By LORI COPE | East Texas Edition

April 27, 2006 - With a 5-to-1 vote, the Texas Water Development Board on April 18 approved the Region C water plan, which includes two new reservoirs in East Texas – the $2.1 billion Marvin Nichols dam on the Sulphur River, and the $569 million Fastrill dam on the Neches River.

Region C consists of 15 counties in and around the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, and a portion of Henderson County. Most of the region lies in the Trinity River Basin, and smaller parts of the Red, Brazos, Sulphur, and Sabine River basins.

Marvin Nichols will be constructed in Northeast Texas (served by Region D water planning group), and the Fastrill will be in East Texas (served by Region I water planning group).

State legislation created 16 regional water planning groups and assigned each with figuring how to ensure an adequate water supply for its region’s residents and businesses in the next 50 years. Census projections show Texas’ population will double within that timeframe, and water will be a major issue.

TWDB approved five regional water plans at their April 18 meeting, and had approved five others at a March 21 meeting. Board members will consider five other regional water plans, including Region D’s and Region I’s, at their May 16 meeting. (Region L, in the South Central Texas region, adopted their plan outside of the statutory deadline and will be considered by the state board at a later date.) When all the regional water plans are approved by TWDB, the board will prepare a State Water Plan which will be implemented by state leaders beginning in January 2007.

Early in the planning stage for the metroplex water needs, the Region C group began coveting its neighbors-to-the-East’s rich water supply.

Jimm Parks, Region C Water Planning Group chairman, explained that current water demand in the region is approximately 1.4 million acre-feet per year, verses current supplies of 1.5 million acre-feet per year. But by 2060, water demand is projected to be 3.3 million acre-feet per year versus supplies of 4.05 million acre-feet per year. “The surplus would help to account for periods of ddrought worse than the drought of record, unforeseen problems with implementation of planned strategies and unanticipated population growth,” Parks said. “Recent information from the Texas State Data Center indicates that if recent migration rates continue, population projections by 2040 could be underestimated by 5.5 million people, or 54 percent, and that total water demands may be underestimated by 1,249,975 acre-feet per year by 2040.”

An inadequate water supply in Region C would have great socioeconomic impacts, Parks added. Projected figures for 2060 would  have the following impacts: population, reduced by one million; employment, reduced by 700,000 jobs; and income, reduced by $58.8 billion.

The Region C plan, though, met opposition from several citizens and groups — from Region D land and business owners, to Region I conservationists, to some metroplex residents. The plan for the Marvin Nichols dam stirred the most controversy. The dam would flood about 72,000 acres, and residents and businesses will loose hundreds of thousands of additional acres to mitigate the flood zone. The plan for the Fastrill would flood 30,000 acres that largely overlap an area that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing for a National Wildlife Refuge due to its unspoiled bottomland hardwood forests.

Following TWDB’s approval of the Region C plan on April 18, Myron Hess of the National Wildlife Federation said, “Texas law requires that the water plans protect the state’s agricultural, natural and water resources. If built, the new reservoirs in this (Region C) plan would cause tremendous harm to landowners, the timber industry, and wildlife habitat in East Texas.”

Texas law also forbids TWDB from approving a regional plan that is in conflict with a plan from another region, cited a NWF news release. In December 2005, the Region D group approved their plan, which stated that the construction of Marvin Nichols would not be consistent with protecting the state’s agricultural and natural resources.

“It is hard to understand how the board could not consider this a conflict between the two regions,” stated Region D Chairman Jim Thompson following the April 18 action by the TWDB.

Also, Region C has some of the highest per-capita water use in the state and the plan does little to encourage greater efficiencies, NWF cited.

Parks noted the water plan was prepared “in accordance with the rules and regulations set out by Senate Bill 1 and 2; therefore, the planning group expected approval of the plan as submitted.”

Although the Region C plan was approved by TWDB, opponents vowed to keep fighting through the permitting and construction process, which could take years. TWDB noted on April 18 that additional studies will be needed to fully evaluate the potential impacts of proposed reservoirs.

“The real fight will come when they actually try to build one of these reservoirs,”Janice Bezanson, Texas Committee on Natural Resources, said.

Max Shumake, leader of a landowner group opposing Marvin Nichols, added, “This doesn’t in any way change our opposition to these projects. My ancestors have been in the Sulphur River bottom since the 1830s. We’re here to stay.”

Bezanson pointed out that “biologists agree that the Big Thicket National Preserve is very dependent on streamflows from the Neches. Diverting water from Fastrill to the Dallas-Fort Worth would not only impact the Big Thicket, but would also affect wilderness areas, a state wildlife area, and one of the most-visited state parks in Texas.”