An environmental battle that has swept across the woods and waters of northeast Texas comes to Dallas City Hall today.
On one side are regional water planners, who say they cannot guarantee a reliable water supply for millions of urban North Texans without finding vast amounts of new water -- possibly by damming a distant river. "We believe that Dallas is going to need water in the future, " said Robert Johnson, interim director of Dallas Water Utilities, the city's water department. "Marvin Nichols [Reservoir] is not something that we should exclude from our options."
On the other side are landowners, timber companies and environmentalists, who say the proposed reservoir would needlessly flood 60,000 acres of northeast Texas habitat to support urban dwellers' water-wasting ways. "We believe there are many more cost-effective options that would have much lower environmental impacts, and we should pursue those first," said Rita Beving of the Dallas Sierra Club.
No decision has been made on the $1.7 billion project, which planners say could provide water to Dallas and other North Texas water systems no earlier than 2030. Utilities from urban North Texas would split 80 percent of the water but pay 100 percent of the cost, leaving 20 percent of the water in northeast Texas.
Dallas City Council members are to hear a briefing on the project at 1 p.m. today from city staff members who back the plan. They also will hear from environmentalists and northeast Texas landowners who oppose it. The briefing is attached to a city staff request for $600,000 to pay Dallas' 15 percent share of an ongoing feasibility study and preliminary engineering and permit work. The council could vote on the request next week.
City officials assembled a 75-page briefing packet for council members that includes a report by environmental groups criticizing the project, a consultant's rebuttal of that report, and an economic study supporting the project. The economic study's sponsor, the Sulphur River Basin Authority, would be the lead agency for building the reservoir.
For decades, water plans have identified the Marvin Nichols Reservoir -- named for a late consulting engineer and state water development board member -- as a water supply option, but the lake was never built. The idea gained new life in recent plans. It appeared in regional blueprints for northeast Texas and North Texas in 2001.
Landowners and timber companies whose property would vanish beneath the lake protested, jamming meetings and sending thousands of letters. Environmentalsts concerned about the loss of habitats, as well as some legislators and other state officials and U.S. Rep. Max Sandlin, D-Marshall, have joined them. The opponents eventually forced the northeast Texas planning group to back away from Marvin Nichols and reclassify it from a "recommended" water supply option to a "potential" one.
However, the separate group planning future supplies for urban North Texas still lists Marvin Nichols as a recommended option. Although a formal vote to move forward is at least a year away, planners are lining up evidence that they say justifies the project. One factor is cost. Marvin Nichols would cost about $1.7 billion, according to an old estimate adjusted for inflation. Another option, running pipelines to the existing Toledo Bend Reservoir on the Texas-Louisiana state line, would cost $3 billion, according to a recent estimate.
Planners say they don't have a firm cost for a third option, buying Texas Panhandle ground water from entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens' Mesa Water Inc. Mesa Water officials say the cost would be comparable to the high end of other options, but the water would be available years if not decades sooner.
Environmentalists say Marvin Nichols supporters overlook what they call a better option: a crackdown on the region's high municipal water use. They argue that water-saving landscaping and construction could reduce or eliminate the need for Marvin Nichols. They cite state figures showing that Dallas and a number of other North Texas cities have some of the state's highest per-person water use. In summer, most of that water goes to irrigate lawns -- something rarely if ever needed for the most drought-tolerant turf grasses such as buffalo grass.
"I hope the City Council makes the prudent and wise decision and doesn't throw money or other studies at Marvin Nichols when we are still wasting water," said the Sierra Club's Ms. Beving.
Mr. Johnson, of Dallas Water Utilities, said conservation wouldn't make enough water available to serve a growing population. "I think that in the long run, Marvin Nichols is going to prove up to be a reliable resource," he said.