"If you're looking for opposition, think about building a lake -- you'll have plenty of people come," said Mike Huddleston, Sulphur River Basin Authority President, to the Mount Pleasant Industrial Foundation at their recent annual meeting.
Making a presentation on the proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir, Huddleston remarked that most of the meetings he attended addressing the controversial reservoir were chiefly attended by folks in opposition to it.
While the reservoir project has been a hot topic of debate for only a year or two, Huddleston pointed out that it has been the key project in the state plan for developing water for over 30 years. He claimed that much of the undeveloped water in the state of Texas lies within the Sulphur River Basin. According to Huddleston, that fact was largely responsible for the state's decision to change the Texas water code in 1977 to say that all water in the state belongs to the state, and not to the individual regions where it is found.
"That is a key issue," he stressed, "because we don't own the water. So we had to figure out how, if it belongs to the state, how can we protect that water, and make sure that our economic interests in Northeast Texas are protected. And the way they did that was through the Sulphur River Basin Authority." Created in 1985, the Authority was charged with controlling, storing, conserving and distributing all water in the Sulphur River Basin while protecting the environment in the region.
According to many dissenters, it is this final responsibility, protecting the environment, that the Marvin Nichols project largely ignores. In a report prepared for the Texas Water Development Board, Texas Parks and Wildlife reported that over 36,000 acres of high quality bottomland hardwood forests would be lost in the proposed reservoir site. According to Janice Bezanson, Executive Director of the Texas Committee on Natural Resources, about 75 percent of Texas' original 16 million acres of those bottomland hardwood forests has already been converted to other uses.
"Bottomland hardwood forests are the most productive inland ecosystem," she said. "They produce the most biological matter per year of any ecosystem other than estuaries." Bezanson also noted that many different types of both upland and bottomland native wildlife and migratory birds depend on those forests for survival.
Other groups have focused on the vast acreage of agricultural land that will be lost or the blows the Texas timber industry will take with so much timber taken out of production.
Huddleston acknowledged all of these viewpoints as valid concerns in his presentation, but said, "The primary priority must be given to the reservoir's total influence on the local population and environment." And according to Huddleston, building the reservoir would be a major boon to the local economy.
"It's going to create a lot of new jobs," he said. "And accompanying the new jobs will be increased income poured into the local economy through selling materials, supplies, and construction." Further, Huddleston noted that following the construction phase, recreation and weekend visitor dollars would begin rolling in, real-estate around the lake would be "as much as 15 times pre-construction prices," and industry wanting to use the water would be attracted to the area. "You've got to have the natural resources first, then industry can come," he said.
According to agreements now in place, the Dallas/Fort Worth area will be responsible for the $1.7 billion required to build the lake, plus maintenance and operation costs. The Sulphur River Basin in turn will be accountable for infrastructure and will receive 20 percent or roughly 122 million gallons per day, of the water diverted.
"The estimated development cost of building the lake, the pump station and the intake pipeline that will be within the Sulphur River Basin is approximately $555 million. The economic impact on that is $2.75 billion going into the local economy within five years," Huddleston said.
Tommy Spruill with the Titus County Fresh Water District pointed out that the water district had always envisioned going north and building a lake someday. "To be able to piggy back on the back of something like this is a godsend to Titus County," he opined. "Why would we want to fight all the battles to go build a lake the size we would need when there's going to be more water than we need in this lake for us than if we went and built one of our own."
Despite the optimistic projections of Huddleston and Spruill, others doubt the economic viability of the project.
Bezanson believes that the overall impact to the economy will be negative. "We're talking about 72,000 acres of very productive timberland and farmland that's going to be taken out of production," she said. "And that's just for the reservoir site." More land still will be taken out for mitigation, but no one yet knows how much. "Farmers are not going to be buying seed and fertilizer, not going to be cutting timber, the lumber yards are not going to have as much timber, they're going to have to go further away for it, pay more for it," she listed off the negative effects. "This is a definite loss to the local community."
Additionally, Bezanson pointed out that the land used both for the reservoir and mitigation will be taken off the tax roll.
An October 2001 report by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) named the proposed reservoir number one on a list of "expensive and inappropriate state water projects". Susan Kaderka, Director of the NWF Gulf States office in Austin, said in the report that the population does face a water challenge over the next 50 years, but suggested "that water planners are relying largely on outdated concrete-and-steel approaches to supplying water that threaten to send our hard-earned money and the natural heritage of Texas down the drain."
Dr. Norman Johns, NWF Water Resources Scientist, further recommended in the report that "if the major cities in the Dallas/Fort Worth area would bring their water usage down to the level of other major Texas cities, the so-called 'need' for the Marvin Nichols dam would evaporate."
Whether the reservoir would be an economic godsend or an environmental disaster, Huddleston maintains that the reservoir is probably going to be built. He said the only thing preventing the Dallas/Fort Worth area with their 37 State Representatives and eight Senators from stepping in, building the reservoir and taking 100 percent of the water are the Sulphur River Basin Authority and allies in Austin. Huddleston cites Senator Ratliff who holds the keys to the budget as Chairman of the Appropriations Committee as the Sulphur River Basin Authority's biggest friend in Austin.
"It doesn't matter what Dallas wants, if they want anything in their budget, they've got to deal with him," Huddleston said. In addition, he named Representative Barry Telford who sits on a committee which protects junior water rights as a power affiliate.
Huddleston believes that if Ratliff and Telford are ousted, the Sulphur River Basin Authority will be dissolved and the reservoir built with the local economy reaping none of the benefits. "It doesn't matter if you're an environmentalist or whatever, you're not going to stop that from happening," he said emphatically. "So we've got to fight for our rights, and we've got to have people in key places to protect our interests."