Author: Preserve Northeast Texas

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An outdated solution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.

 

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

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

By Brad Johnson
The Texan, June 6, 2022

The project now has a goal for completion of 2050, a change in the previous forecast due to population increases in the Dallas-Fort Worth area

In North Texas, a years-long political fight has raged over a proposed reservoir intended to supply the Dallas-Fort Worth area with life’s most basic element.

The 66,103-acre reservoir, one of several projects before the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB), is expected to provide 451,500 acre-feet of water per year at a $4.4 billion cost to taxpayers — according to 2018 estimates. 

With rampant inflation driving up the cost of building anything, the price tag today is likely significantly higher.

Another 130,000 acres of land is needed for flood mitigation purposes in tandem with the reservoir itself.

Nearly 80 percent of the reservoir’s supplied water would be piped 150 miles to the Dallas-Fort Worth area to supplement its 7.6 million population. The state plans to have the reservoir operational by 2050. In total, about 30 percent of the reservoir’s water acreage would be available for municipal supply.

While the state oversees this and all other projects at an aerial level, each undertaking is led by local water districts which sponsor the project. They accumulate the funding for each project and take on any debt required. This reservoir’s sponsors are Tarrant Regional Water District and North Texas Municipal Water District.

The project’s Northeast Texas location — at the intersection of Red River, Titus, and Franklin Counties along the Sulphur River — is a source of controversy.

Read the full story on The Texan.

 

Texans are weighing in on the costliest proposed project in the state water plan.

To date, more than 1,600 individuals have signed a petition to publicly oppose Marvin Nichols Reservoir. The petition was initiated by Preserve Northeast Texas, a growing group of Texans, landowners, business owners, community leaders, conservationists and elected officials.

Print Headline: Over 1,600 Texans have signed petition to oppose Marvin Nichols Reservoir