Dallas-Fort Worth planners want new $4.4B reservoir. Northeast Texas is pushing back.
A decades-long battle over how to best meet Dallas-Fort Worth’s growing water needs has entered a contentious phase, with urban water officials and rural landowners clashing over a reservoir project that would cost at least $4.4 billion and 65,000 acres of resource-rich land in Northeast Texas.
The renewed energy around the proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir project, which has been the subject of heated debate since 2001, comes as 16 regions across Texas submit their initial water supply plans for 2021. Those will help form the next state plan in 2022, which will be largely used as a blueprint for the next 50 years.
If rapid population growth continues as expected, DFW regional water planners say that another water source will be necessary within the next 30 years to ensure that supply exceeds demand, even in the case of widespread drought.
“New reservoirs are always going to be part of our water supply strategy because frankly they are an important way to make it through a summer when the rivers are flowing dry,” said Dan Buhman, the deputy general manager of the Tarrant Regional Water District. “You can’t conserve your way totally out of demand growth if our population continues to grow.”
However, officials representing the water-rich Northeast Texas region, including cities like Longview and Texarkana, say that Dallas-Fort Worth should pursue more aggressive conservation strategies before building a reservoir that would push residents to sell their land and negatively affect local economies.
“We need strategies that are more developed than just singularly building more storage,” said Walt Sears, the executive director of the Northeast Texas Municipal Water District and a member of the Northeast Texas planning group. “We need strategies that equip us to more efficiently use the resources that we have.”
Both regional planning groups have approved their initial plans, though the public and state agencies can comment on them through the summer. The difference? DFW’s plan expects completion of the reservoir during the 2050s, while the Northeast group wants it out of the state plan until at least 2070, delaying the Dallas-Fort Worth region’s hopes of applying for a federal permit.
The Texas Water Development Board will make the final decision on the reservoir after final plans are submitted in October, though that process can take months or years. Obtaining a federal permit can take 15 to 25 years, which means water planners must start applying now if they hope to construct the reservoir in 2050, according to Wayne Owen, planning director for the Tarrant Regional Water District.
During public meetings last winter, residents living in the reservoir construction zone expressed concerns that people would be forced out of their homes. They are also worried about the negative consequences on wildlife and the timber and agriculture industries.
Aaron Rolen, an attorney in Cuthand whose newly built home is in the planned reservoir area in Red River County, drove a church van full of residents to those meetings.
Residents in the Sulphur River Basin “feel betrayed” because DFW officials agreed to postpone consideration of Marvin Nichols in 2015, leading residents to believe that they would no longer have to worry about the reservoir, Rolen said.
“There are other options on the table that could push out this need for longer, and I think most people would agree that an extreme, irreversible, permanent measure like Marvin Nichols Reservoir should be an absolute last resort,” Rolen said.
Since the agreement was signed, rapid growth caused DFW planners to pursue the reservoir at an earlier date, according to Sears. The Dallas-Fort Worth population is expected to double by 2070, to 14.7 million.
Improved water reuse projects have produced better conservation results than local officials ever thought possible, lowering an average DFW resident’s water use to less than 150 gallons per day, said J. Kevin Ward, the general manager of the Trinity River Authority and chair of the Dallas-Fort Worth regional planning group. But in order to sustain the area’s population and economic growth, a reservoir project is necessary, Ward said.
“We would have hoped, just like everyone else would, that we could conserve our way out of building any new projects,” Ward said. “No one wants to build a project if they don’t have to. We need the water for the Metroplex for it to continue to grow according to population projections, and we represent probably 30% of the economic activity in the state of Texas.”
North Texas leaders should pursue more cost-effective, incremental options that do not have the same negative environmental or economic impact as Marvin Nichols, said Janice Bezanson, the executive director of the Texas Conservation Alliance, which advocates for the preservation of wildlife habitat and water resources.
Some of those conservation strategies include more municipal water recycling, storing water in underground aquifers to prevent evaporation and capturing urban runoff water that can lead to flooding in developed areas.
“Ultimately they cost less than building Marvin Nichols, and the environmental impact is dramatically less, hugely less,” Bezanson said.
If North Texas officials are unable to build the reservoir, DFW would have to turn to Oklahoma or Louisiana to build more expensive pipelines to bring water to the region, Ward said.
DFW’s water plan includes new water conservation strategies, including a Tarrant Regional Water District pilot project to test aquifer storage and recovery, though advocates like Bezanson argue it’s not enough.
Those conservation projects are no match for the sheer amount of water that the reservoir would provide, Buhman said. The Tarrant district would bear $2.36 billion in costs for Marvin Nichols, which would produce about 54.6 billion gallons per year for the district, according to estimates.
Residents can submit comments on the initial DFW water plan until July 27, and state agencies will have through Aug. 24. The Northeast Texas group held its public meeting June 11 in Mount Pleasant.
Rolen said his community will not stop fighting Marvin Nichols unless there is a dire need in Dallas-Fort Worth and conservation options have been exhausted.
“This is a permanent, irreversible decision with our most precious natural resource: land,” Rolen said. “You’re just going to remove this community off the face of the earth is what you’re going to do. This is not necessary.”
