Sulphur River Reservoirs
Region D Water Development Planning Group Meeting
Mount Pleasant, Texas
Texas Agricultural Extension Office, Titus County
15 May 2002

Dallas, Can You Say "Conservation"?
Kill The Sulphur River Reservoirs Before They Kill Our Way Of Life!
Keep Our Economy Safe. No Sulphur River Reservoirs!
Hey, Dallas! Turn Off Your Damn Sprinklers!

An overflow crowd of about 250 anti-reservoir protesters turned out for the May 15 meeting of the Region D Water Planning Group. The parking lot of the Extension Office quickly filled up, and people were forced to park alongside Industrial Road and even in the Daily Tribune newspaper parking lot across the street (shown above). These protesters represented a large and generally unlikely coalition of interest-groups: the timber industry, the paper industry, the trucking industry, environmentalists, historians, genealogists, farmers, ranchers and sportsmen.

The sign hanging on the front of the truck itself stated, as did the "shirt-tags" worn by all of the protesters, "Don't Let Dallas HOG Our Water!" The other sign is a duplicate of one pictured above.

The meeting room quickly filled up to Standing Room Only capacity. Many of those who attended in protest of the abominable Marvin Nichols Reservoir overflowed into the parking lot during parts of the meeting itself.

Dr. Jane Morris of New Boston, Texas, is pictured above, addressing the board. Ms. Libby Farmer (in black, second from right) delivered a hard-hitting anti-reservoir speech, comparing the ultra-stoic Water Board members to the Stalinist Russian Politburo, who initiated the dreaded series of "pogroms" during which ordinary people were forced to abandon their ancestral lands for the purposes of Soviet industrialization. Her remarks were not appreciated by members of the Water Board, who were nevertheless helpless to stop the thundering applause which interrupted Ms. Farmer's statement and which followed the anti-reservoir remarks of all the speakers. Max Shumake of De Kalb, Texas, called for a show of hands of those who were against the reservoir and those who were in favor. Everyone in attendance raised their hands in protest. Not one person raised his or her hand in support of the reservoir. "I rest my case," Mr. Shumake concluded to the Board.

It was Standing Room Only inside the meeting room. Mr. Mike Huddleston, Chairman of the Sulphur River Basin Authority, told The Texas Observer in an interview last November that "thousands and thousands of people" support this reservoir project, so why should the voices of 35-50 "environmental extremists" be important? Well, Mr. Huddleston, where were these "thousands and thousands" of people on May 15? They don't exist, Mr. Huddleston, and you know it. It should be noted here that those non-voting observer-members of the Region D Group, those from the Dallas Region C Group, did NOT attend this planning group meeting! Dallas simply does NOT deserve this water if their own representatives are so indifferent to our local concerns that they so arrogantly and audaciously thumb their noses at such an important meeting as this one turned out to be.

To read a "Damage Report" that was distributed at this meeting, CLICK HERE

The following account of this meeting was published on 16 May 2002,Mount Pleasant Daily Tribune.

FOES OF PROPOSED RESERVOIR MASS AT PLANNING BOARD MEETING
Member After Taking Seat Says He's Against Project
By Clarissa Cutrell, Tribune Staff Writer

A new voting member was installed on the Northeast Texas Regional Water Planning Group Wednesday, before a standing-room-only crowd.

The crowd did not gather specifically to see Richard LeTourneau of Harrison County take a seat on the planning group. Most of them came simply to show opposition to the proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir. But because the seat that LeTourneau now occupies is one of two environmental representatives on the board which has 23 voting members total, his addition is important to the cause that most of them represent. The other environmental interest member is Larry Calvin of Delta County.

"I'm opposed to the Marvin Nichols Reservoir because there are so many alternatives," LeTourneau said. And that's good news to the 100-plus people who attended Wednesday's meeting bearing the same message. "There are other ways to attain what we're trying to get, and I think it's important to note that the scope of work for region D is to determine the water needs of Northeast Texas and not the water wants," the Longview business owner said. "Everyone wants a huge reservoir in their backyard and it's primarily because of the economic benefits that just the consulting, the engineering and the building of the reservoir and the real estate development would bring.

"But past that, we've got more water in East Texas than we are using. There are water needs, but those water needs can be satisfied with existing water supplies through an increase of infrastructure." He said he believes more is at stake in planning the reservoir than simply projecting water needs, however, "There's just so much to be lost, and this is stuff that's gone forever. We're not really talking about just environmental issues -- we're talking about renewable resources [timber and paper industries] that would be gone."

LeTourneau will replace the seat which Ruth Culver of Karnack vacated this February, but he is not new to the board. Culver was a part of the original Water Planning Group D when it was formed in 1998 by Senate Bill 1. At that time, she chose LeTourneau to be her voting alternate. According to Walt Sears, Jr., the Northeast Texas Municipal Water District General Manager, LeTourneau has been fully involved with the board for two years, attending meetings when Culver could not.

"He's already involved in the regional planning process, actively advocating for the environmental interests perspective, he has regularly participated in the meetings, and is a fairly recognized advocate for the environmental community," Sears commented.

Wednesday's meeting also heard Infrastructure Financing Reports and reports on the Scope of Work and Budget from the consultants of Hayter Engineering, Inc. The group set June 19 as the date when the Water Development Board will make an offer as to what activities of the planning group they will finance. According to Sears, the Water Planning Group runs in five-year cycles and is funded predominantly by the Texas Water Development Board. The next five-year cycle will begin no earlier than September. The reports prepared by the consultants are used in determining what activities the planning group needs to have funded.

"The activity that we're talking about is to access what resources we have, what our needs are, and a comparison of our needs to our existing supply -- and if there are any shortages, what management strategies are going to be used to meet those shortages."

He noted that very few of those planning dollars will be spent on the Marvin Nichols Reservoir specifically, which is only one of several possible management strategies. "Before you get to the management strategy, you've got to identify your needs and your available supply, and do the comparison. Then there may be as many as fifteen different strategies to meet that deficiency, one of which may be to build that reservoir."

The actual contracts will not be voted on by all 23 voting members of Water Planning Group D until August [21, Wednesday, at the Gilmer Civic Center].

This article appeared on 19 May 2002, Mount Pleasant Daily Tribune.

MARVIN NICHOLS RESERVOIR:
Unusual Alliances Form In Opposition To Project
By Clarissa Cutrell, Tribune Staff Writer

It's not often that the timber industry and environmental groups join hands to fight the same battle. But when it comes to the construction of the proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir, the two are one in aim -- to stop the thing from being built.

At a recent jam-packed meeting of the Northeast Texas Regional Water Planning Group, opponents to the 1.7 billion-dollar project filled the Mount Pleasant Agricultural Extension Center, wearing stickers that said "Don't let Dallas 'hog' our water". A black funeral wreath bearing the name "Marvin Nichols" greeted them as they filed into the hall. Together, representatives from the Sierra Club, Ward Timber Company and other vested organizations joined with the voices of farmers, ranchers and concerned citizens to ask that alternatives be considered.

[My apologies for the quality of this image, but I scanned it from the Daily Tribune. This photo was taken by staff-writer Clarissa Cutrell. The caption accompanying the picture reads as follows: "Brooke Ward passes out anti-reservoir stickers, while a black funeral wreath bearing the name 'Marvin Nichols' stands nearby." R.]

Oran Caudle, a private consultant out of Texarkana, drew from a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' recent "Texas Water Allocation Assessment Report". "The Corps report shows that there exists much more additional water for Dallas-Fort Worth from existing lakes than could ever be made available from Marvin Nichols," Caudle charged, and read from pages 4-6 of the document, which stated that Lake Texoma could provide about 650,000 acre-feet per year of additional water supply through reallocation of storage.

According to a report prepared by the Texas Committee on Natural Resources (TCONR), Lake Texoma is the most viable alternative and a more economical option than the proposed reservoir. "The practical way to use Texoma water would be to divert it when the lake is fullest (hence when Texoma's slightly-salty water is freshest) and pipe it to Lake Ray Roberts and/or other area lakes to keep them full," the report stated. It goes on to add that water from Texoma would "cost from one-tenth to one-fifteenth as much to develop as water from Marvin Nichols."

Caudle also brought up desalination of the saline groundwater in the area as an option to be considered, and cited the new Tampa Bay desalination plant as a model to look toward. According to information from http://www.tampabaywater.org/, the facility is projected to provide drinking water at an overall wholesale cost of $2.08 per thousand gallons for the next thirty years. That cost, however, will be underwritten in part by the Southwest Florida Water Management District, bringing the price down to an average of $1.58 per thousand gallons.

Bill Ward of Ward Timber Company voiced his belief that desalination is the answer. "It is the only guarantee that in times of drought, you will have water," he opined. "If we suck the gulf dry, we're sure in trouble."

Walt Sears, Jr., General Manager of the Northeast Texas Municipal Water District, assured that all alternatives would be considered. "I would like to make the observation that in the first round of planning, the board looked at all of the possible alternatives, including every alternative that was mentioned at yesterday's meeting, plus more," he commented on the proceedings of the meeting. "I think it's fair to say that the board is committed to looking at all possible alternatives."

While alternatives to the controversial reservoir were high on the list of topics at the meeting, many people also expressed concern and anger over Dallas' unusually high rate of per capita water consumption, which exceeds those of every other city in the state.

Bill Ward said he was disappointed in what he perceived to be a lack of interest in conservation efforts from Dallas. "They have failed to show that they are even interested in exploring what they can do at conservation. They want us to provide an easy answer to them at our expense."

George Frost, a former football coach from Bowie County, stated his view that "if Region C would simplyhole to the state average for conservation, their needs will be eliminated, and simply become a want."

Rita Beving, Conservation Co-Chair of the Dallas Group Sierra Club, expressed a similar opinion. "The bottom line is we're wasting water, especially when you look at the data and you look at Beaumont and Houston, which is far more industrial than Dallas will ever be in the north corridor, and they're using less water than we are," she contended. "If the north Dallas area would use 20 to 22 percent less water, we would still be using more water than a lot of cities in all of Texas."

Accoring to the January 2001 Region C Water Plan developed for the Texas Water Development Board [in Austin], the increased per capita water consumption has increased because the number of people per household have decreased while the development of large houses "with large lots, sprinkler systems, swimming pools, and other water-using amenities" have increased. In addition, the report says that many Region C communities are experiencing rapid commercial development.

Other concerns were raised to the planning group as well. "I'm concerned about our eroding tax base," said Linda Henderson, an educator out of Cass County. "If you submerge all of the land or give all of our land to mitigation, then our tax base will be narrower."

Bill Taylor, an employee of International Paper, Texarkana Mill, presented a letter to the Planning Group from Richard Ellis, the president of PACE Local 1148, a concerned labor union with around 600 members, objecting to the reservoir. The letter expressed the belief that should the Marvin Nichols Reservoir be built, it would cause International Paper holding ponds to fill beyond an environmentally safe capacity, increase the cost of timber and eliminate jobs associated with the industry, and threaten the flow from Wright Patman [Reservoir] into the International Paper treatment facility,"thereby threatening the drinking water for the local communities".

Following the public comment period, Tony Williams of Harrison County assured the crowds assembled that "the members of this board are all sitting here with open minds, and we still have a long way to go -- it's not a done deal."

Until the reservoir is taken off the list of possible water management strategies, however, environmentalists, representatives of the timber industry and private citizens intend to continue joining forces in their struggle to defeat it.

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