The Texas Water Development Board has approved three grants, each not to exceed $500,000, to the Brazos River Authority, the Brownsville Public Utility Board and the City of Corpus Christi to prepare water facility plans focusing on seawater desalination. The grants will assist the local government entities to identify the need for each project, the most cost-effective alternative, whether there are willing buyers for the water, and to determine the requirements for implementing the seawater desalination projects designed to produce in the order of 25 million gallons per day for each project.

The Brazon project includes Brazoria and Fort Bend counties. The funds are for a desalinated seawater plant proposed by Poseidon Resources at the Dow Chemical Complex in Freeport. The Brownsville project is located in Cameron County. The City of Corpus Christi project is located within the retail and wholesale customer service area of the City of Corpus Christi.

The projects were recommended for additional consideration as potential demonstration projects in the TWBD's Dec. 11, 2002, Large-Scale Demonstration Desalination in Texas, Report of Recommendations for the Office of Gov. Rick Perry (2002 Seawater Desalination Report).

As Texas water planners move toward the establishment of conservation as a principal initiative throughout the state, the Texas Water Development Board's new conservation Task Force has established six major goals. The goals are designed to make conservation a heightened priority in the coming years.

* The identification of best management practices for achieving water conservation.

* Evaluation of strategies recommended by the state's regional water planning groups.

* Consideration of the need to maintain a public awareness of conservation through education and other means.

* Evaluation of the proper role of the state in funding the implementation of best management strategies.

* Cooperative work with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to standardize the methodology for calculating and reporting data on per capita water usage.

* The evaluation of appropriate state oversight in water conservation programs.

Richard LeTourneau of Hallsville, an at-large member and executive committeeman for Region D, is a member of the 32-member Texas Conservation Task Force, which was established by the Texas Legislature with the passage of Senate Bill 1094. LeTourneau said the panel, which will study conservation issues for 13 months, will submit its recommendations for consideration by the 2005 session of the Legislature.