Water Supply for the Future of Dallas-Fort Worth
Legislation passed by the Texas Senate designates 19 sites throughout the state as appropriate locations for future water reservoirs that would accommodate a fast-growing population in coming decades.
Among the sites listed in the Senate bill is the proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir, which would be a major source of water for the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The 62,000-acre reservoir would be located between Mount Pleasant and Clarksville in Northeast Texas, approximately 150 miles from Tarrant County.
The House Committee on Natural Resources, unfortunately, has amended the Senate bill to strip the Nichols reservoir from the list of prospective sites, apparently as a result of opposition from environmental groups, rural landowners in Northeast Texas and others.
In addition, the House panel has tacked on amendments making it much more onerous and expensive to construct the Nichols reservoir or other major new sources of water that the state is expected to need in coming decades as its population potentially doubles.
As of this writing, it appears that the committee-passed bill could be debated on the House floor as soon as today.
Texans who remember the state’s agonizing water crisis during the severe, prolonged drought of the 1950s can only hope that common sense prevails and that a better bill — much more like the Senate version — emerges from the House.
Significantly expanded water conservation must be a major component of the Dallas-Fort Worth area’s future efforts to ensure adequate supplies. But additional reservoirs still are likely to be needed, so it’s important that sites such as Nichols formally be identified now as potential water sources.
The Senate bill also includes laudatory provisions to help ensure adequate fresh-water flows in the state’s rivers, creeks, bays and estuaries.
The meritorious, forward-looking bill passed by the Senate has been transformed by the House committee into bad legislation. Unless the Legislature can produce a better bill than the House committee’s inferior product, it might be preferable that no bill pass at all.
— Fort Worth Star Telegram