ABC News 8: Water reservoir proposals in the DFW area

By WFAA Staff WFFA ABC News 8, Jul. 31, 2022
DALLAS — This past year has taught us not to take electricity for granted. Water is now another one of those resources and Texas needs more of it.
The cities of Dallas and Fort Worth say they’ll have to have five new reservoirs to keep up with all the new residents and businesses moving there. But building reservoirs means flooding thousands of acres in rural Texas. And folks in northeast Texas – where one of these is proposed – say they have too much at stake. That’s why folks in northeast Texas are fighting back against one proposed there called Marvin Nichols — that would send water to the metroplex.
Janice Bezanson – from the Texas Conservation Alliance – lays it out in a brand new episode of Y’all-itics we just released this morning.
Bezanson says “It was proposed back in 2001 and there was a tremendous fight against it, then, and it got postponed. But in the last revision of the state water plan, it was again moved forward to a time frame that’s comparable to when they would actually start building it in the near future. It’s to be completed by the year 2050 and in operation. But the proponents have always said, it will take them 30 years to get it permitted and built. 2050 is only 28 years from now.”

Letters to the Editor – North Texas water, Love Field shooting, DART, Dallas County

By Letters to the Editor
The Dallas Morning News, July 28, 2022

 

Inconvenient Truths

Re: “North Texas will need this water — Texas Democrats’ opposition to planned reservoir in East Texas is disappointing,” Monday editorial.

Your support of the proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir is understandable. East Texas opposition is based on law and equity.

The Texas Constitution, Section 1, says the perpetuity of the Union depends upon the preservation of local rule, and Section 2 says the faith of the people of Texas stands pledged to the preservation of a republican form of government. Dallas exercising eminent domain outside of its area of jurisdiction violates Section 1, and the majority taking the property and resources of East Texas violates Section 2. To add insult to injury, we are then robbed of more land due to unconstitutional federal mitigation of even more property.

I know this is a very inconvenient truth. Why not consider reusing some or all of your effluent by discharging the purified water into your local recreation lakes and recirculating it back to your supply reservoirs? You should have been paying the areas you suck dry for the water you have taken all these years to make up for the loss of local income and tax revenue they would have gained by the use of their property and resources.

Charles L. Riley, Atlanta, Texas

 

Consider Toledo Bend

Region C has several alternatives to building the Marvin Nichols Reservoir rather than destroying and devastating a large section of bottomland hardwood along the Sulphur River. Among these alternatives is acquiring water from Toledo Bend, which has over 2 million acre-feet of available water. Region C has been told this by officials from Toledo Bend.

Region C officials have said it would be too expensive. A large portion of Red River County water where the lake would be built is supplied by Red River County Water Supply. Two thousand gallons of water cost $35. Two thousand gallons of water in the city of Dallas on Oct. 1, 2021, cost $11.38. Clearly, Dallas has a lot of room before it costs too much.

-John Brooks, Bogata, Texas

 

An outdated solution

The Marvin Nichols Reservoir is a perfect example of using 19th-century methods to solve 21st-century problems. As average temperatures increase, so do rates of evaporation. One need only look at what is happening to Medina Lake, which is currently 11% full, to see the future of the Marvin Nichols.

Instead of investing in outmoded technology, Dallas should be exploring the use of aquifer storage and recovery, potable water reuse and other strategies that will provide assured volumes to satisfy the long-term needs for more water supply for the region.

-Annalisa Peace, San Antonio

 

D-FW takes too much

The Marvin Nichols Reservoir is projected to be a minimum of 200,000 acres. To put that in perspective, that’s over one-fourth the size of Rhode Island. Gone forever from the northeast Texas economy. No taxes paid to schools and counties. No agricultural, timber or petroleum production. Land taken from families that have owned it for 100 to 150 years. All to support the Dallas-Fort Worth area’s greed.

David Aikin, Mount Vernon

 

Reject planned reservoir

Re: “North Texas will need this water — Texas Democrats’ opposition to planned reservoir in East Texas is disappointing,” Monday editorial.

The proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir is one of the costliest projects in the state water plan at an estimated $4.4 billion with costs rising. The project will be funded by Dallas-Fort Worth area taxpayers who will pay the financial cost, and it will also come at a cost to northeast Texas residents who will be forced to move off their properties, away from their jobs, schools and livelihood.

I do not agree with the moving forward of the Marvin Nichols Reservoir.

-Brooke Ward, Texarkana

 

 

Read the full letters to the editor on The Dallas Morning News

The Dallas Morning News: Letters to the Editor – Julian Assange, border security, drought in Texas, limited economy

By Letters to the Editor
The Dallas Morning News, July 3, 2022

Is this our plan?

Re: “Crusade against the drought — Texas oil baron’s descendant is working on technology to reclaim industry’s ‘produced water’,” by Richard Parker, June 26 Opinion.

Perhaps the best way to summarize Parker’s essay is this (his) statement; “Water, to be blunt, is the new oil. It can be drilled, piped, cleansed and shipped anywhere a pipeline goes.”

Parker does more than give us the dreary facts. He highlights what a Texas oil man (Ira Yates) wants to do to help solve the coming scarcity problem. It comes down to cleaning the water used for oil and gas production. New Mexico is already doing this. So is Saudi Arabia. And Chevron.

But Texas has outlawed reclaiming, cleaning and reusing this water. The coming solution for the North Texas area? Flood 20,000 acres northeast of Dallas. What is this land now? Roads, homes, churches and creeks, and acres of hardwood forest. Why? We seem not able to limit either population growth or water usage. Is this really the future we want?

-Ellen Taylor Seldin, North Dallas

Read the full letters to the editor on The Dallas Morning News