Opponents of Marvin Nichols Reservoir to voice concerns at regional water planning meeting

By Karl Richter

Texarkana Gazette, September 28, 2024

TEXARKANA, Texas — A delegation of opponents of the proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir will travel Monday to voice their concerns at a regional water planning meeting.

The Region C Regional Water Planning Group is considering the reservoir for inclusion as a recommended strategy in its 2026 Region C Regional Water Plan, according to the Texas Water Development Board. During a Region C meeting Monday in Arlington, Texas, opponents hope to make clear how building the reservoir in Northeast Texas would harm residents.

Region C includes much of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and would get most of the water the reservoir would collect.

Jim Thompson, chair of North East Texas Regional Water Planning Group; Janice Bezanson, senior policy director at Texas Conservation Alliance; Cass County Judge Travis Ransom, Preserve Northeast Texas Steering Committee member; and Dr. Jim Marshall, Preserve Northeast Texas Steering Committee member, will speak at the meeting.

Thompson invited Region C officials to discuss local residents’ concerns in 2021, he said.

“We heard nothing for them for over two and a half years, and recently received letters saying they were going to put Marvin Nichols in in their plan as a recommended water planning strategy. …

“We do not believe they understand, nor may they care, the impacts that it’s going to have on the Northeast Texas area. We’ve been banging that drum for many years, but not a whole lot of people have listened. This is one of those opportunities to tell them to their face what the problems are,” he said.

Some people who only recently have gotten involved in Region C planning may be unaware of the Marvin Nichols issue, Bezanson said.

“One of the basic things we want to do is to educate the other members of the Regional Water Planning Group what tremendous impacts this would have on Northeast Texas, the building it would have, and also to talk about alternatives, that there are other ways to do this. Some of them are cheaper. All of them have less impact,” she said.

Creating Marvin Nichols Reservoir in the Sulphur River Basin in Titus, Red River, and Franklin counties was proposed as early as 1968, according to a feasibility review recently published by TWDB. The project has been included in regional and state water plans since 2001.

As planned, the reservoir would store up to 1.5 million acre-feet of water, have an inundated footprint area of about 66,103 acres, and provide a firm yield of approximately 451,500 acre-feet of water per year, according to TWDB. Region C would get about 361,200 acre-feet per year. The remaining 20% would be reserved for local use.

Local opposition has pushed back against the plan for decades. Advocacy group Preserve Northeast Texas says Marvin Nichols Reservoir would “use eminent domain to force property owners off thousands of acres of family lands, negatively impact wildlife habitat, drown resources that would devastate the timber and agriculture-based economy in the region, and inundate archaeological and historic sites and cemeteries.”

Opponents also argue that reservoirs are expensive, outdated, inefficient infrastructure and that the DFW area could have all the water it needs through practices such as municipal water reuse/recycling, conservation and capturing stormwater.

The Marvin Nichols project has not proceeded past the proposal stage, and it may never do so. It will be among many potential water supply projects in Region C’s plan, Thompson said.

“They will have a list of population projections over the next 50 years, their water supply projections over the next 50 years, and they have to verify in their plan certain strategies to meet those demands. … There are a vast number of projects listed in the plan that, in reality, will never, ever be built, but they have to put it in the plan to, in their opinion, in order to meet their projections,” he said.

Public comment on the TWDB feasibility review is open through Tuesday, Oct. 15. Input must be emailed to feasibility@twdb.texas.gov by the deadline to be considered by TWDB’s executive administrator.