On Monday, July 23, 2001, the Sulphur River Basin Authority (SRBA) held two meetings in the board room of the First National Bank, at Mt. Vernon, Texas. Meeting #1 was of the Steering Committee of the SRBA, starting at 10:30 a.m. and ending around noon. Meeting #2 was the regular monthly meeting of the SRBA, which ran until shortly after 1 p.m.

Following the second meeting, Mike Huddleston, president of the SRBA, and Mike Burke, administrator and secretary/treasurer of SRBA, left for Quitman, Texas, in Wood County, to meet with the executive committee of the Sabine River Basin Authority. They did not say what was to be discussed, but one might speculate that two possible topics would be (1) mitigation acreage for crucial land to be taken for the Marvin Nichols Reservoir, hoping to be able to set aside, in the Sabine River Basin, land that will be destroyed by Marvin Nichols; and/or (2) getting the Sabine River Basin Authority to sign on as a "shareholder" (and thus put up money) for the Marvin Nichols project. There could be other topics, too. It should be noted that the proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir would cover more than 66,000 acres and become the largest lake in Texas. But because of the nature of the land involved, law requires "mitigation" acreage for that part which possesses special qualities that should be preserved. In this instance, at least 30-35,000 acres would have to be set aside for mitigation. This could be done in the Nichols area, such as increasing that much acreage in the same vicinity (which in essence would make the combined area around 95,000 acres, rather than the mere 66,000) or it might be done in another designated area. From the notes Jane Morris took of the SRBA on June 19, Mike Huddleston referred to having the mitigation acreage in the Sabine River Basin.

[Dr. Jane Morris' notes of this meeting will be uploaded as soon as I can get around to it. R.]

Meeting Highlights (other details to be extracted later): This [first] part of the session, the meeting of the Steering Committee of the SRBA, focused mostly on SRBA's participation in the Texas Clean Rivers Program, administered by Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission (TNRCC, pronounced familiarly by environmentalists as "Train Wreck") in Austin. Patricia Wise, from TNRCC's Austin office, attended the session. A number of members of the Steering Committee were present, including Thomas Duckert from International Paper, an engineer from Murray-Thomas-Griffin (the MTG that was awarded the contract for Marvin Nichols at the June meeting of SRBA), and others. Mike Burke, hired in November 2000 as fulltime administrator for SRBA, presented a slide show (and had difficulty making his suitcase computer work) on what is being done in the program, the rivers involved, etc. It appears the actual work is either contracted out or is conducted by volunteers or by a combination of both. Mike Buttram of Texarkana College, for instance, has done a great deal of the work, often with student volunteers, taking water samples and testing them, etc.

In addition to board members and steering committee, the session was attended by Dr. Jane Morris of New Boston, Max Shumake and Shirley Shumake of De Kalb (brother and sister, both property owners near the Sulphur River), and Chester Williams and James Presley of Texarkana.

During a discussion of the SRBA's budget, Jane Morris asked a series of substantive questions regarding the source of its money and how it was spent. It came forth that SRBA receives $100,000 a year from TNRCC -- public money -- for doing the Clean Rivers Program. Mike Huddleston commented that they were fortunate to have been able to hire Mike Burke as a fulltime administrator. This paved the way for my question to Mike Burke, "How much is your salary?"

He fumbled, grinned, and said, "Do you want to know how much I make?"

"Yes."

He grinned again as if to make a joke. "Do you want to see my paycheck?"

"No, I want to know your salary, since it's a part of this public program and public information."

Finally he told us. "It's $73,000."

Hurriedly, Mike Huddleston burst in, "We couldn't get anyone with his ability for $35,000. He's worth every penny of it. We're lucky to have him aboard. He's been working hard. [Since November when we hired him], He has given seven presentations."

Huddleston walked over to me where I was sitting by the wall, touched me like an old buddy on the shoulder, and said, "Now if you think you can do a better job, just send in your application," grinning as if to defuse the situation. He also hastened to say, "All of this doesn't come from Clean Rivers."

The $73,000 salary for Burke must have been quite a revelation for others in the room, especially for Patricia Wise from TNRCC who, I would bet, makes considerably less than that in her highly responsible job with the state. A number of us were excited to see where our tax dollars were going -- basically to promote the Billion-Dollar Boondoggle that is Marvin Nichols.

[Note Added Here 29 June 2002: At the June 25 meeting, the SRBA voted to give Mr. Burke a raise from $60,000 a year to $63,000. When Dr. Presley confronted him about the difference in these numbers, Mr. Burke denied ever having said this to Dr. Presley. R.]

At one point after the second meeting, Max Shumake of De Kalb raised the point about conservation of water. Was there any effort to stop Dallas from wasting water? Mike Huddleston said, "We don't have the right to tell them how to use their water." (But they have the right to take our land and use our water, ad libitum). During this discussion a man from Mt. Pleasant, in favor of the Nichols project and who works for a bank, said that Dallas has a lot of out-of-town visitors and tourists and the motels use most of that. I pointed out that Houston, San Antonio, and Austin also have massive influxes of out-of-towners, certainly as many visitors and motels as Dallas, yet their per capita water usage is far below Dallas. At which point Huddleston said, "Well, we could talk about this all day. Let's get back on the subject." Whereupon he changed the subject. Well, we were on the subject.

Most of the SRBA board seemed to be clueless as to what is really going on and just happy to be on the board. As a result, during the discussions section at the end of Meeting #2, some of the board members innocently brought up issues about how they were to promote Marvin Nichols, not realizing that Mike H. didn't want any mention of such things in the presence of the five visitors, some of whom were taking notes. One lady wanted to know if they should start their "publicity blitz" now. Mike H. demurred, mumbled something about "later". Apparently Mike Burke is going to go to service clubs and present the deal (and has already made some presentations). Another board member asked how they should handle questions from the news media. Mike H. asked that they not deal with the press but let Mike B. handle it. "Just refer the questions to Mike Burke." It seemed clear that Mike H. and Mike B. didn't want them to be asking these questions. My impression is that these other board members are probably nice, but uninformed, people who are absolutely clueless of the factors that are driving this deal -- the sweetheart agreements done out of public view that undoubtedly are designed to enrich a handful of white males.

At the end Mike H. revealed -- he seemed so proud of his role that he couldn't resist saying it -- that First Southwest will do the bonding for the reservoir, one of the biggest in the country, and Mike Ashford from Maud, Texas, is handling it; and he's a mutual friend of Mike H. and somebody whose name he swallowed. This Dallas firm has connections with Wall Street, and Mike A. works out of the D-FW office. (Note: bonds on a project like this create a highly lucrative incentive to anyone, and jack the total cost up immensely.)

It appears that every fact coming out only confirmed the game plan that was spelled out in Jane Morris' notes of June 19, though Mike H. tried to keep some of the information from coming out.

The next regular monthly meeting of the SRBA is set for Tuesday, August 21, 2001, at noon at the First National Bank in Mt. Vernon, at which time the engineers and consultants from MTG (Murray-Thomas-Griffin of Texarkana) and Freese and Nichols, operating under the umbrella of Sulphur Basin Group, will present a draft or polished contract with SRBA for the Marvin Nichols Project. These are the guys who received the contract for the project back in June, but details haven't been worked out yet.

We found out yesterday that Kirk Patton, the Texarkana lawyer who has represented Western Waste and similar enterprises, is the lawyer for Murray, Thomas & Griffin.

Now, here's the information on Wake Village and a buddy system that led to the situation in SRBA, gathered by a friend who lives in Wake Village:

Mike Huddleston is the Mayor of Wake Village.

Mike Burke is the Mayor Pro-Tem and Alderman of Wake Village.

Mike Huddleston's business is Communication Specialists, headquarterd on the Arkansas side. Mike Burke and SRBA are in the office at the same address.

Can a Texas entity legally operate from an Arkansas address?

The Huddleston-Burke theme permeates everything they touch, although judging from their inability to deal with some of these issues, one would guess that others, sharper than they, are behind the scheme but out of public view.

As for the legality of the 48-hour public notice (run in Texarkana Gazette on Saturday, July 21) for the July 23 meetings, where did they post any other notice, if they did so? In their office on the Arkansas side, or in some small corner elsewhere?

[It should be mentioned here that there was also no notice of the 21 May 2002 public meeting held in Mt. Pleasant published beforehand in the Mount Pleasant Daily Tribune! This is a clear violation of the law. R.]

Certainly it was not done in a prominent place 72 hours before the meetings.

Either way, it was not done in a "reasonable" manner.

There were some other details that came forth, but these, I think are the main ones.

Property owners and concerned citizens are planning a public meeting at Boxelder, Texas, in Red River County in August, with everybody, residents and media alike, invited. The details will be worked out and announced later.

End of Memo

This reservoir would destroy 72,000 acres of good East Texas farmland, bottomland, and valuable hardwood timberland. Why? To build a 100-square-mile reservoir -- bigger than the entire District of Columbia's 69 square miles.

Here are SOME of the things wrong with this scheme to SQUANDER public money, take Texans' land, and pipe OUR WATER to Dallas FOREVER.

1. DALLAS DOES NOT NEED THE WATER. Dallas has 10 lakes now. The biggest Water-Hog in Texas, Dallas uses 276 gallons per person per day. No other city comes close. They should conserve, not rob us of our water.

2. WE DON'T WANT DALLAS RAIDING OUR WATER, ANYWAY. Dallas-FW should find water within its own region. If the Sulphur River Basin Authority sold 80 percent of our water to Dallas-Fort Worth, it would be selling OUR FUTURE. Deals like that turn out to be FOREVER. We could even wind up buying our water back!

3. WHY SPEND $1.7 BILLION IN PUBLIC MONEY TO TAKE PEOPLE'S LAND TO BUILD AN UNNEEDED DAM AND RESERVOIR? With cost overruns, think $2 billion. It's irresponsible, to say the least.

4. IT WOULD DRIVE PEOPLE OFF THEIR HOMESTEADS, DISRUPTING COMMUNITIES AND A WAY OF LIFE. DISPLACED PERSONS -- IN PEACETIME! There is no national emergency -- and no excuse at all for these high-handed tactics.

5. FLOODED LAND PRODUCES NO TAX DOLLARS. Either school children suffer -- or taxes go up. There is no middle ground -- only smoke and mirrors.

6. THE PUBLIC HAS BEEN SCORNED, WHILE THE PROMOTERS OF THE BILLION-DOLLAR BOONDOGGLE AVOID PUBLIC DEBATE AND IGNORE PUBLIC OPPOSITION. This is SNEAK POLITICS at its worst.

True Patriots get riled when they're treated like this. Now you know how our ancestors felt back in 1776.

THIS IS THE WRONG DAM IN THE WRONG PLACE FOR THE WRONG REASONS.

IT'S TIME FOR US TO STAND UP FOR THE SAME RIGHTS THAT OUR FOREFATHERS FOUGHT AND DIED FOR WHEN THIS COUNTRY WAS NEW!

The Marvin Nichols Dam project would permanently flood some 62,000 acres of farmland, ranchland, homesteads, and wildlife habitats in Red River, Morris, Titus, and Franklin Counties -- while disrupting river flows downstream in Bowie and Cass Counties.

* Family farms and ranches will be condemned.

* Lands used for hunting, wildlife habitat and vulnerable timer lands would be flooded -- or otherwise degraded.

*Rural quality of life would be sacrificed.

The Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex has the highest per-person water us of any major urban area in the state!

The state plan says the Dallas area used 260 gallons-per-person-per-day (gpd) in 2000 -- compared to 181 gpd in Longview and 173 gpd in San Antonio.

If D/FW residents cut their water use to 200 gpd (still way above the state average), the Marvin Nichols Dam would be unnecessary.

80 percent of water from the Marvin Nichols project would go to the Dallas area.