‘My mama put that in her will’: What North Texas reservoir planners are up against

By Lana Ferguson

Dallas Morning News, May 20, 2025

ARLINGTON — On Monday, Stanley Jessee left his home in Cuthand about four hours before the Region C water planning group’s meeting in Arlington.

“I’m not so worried about the drive back but I always worry about the drive here,” Jessee said. Ahead of the event, he and a handful of others who traveled about three hours from their homes in northeast Texas waited outside.

The retired Red River ISD superintendent is one of the many generational residents who would be displaced by the proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir. For years, he’s attended public meetings like this in Dallas-Fort Worth, closer to home, and even in Austin to talk about how detrimental the $7 billion, 66,000-acre manmade lake would be to the school district.

Jessee was joined by some of his fellow community members ― and some new faces, too. Dozens of them wore neon green stickers that said “Enough is enough! NO Marvin Nichols Reservoir,” while holding their typed speeches printed on folded 8×11 pieces of paper with pen scribbles in the margins.

The crowd was in town for a public hearing on Region C’s initially prepared plan. The regional plan — revisited every 5 years — proposes strategies to meet the water demand needs for 16 counties including Collin, Dallas and Tarrant over the next half-century.

Feedback could be given on anything in the roughly 1,800-page, two-volume document that includes strategies on reuse, conservation and six new surface water sources to supply water to an estimated 15.1 million residents by 2080.

Still, most of the 29 people who spoke focused on the polarizing reservoir, a linchpin in the state’s efforts to slake demand on natural resources fueled by a population and regional economic boom.

‘This land is not for sale’

They asked that the project, first proposed in the 1968 State Water Plan, be tossed because it would flood generational homes, gravesites, churches and more. It is recommended for construction in the Sulphur River Basin in Titus, Red River and Franklin counties to pump water more than 100 miles away by 2060.

“This land is not for sale,” Eddie Belcher, 64, said. “My mama put that in her will.”

Repeating what he’s said previously in multiple meetings, Belcher said he watched his parents die still fighting the reservoir because it would displace them from land in Red River County that’s been in the family for seven generations.

Gary Cheatwood Jr., 48, also grew up watching his family speak out against the reservoir.

“I had to take off work but I wanted to tell you guys — and don’t take me wrong here — but this board holds the distinction in my life as wasting more of my time than any other single thing on Earth,” he said.

“I’m almost 50 years old and every decision in my life has been built around, ‘Well they might build that lake.’”

Howdy Lisenbee ― a member of northeast Texas’ water planning group who participated in the group’s unanimous vote last month to declare the project an interregional conflict ― compared the reservoir situation to 2 Samuel 24:24 in the Bible’s Old Testament.

In that verse, King David declined to offer a sacrifice to the altar that came at no cost to him.

“Whether you realize it or not, we worship at the altar of growth,” Lisenbee said. “We do incredible things in the name of growth. We act as if it’s all-powerful and that we must obey its demands, that every altar has a sacrifice.”

Lisenbee asked what the water planners are bringing to their altar.

“Within this plan, you are offering a sacrifice that is not yours,” Lisenbee said, drawing applause from the audience. “People in nations throughout history have worshipped at the god of growth. When they outgrow their resources, they go and take resources from other areas. That is your plan.”

Chris Wallace, president and CEO of North Texas Commission, said his group of public and private sector leaders supports the full plan.

“The plan represents years of thoughtful work, collaboration and provided a smart, diversified road map to help meet the long-term needs of our communities, businesses and residents,” he said, adding that they opposed removing any strategies from the plan.

A representative with the Upper Trinity Water District was the only other person who spoke in support of the plan in full.

Dan Buhman, chairman of the North Texas water planning group and general manager of the Tarrant Regional Water District, said he appreciated the public comments.

“The comments don’t fall on deaf ears,” Buhman said after the meeting. “We really do listen. We’re trying to balance the needs of our region with the impacts they create. There is no project that has no impact.”

He said he understands people’s frustration from speaking against the reservoir repeatedly, but he said the feedback matters when planners are deciding which project is slated to be built next.

In an interview with The Dallas Morning News last week about the region’s water demands, Buhman emphasized that water is a state-owned resource in Texas.

He said the Texas Water Development Board splitting the planning process into regions wasn’t meant to create a “this is my water, that’s your water” mentality.

“I think that an important distinction is the goal is to not plan for our region at the exclusion of others,” Buhman said. “The goal is to create a plan that then gets to the state, the state then coordinates, puts together and creates the state water plan.”

Written comments on the North Texas water plan can be submitted through 5 p.m. July 18 on the group’s website, via email to info@regioncwater.org or by mail at J. Kevin Ward, RCWPG Administrator, c/o Trinity River Authority, P.O. Box 60, Arlington, Texas 76004.

The comments will be addressed at the group’s public meeting in September before a final version of the plan is submitted to the Texas Water Development Board by Oct. 20.