to issue permits for land application of produced water — wastewater that comes out of the ground during the extraction of oil and gas production — and develop standards that prevent pollution of surface and groundwater. Passed the Senate: The House has received the bill for review. — A bill that calls for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to appoint a panel to review the duties of a groundwater conservation district. This would happen if someone files a petition with the TCEQ requesting an inquiry about a conservation district. If the petition is not dismissed, the commission would appoint a review panel of five members. Bill has been filed. — This bill aims to prevent conflicts of interest by barring engineering firms involved in state or regional water planning from also constructing reservoirs. It specifically applies to feasibility reviews assessing costs, timelines, land acquisition, and economic impacts. One example of a case is the $7 billion Marvin Nichols Reservoir, which groups estimate would flood over 66,000 acres of northeast Texas forest. A feasibility review released last year found no major obstacles to the project. The firm that conducted the review, Freese and Nichols Inc., is also set to build the reservoir. Bill has been filed. — Creates a new fund to support scientific research that will expand knowledge about the quality, quantity and threats to the state's groundwater resources. It will be administered by the Texas Water Development Board. In the works. Bill has been scheduled for a public hearing. We can't wait to welcome you to the 15th annual Texas Tribune Festival, Texas' breakout ideas and politics event happening Nov. 13–15 in downtown Austin. Step inside the conversations shaping the future of education, the economy, health care, energy, technology, public safety, culture, the arts and so much more. Hear from our CEO, Sonal Shah, on TribFest 2025. TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.
