Dear Sulphur River Basin Authority:
As a lifelong resident of Mount Pleasant in Titus County (my family arrived here 170 years ago), as well as an author and historian (Some Die Twice and From Indian Springs To The River Jordan), pursuant to your "stated policy" of having requests for information be submitted in writing, I hereby request the following clarifications. This letter is being submitted as an "open letter" and should be considered as part of the state public record. Copies are being distributed to the public on the occasion of your "open meeting" at the Civic Center in Mount Pleasant on June 25. One presumes that all of the proceedings of your meetings are governed by the "Texas Open Meetings Act". Although I am no attorney-at-law like others in my family, I feel certain that you do not have the license under Texas law capriciously to "restrict public discussion" of subject-matter that falls within the statutory scope of your authority over the Sulphur River Basin.
At your next scheduled meeting of the Sulphur River Basin Authority, or at least as soon as possible, please provide in writing, as part of the public record, pursuant to your own SRBA policy, answers to the following questions; and let me add parenthetically here that I have already asked numerous people for this same information, and it seems not to have been distributed to anybody before, as everybody shrugs and sighs, "They won't tell us that."
My late father, George Traylor Russell of Mount Pleasant, former District Attorney and State Legislator, with whom I co-authored the aforementioned histories, was the attorney for the local Water Board during the 1970s when Lakes Monticello, Bob Sandlin, Cypress Springs and Welsh were constructed. My father was the primary instrumental force in getting Lake Bob Sandlin named after his close friend. And I should add here, for the record, that Senator Bill Ratliff, who married Bob Sandlin's daughter Sally, was the chief water-engineer for some, if not all, of these lake projects. I myself have never met "Governor" Ratliff, nor even seen him in person.
Bob Sandlin and others of that time have since died; however, one of those former board members, Mr. Billy Daniel, is still alive. I have known this Daniel family all my life, and just out of curiosity on 3 June 2002, I telephoned Mr. Daniel. I was eager to know if any discussion of Marvin Nichols had taken place during the construction of these other lakes. Mr. Daniel told me that every time they would travel to Austin for a State Water Board meeting, the first questions asked by the Austin Board were not about their own pending lake projects but about "that north reservoir". This was not too long after the death of Marvin C. Nichols on 10 April 1969, so I am sure that this "north reservoir" (to be named after Mr. Nichols) was "fresh" on the minds of people in Austin. Mr. Daniel said that he always felt that this "north reservoir" was a "done deal" for some as then unspecified future date. "They always wanted to know what we were doing about that north reservoir," Mr. Daniel said, "but we weren't doing anything about that one. We were lucky to get our own projects approved."
Thus, I would presume that answers to some of my questions below have been determined years ago and are readily and easily available at least to the SRBA and Regions C and D. If people in Austin have been so "concerned" about this "north reservoir" for over 30 years, then I feel certain that they have been asked, and have already answered, some of these questions time and again in the past. But if the record turns out to be otherwise and such basic information is not available, then I would be quite surprised and perplexed.
Moreover, I feel certain that I speak for numerous other opponents of these reservoirs when I state that I would like to have everything requested here presented to me in writing, so that I can relax and carefully consider at my leisure all of the parameters of this abominable government-sponsored project.
1. Please provide all complete Constitutional, Statutory, Charter and By-Law Provisions that govern your Sulphur River Basin Authority. Who or what is the "oversight agency" that regulates your general "public conduct"?
2. At your 21 May 2002 meeting at the Mount Pleasant Civic Center, you distributed some material that included your office address and telephone number. It read as follows:
Sulphur River Basin Authority
P.O. Box 916
Texarkana, Texas 75501-0916
Tel. 870-774-2144
What is the street address of your office in Texas? I am a bit confused because your telephone number indicates an Arkansas address. Is the SRBA operating out of an office on the Arkansas side of the border, with only a "token" post-office address on the Texas side? Is it "legal" for a "Texas governmental entity" operating on the Arkansas side of the border to be accepting state funds from the Texas Government? If you have the authority under the law to operate in such a fashion as this, please provide all statutory and other legal references. SRBA President Mike Huddleston is the Mayor of Wake Village, Texas, west of Texarkana. Why is not this Mayor's office listed as the address and telephone number of the SRBA?
3. According to WHOIS at VeriSign.Com, your <http://www.sulphurr.org/> website was registered on 5 November 2001 and is being hosted by Eaze.Net. At the website of your host-server, I looked for an office address but could not find one. However, they listed their FAX number with an 817 area code. Thus, I presume that your server is located in the Fort Worth area. Please provide additional information about this Internet Service Provider. Do you pay for your website from your state funds? How much does it cost per year? As a state agency subject to open records and meetings acts, why is not the standard information about your Administrative Contact and Technical Contact available via VeriSign.Com's WHOIS? Please provide the names and addresses of your Administrative and Technical Contacts. And incidentally, your website-designer misspelled the town of Hughes Springs (as "Hughs Springs").
4. When were all of the current members of the SRBA appointed, who recommended their appointments, and who exactly (which Governor?) appointed these members to this Authority?
5. Appended to this Open Letter in Attachment 1 is a list of 32 large lakes and reservoirs within about 100 miles of the DFW Metroplex (radius out from Six Flags), in an 18-county area. How many of these lakes and reservoirs actually supply commercial and/or residential water to the DFW Metroplex? Of those that do not supply water, why not? Please provide engineering and/or environmental studies for each and every lake or reservoir listed in Attachment 1, explaining why said lake or reservoir can or cannot be used commercially and/or residentially for water in the DFW Metroplex. The Region C Water Board should certainly have this information.
6. According to the minutes of the City Council Meeting of Irving, Texas, on 24 January 2002, included was "[Agenda Item] 27 Resolution No. 1-24-02-046 - Approving An Advanced Funding Agreement Between The City Of Irving And The Sulphur River Basin Authority In The Amount Of $23,000.00 For The Development Of Marvin Nichols Reservoir."
http://www.ci.irving.tx.us/CityCouncil/2002/012402MN.htm
Please provide a detailed budgetary report of exactly how this money has been spent, if at all, as well as the reason that you received it from the City of Irving in the first place. Is it "legal" for the SRBA to accept money from "vested interests" such as the City of Irving? Please cite the applicable statute(s) and/or regulation(s).
7. Exactly how large, in terms of feet, would be the length, width and height of the proposed Marvin Nichols I Dam? What would be the exact surveyor's coordinates of latitude and longitude for the NE (in Bowie County) and SW (in Morris County) extremities of the Dam? How far would the dam's NE end be located from the SW fence-corner of the nearby historic Roberts Cemetery? If the lake were full and near dam-level, what would be the depth of the water one mile upriver from the dam? Since Cuthand Creek would be one of the primary tributaries to be flooded in the process of flooding the river itself, what would be the average depth of the water at the present flood-gauge east of Cuthand Creek on Farm Road 1487?
8. Please provide exact details about the length, width and height of the proposed "levee" that would have to constructed together with the dam, near modern-day Long Lake Sloughs, in order to prevent the flooding of Texas State Highway 71 east of Sugar Hill and the historic slave-community cemetery at Evergreen. See:
http://www.sulphurriver.net/evergreen.html
9. Where does the SRBA propose to remove the remains and tombstones of all our local, dearly departed ancestors who are currently buried in historical Evergreen, North Evergreen, Roberts, Cedar Creek, New Hope, Lydia, Fogleman, Rehobeth, Gilliam, Cuthand, Bunion, Belcher, Fishback-Hargrove, Wims, Pierces Chapel, Fairview, Sulphur Bluff and Kensing Cemeteries, all of which would be or could be threatened with extinction/flooding by the Marvin Nichols Reservoirs?
There is a "rumor" circulating amongst various people who are opposed to these Marvin Nichols and George Parkhouse Reservoirs that "they" don't care enough actually to remove the physical remains of the dead from these cemeteries to new locations. According to rumor, "they" simply would move each tombstone and collect from the old gravesite only a symbolic "cup of dirt" which "they" would subsequently sprinkle over the new soil at some relocated pseudo-cemetery, without digging up the graves and transferring the skeletal remains. However, according to Vernon's Texas Statutes And Codes Annotated, Water Code, ß49.224. Power to Condemn Cemeteries, Section (d):
"Current through End of 2001 Regular Session
"ß49.224. Power to Condemn Cemeteries
"(d) The measure of damages in these eminent domain proceedings shall be assessed as in other condemnation cases. An additional amount of damages shall be assessed to cover the cost of removing and reinterring the bodies interred in the cemetery or burial place and the cost of removing and resetting the monuments or markers erected at the graves."
This pertinent statute is appended in full as Attachment 2.
Please provide an accurate list of all cemeteries to be relocated and a detailed report on exactly how, under the law, you would plan to move the ancestral remains and tombstones at each of these historic cemeteries, as well as a list of the proposed new locations of all these cemeteries. Exactly how much money would be spent in the relocation of these historic cemeteries?
10. What is the proposed diameter in feet of the pipeline itself? I have heard "rumors" that it would be 10 feet in diameter; but when searching Google on the WWW for additional information, I found that 7-8 feet is the "normal" size of major large water pipelines, state of the art technology, such as the one now being constructed near Tampa Bay, Florida. I found no reference to "10-foot-wide" pipelines.
11. From exactly which location to which location would this pipeline run from Sulphur River near US Highway 259 to DFW? How many miles would it stretch? What sort of "environmental disruption" would accompany the construction of this obviously huge pipeline? Would this pipeline be above ground or below ground? If below ground, how deep would it lie beneath the average level of the surrounding soil? Would farming land be condemned to provide an easement or right-of-way for this enormous pipeline? There is "rumor" afloat that "they" are thinking in terms of TWO pipelines, not just one. Please provide topographical maps, with accompanying explanatory details, of the proposed route(s) of the pipeline(s).
12. Please provide a detailed budgetary analysis of this reservoir and pipeline, especially in comparison to any "added pipeline cost" to DFW of obtaining their future water needs from other locations, such as Lake Texoma or Toledo Bend Reservoir. It would seem that Toledo Bend, from which already there is a pipeline to the DFW Metroplex, would be a much more frugal and practical alternative than building a new lake and pipeline in NE Texas, at its tremendous cost of billions of dollars. If necessary, please consult the Region C Board for clarification, since I would presume that they have such data at their computer-keyboard fingertips.
13. Based upon average estimates from past lake-construction projects around the State of Texas, and I am sure that there are many public files on record, what would be the estimated volume in Cubic-Feet and Acre-Feet of water in the proposed Marvin Nichols I Reservoir? What would be the estimated elevation of the water-level under "normal" lake conditions, and what would be the estimated elevation-level during "flood" conditions? How near to the lake would people be able safely to construct lakeside recreational residences, or tourist businesses such as gas stations and restaurants?
There is still residential property available for purchase around Lakes Bob Sandlin and Cypress Springs; and according to a boyhood friend of mine in Mount Pleasant, a fisherman who has visited Cooper Lake, there are hardly any businesses and residences there. What makes the Marvin Nichols lake-promoters feel that people would flock to build around a new lake when they obviously no longer want to build around existing lakes? The market has been saturated, that's why! This indicates to me that there would be simply no future demand for these lakeside residences and businesses. This is a "pie-in-the-sky" "get-rich-quick" "pipe-dream" concocted by politicians, bankers and engineers, who stand to gain financially merely from squandered government money appropriated to construct these abominable reservoir projects! Perhaps Dallas doesn't even need this water. Perhaps these "vested interests" are intent on eventually selling this water to states like New Mexico and Arizona. Rumors abound. I would think that it would be in your best interest as a governmental agency to squash some of these rumors, if they are false.
No one's credibility is enhanced by the malicious or even inadvertent spreading of blatant lies.
14. If you visit my Cedar Creek Slough, Boxelder and Maple's Magic Valley Galleries at SulphurRiver.Net, you will find images that demonstrate exactly how shallow some of the peripheral extremities of this lake would be.
http://www.sulphurriver.net/gallery08.html
http://www.sulphurriver.net/gallery24.html
http://www.sulphurriver.net/gallery25.html
What is proposed to be done about all of the millions of tall trees that would be sticking out of the water-level of this monstrous lake? Would the developers themselves condemn the land, and then cut down all the trees, to make a financial killing from all the timber resources; or would they be able to compensate fairly the former landowners for the "exact amount" of the value of the hardwood timber to be lost? Or would the State Government just let these trees slowly rot and fall into the lake, as did so many water-logged trees upon completion of the construction of Lake Ray Hubbard near Dallas? Would the roof of the 100-year-old Cedar Creek Church actually be sticking out of the top of the lake, or would the developers demolish this church beforehand? What about other buildings in the path of the lake? Would they be left to rot or be torn down in advance? What is the estimate of the number of buildings/homes, the roofs of which would be sticking out of the water if these structures were not demolished prior to the lake-construction? This reservoir seems more like a shallow "swamp-construction" project than a deep "lake-construction" project! Only the immigrant alligators would enjoy new shoreline estates!
15. In the Talco area there are numerous oil wells, many of which are still pumping today. Some families rely on revenues from these oil wells to provide income that allows them to remain on their otherwise unprofitable but nevertheless ancestral farms. Would such displaced families be compensated for their "total" loss of this oil revenue? How would it be determined exactly how much oil would actually be lost beneath the waters of Marvin Nichols I and II Reservoirs? Would "offshore oil wells" be allowed in the midst of the reservoirs in and around Talco? To my knowledge (and you can correct me if I am wrong), considering the value of petroleum as a natural resource, no other Texas reservoir has ever been proposed, let alone approved, in areas that provide petroleum. This itself would seem to be reason enough to abandon these projects. President George W. Bush is on the public record as encouraging controversial, new domestic oil production, such as in the Alaska Wildlife Refuge, to curtail America's addictive dependence upon foreign oil. To flood an oil-rich resource environment like parts of the Talco area would be clearly contrary to current American national energy policy.
16. As you may recall, at the May 21 meeting of the SRBA, I asked about the massive logjam on Sulphur River, east of the bridge on Texas State Highway 37 north of Hagansport. I was told that at one time $100,000 was appropriated for a "study" concerning how to remove all these logs, but that nothing ever came of it; and the existence of this logjam has been a continuing problem for years. Apparently it is "against the law" merely to spend $500 on some dynamite and blow up the logjam. Let me assure you that if the SRBA were to award me a contract for $100,000, I could have that awful logjam cleaned up in less than a month. And for the record, I have also been informed that there is a second, but more minor, logjam in the river north of Sugar Hill; but I have not actually seen this other logjam. Not only are these logjams impediments to river traffic and would never be tolerated in a river-rich country like France, for example, but they are also extreme eyesores.
17. How many of you on this SRBA have actually visited the Sulphur River Bottomland and seen it with your own eyes, before today? I have travelled to 50 foreign countries around the world and 35 American states (including Alaska and Hawaii), and I can state without hesitation that the Sulphur River Bottomland is some of the most serenely bucolic scenery on the Planet Earth. Why in the world would anyone seek to destroy such a beautiful natural environment? Enough of this valuable, majestic bottomland has already been obliterated by Wright Patman Lake and Cooper Lake. We certainly should preserve what remains as historical and environmental legacies for future generations of Northeast Texans.
Again I refer you to my website, where there is a collection of over 150 photographs which I have recently taken of this area.
http://www.sulphurriver.net/gallerycontents.html
18. What is the "reservoir role" of Mount Pleasant Senator Bill Ratliff, either officially or privately as a water-engineer, who seems still to be affiliated by name with the engineering company of Bucher, Willis & Ratliff, despite his denials in a Letter-To-The-Editor published Wednesday, 6 March 2002, by the Mount Pleasant Daily Tribune? Both Mr. Ratliff's senatorial office and his engineering consulting firm are located at 110 South Madison Avenue in Mount Pleasant, although there are different telephone numbers for each. Does Senator Ratliff stand to profit financially, as an engineer, from this reservoir construction? If neither Senator Ratliff nor his son is any longer affiliated with Bucher, Willis & Ratliff, why does this firm continue to benefit financially from their use of the Ratliff political name?
What are the positions of State Representative Tom Ramsay, State Representative Mark Homer, State Representative Barry Telford, Congressman Max Sandlin, U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, U.S. Senator Phil Gramm, Texas Governor Rick Perry, President George W. Bush (former Dallasite), Vice-President Dick Cheney (former Dallasite), U.S. Senatorial Candidate Ron Kirk (former Mayor of Dallas and current Dallasite), U.S. Senatorial Candidate John Cornyn, and Texas Gubernatorial Candidate Tony Sanchez regarding Marvin Nichols and George Parkhouse Reservoirs?
The following is a quote from an article that appeared in the Mount Pleasant Daily Tribune on 12 April 2002:
"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,' he said. In addition, he named Representative Barry Telford who sits on a committee which protects junior water rights as a powerful 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.'"
Please explain how Dallas could come in here and build this lake without the permission of any local governmental entities or authorities! A group of Legislators from East Texas couldn't just "band together" and travel to Dallas to announce that they had "seized" the Trinity River by "regional edict" or other means. I seem to recall that this is America, not Soviet Russia where the secretive Stalinist Politburo once arbitrarily uprooted thousands of ordinary people from their ancestral homelands for the purposes of Communist industrialization. Those Soviet "pogroms" and their comparison to the official displacement of Northeast Texans by these reservoirs were poignantly recalled by New Boston educator Dr. Jane Morris at the May 15 meeting of the Region D Water Board; and since I personally majored in the Russian language and East European studies at the University of Texas at Austin, I studied Soviet history and understood at once Dr. Morris' ironic analogy.
[Poscript Note : After writing this letter, it was called to my attention that Libby Farmer of Wake Village, not Dr. Jane Morris, was the person who mentioned these "pogroms". I regret this error and apologive to Dr. Morris for it. R.]
19. At the 19 June 2001 SRBA meeting in Mount Vernon, Texas, when the Sulphur Basin Group (composed of Freese & Nichols and MTG Engineering) was tentatively awarded the construction bid for the Marvin Nichols Reservoirs, which meeting was attended and documented in notes by educator Dr. Jane Morris of New Boston,
http://www.sulphurriver.net/morris.html
in response to a question by SRBA member Mr. Dick Goodman, SRBA member Ms. Judy Lee stated that Senator Ratliff was indeed affiliated with Bucher, Willis & Ratliff. Was that an honest mistake by Ms. Lee, or is it the truth? And if it is indeed the truth, then why did Senator Ratliff state otherwise in his letter to the newspaper? Suspicions abound in the countryside, and you need to clear this rumor up at once before it becomes more vicious. Lies serve no one's cause.
20. What is the exact legal connection between the SRBA and the Texarkana Engineering Firm of Murray, Thomas and Griffin? Apparently they belong to the Sulphur Basin Group along with DFW's Freese & Nichols, who brag at their website that they have already been awarded a construction contract to build Marvin Nichols, in cooperation with MTG Engineering. Please describe all of these relationships in greater detail, and please see:
http://www.freese.com/
http://www.mhatech.com/
Since MTG gives their address as being on Sowell Lane with a 903 area code, at least one can conclude that they are located on the Texas side of the border and are not breaking any "border laws". Yes, I know, it's just "Texarkana - It's twice as nice!"; but that does not give anybody a "legal technicality" to "break the law". I refer you back to Item #2 above.
21. Will the new political redistricting of the state have any effect upon the general regional makeup of the Sulphur River Basin Authority or the Regions C and D Water Boards? If so, please elaborate.
22. Why did you not provide the required legal notice of your 21 May 2002 public meeting in Mount Pleasant in the Mount Pleasant Daily Tribune? If I personally had not known from the April meeting when the subsequent date was going to be, I would have had no "public notice" at all of the May 21 meeting details. The SRBA is treading on dangerous legal ground by withholding this public-meeting information from local newspapers. It is my understanding that you are required by law to provide "reasonable notice" of these meetings 72 hours in advance. If I am misinformed here, please enlighten me with further legal particulars. At the time of the printing of this "open letter", I do not know if proper legal, public notice will be given for the June 25 meeting.
23. As you probably have read in the newspapers or heard on television, starting on 1 June 2002, several new lawn-watering restrictions were imposed upon the residents of Dallas. I cite, for example, the lengthy article that appeared on the main page of the "House & Garden" section of The Dallas Morning News on 31 May 2002.
http://www.sulphurriver.net/waterrestrictions.html
Not enough time has passed as yet to determine exactly how much water the City of Dallas will conserve due to these new water restrictions, and these restrictions apply only to Dallas, not to any surrounding North Dallas millionaire suburbs like Plano and Richardson; but it would seem to me that proposals to flood our historic land for additional water for DFW should be put on indefinite hold until this 2002 conservation data can be analyzed and made available to the public. If DFW could cut their water-usage back to the state average, there would be no necessity for either the Marvin Nichols or George Parkhouse Reservoirs; and the Region D Water Board has gone on record as stating that this water is not needed within Region D.
Appended in Attachment 3 is a list of all the 204 larger lakes (half-mile-long, or longer) in an eleven-county area of Northeast Texas: Bowie, Cass, Marion, Harrison, Gregg, Upshur, Camp, Morris, Titus, Franklin and Red River Counties. I found these lakes on maps in The Roads of Texas, an atlas compiled by Texas A&M University at Bryan. In addition to these larger lakes, there are countless smaller lakes and ponds. Doesn't it seem to the local SRBA a bit "misleading" to suggest repeatedly to the press and civic groups like the Mount Pleasant Industrial Foundation that we here in Northeast Texas actually need more lake-water? We have plenty of regional lakes and recreational possibilities. If there are "rich people" in DFW who want to build lavish lake-houses to impress their friends, there are still numerous lakesites available alongside Lakes Cooper, Bob Sandlin and Cypress Springs, closer to DFW than Marvin Nichols would be. And I refer you back to Item #13 above.
24. Appended as Attachment 4 is a transcription of an article that appeared in The Dallas Morning News on 7 June 2002, in which it was stated that Texans are 2-1 more in favor of water-conservation than the building of additional dams and reservoirs, particularly Marvin Nichols. Doesn't this tell you point-blank just how widespread is the local opposition to Marvin Nichols?
25. And finally, here are four questions for SRBA President Mike Huddleston:
(a) You were quoted on 23 November 2001 by The Texas Observer that there are "thousands and thousands" of people who support these reservoirs, and that all the opposition "can muster is 3550 ['radical environmentalists'] against it".
http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=488
And you were quoted in the Mount Pleasant Daily Tribune on 20 January 2002 as saying, "A hundred or so people do not represent all of that region. Many people I have spoken with are thrilled with the project." As I recall, you personally declined to attend the Region D meeting in Mount Pleasant on May 15, sending instead your "administrator" Mr. Michael Burke, who is paid an annual salary of $73,000 of public money to act as your spokesman/ombudsman; so you did not personally see all of the hundreds of protesters who attended this meeting in opposition to these reservoirs. It was Standing-Room-Only. Where were your "thousands and thousands" of supporters on May 15? Mr. Max Shumake of De Kalb, one of the ranchers whose land would be lost, asked for a show of hands of those who were opposed to the lake, as well as those in favor of the lake. Everyone in attendance raised his or her hand in opposition, and not a single hand was raised in support. "I rest my case," Mr. Shumake concluded.
(b) Also, in that same November interview, you stated, "for crying out loud", why shouldn't the people of DFW be allowed to water their lawns and fill their swimming pools? Do you feel that DFW landscaping and recreational pool-activities are more important than the preservation of a unique local historical, ecological and environmental river-system, which is now, supposedly, legally, overseen and governed by your own Sulphur River Basin Authority? Please explain, in great detail, your motives for the destruction of this significant river bottomland. Be reminded that unlike other, more ordinary "environmental controversies" of a similar nature, opposing the Marvin Nichols and George Parkhouse Reservoirs is an unusual coalition not generally united together: timber industry, paper industry, trucking industry, historians, genealogists, environmentalists, ecologists, ranchers, farmers and sportsmen. Other than politicians, bankers and engineers, please provide evidence that other "socio-political groups" or "service clubs" also support this environmental and historical destruction.
(c) Thus, whose side do you truly support in this matter - the local people, or the big-city vested financial interests?
(d) Here is a bit more, for the record, from the interview that you gave to The Texas Observer reporter Nate Blakeslee on 23 November 2001:
"Ultimately, the fate of Marvin Nichols will depend in no small measure on an obscure state agency called the Sulphur River Basin Authority. After quietly listening to two hours of public testimony against the reservoir at the Mt. Pleasant meeting, SRBA board chair Mike Huddleston agreed to meet with me in his office in Texarkana the next day. Prior to the controversy over Marvin Nichols, few people in the area had even heard of the agency, which is run by an unpaid board of directors, has no offices, is not listed in the phone book, and until recently, had no staff. Middle-aged, with a round, red face and the humorless intensity of a small businessman, Huddleston runs the SRBA from the offices of Communications Specialists, where he specializes in the sale of Motorola two-way radios. On the wall of his quiet, spacious office in the back of the store is a print of an English fox hunt. On his desk is an Arkansas Razorbacks mug and a sign that reads: 'My mind's made up. Don't confuse me with the facts!' Huddleston is also the mayor of Wake Village, a small community south of Texarkana, and last November he hired fellow city councilman Mike Burke, a long-time friend and business associate, to administer the authority. If the reservoir is built, it will be largely by the efforts of these two men.
"Huddleston, who chaired the regional water planning group, bristled at the suggestion that the work had been done in secret, or that a secret deal had been made with Dallas. Yet Huddleston makes no secret about his conviction that the future for both regions lies in this reservoir. For northeast Texas, it means economic development, he said. 'What happens in small rural areas if our children have aspirations to get a good job? Where do they go? My son lives in Houston, where the jobs are,' Huddleston said. There's no guarantee jobs will follow the lake, he said, but 'I don't know of any industry that will come if we don't build it.' And the region has a responsibility to the rest of the state, he said. 'We do not have the right to cripple the state's economy or to deny the cities of Texas the right to have the water they need to drink.'"
Which "industry" were you referring to, Mr. Huddleston?
Also appended in Attachment 5 is a copy of a letter that I wrote to Mr. Dan Jones, biologist with Tyler's Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, on 26 February 2001. For further commentary, you are referred to my website:
http://www.sulphurriver.net/links.html
During 1964-66 I served my country as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Massaua, Eritrea, Ethiopia, where I taught English, science and mathematics and organized their first school library. (It is the only library on the continent of Africa containing The History of Titus County, Texas by G. Traylor Russell.) Then during 1968-70 I served as a Refugee Officer for the U.S. State Department's CORDS (Civil Operations & Revolutionary Development Support), a paramilitary intelligence organization in South Vietnam, where I was stationed in the town of Xuan Loc with the military-equivalent rank of captain. In both nations, but particularly amidst the destitute Vietnam refugees camps, daily I was confronted with some of the most abject poverty and pitiful desperation on the face of the Earth. Even in "the best of times" many of those people did not have running water in their homes. In the refugee camps of Vietnam, if we had not had military trucks to haul in drinking water, some of those refugees undoubtedly would have died of thirst. And they certainly had no purified water for the "luxury" of a daily bath, being forced to bathe and brush their teeth in a muddy creek or slough. In Ethiopia I saw old women who were permanently stooped from carrying pails of water on their backs for several miles, day after endless day of the year, year after year. Water is heavy. One gallon of water weighs about 8.5 pounds. Two large buckets could easily weigh one hundred pounds. I daresay that the citizens of DFW would not squander nearly so much water if they had to haul their personal 200 gallons (their 1,700 pounds of water!) by hand two miles each day! I am not trying to belittle the achievement of modern American technology in providing us with such an abundance of pure water. We all take it too much for granted, and we all waste it to some extent. But we should also be acutely aware that in other places of the world, people may not be so blessed and fortunate; and perhaps Americans, especially those in the DFW Metroplex, should include an expression of gratitude and appreciation in our daily prayers for the water that we already have!
In conclusion, we, the local people, from all walks of life (who under ordinary circumstances might never agree with one another), do not need nor want these proposed reservoirs and the riffraff who would inevitably accompany them, as they accompanied the completion of Cooper Lake - "one bait-shop and a lot of cocaine dealers" is the way a Cooper man was quoted in an interview cited by Atlanta Journal Editor Charley Harrist in The Texarkana Gazette on 10 March 2002, in discussing the effects of Cooper Lake on the Sulphur Springs/Commerce area.
We who live in Northeast Texas are contented with our simple, rural lives and feel that there are already far too many "outsiders" moving into the Ark-La-Tex, clogging our roadways with vehicle pollution, changing our traditional, historical culture for the sake of profit by avaricious entrepreneurs and ruthless politicians from larger metroplexes, who couldn't care less about an historical, fragile wetlands ecosystem like the Sulphur River Bottomland. The ultimate solution, as has been noted time and time again, in meeting after meeting, is that DFW should try to "conserve" their existing water supply, to comply with the statewide average consumption-level, rather than, as it were, continue to cultivate delicate, ultrathirsty, tropical rainforest vegetation in a semi-arid, temperate prairieland. And after all, never forget, there is the Trinity River running right through the middle of Downtown Dallas. If Dallasites get "desperate" from "thirst", they can always dam their own damn river and scuttle their elaborate "world-class-city" plans for a billion-dollar recreational parkway, which they do not need in the first place. Alternately, of course, if they were to get truly thirsty, they could always drink the water from their myriad swimming pools. They don't need our help, and we aren't beholden to them in any way, shape or form whatsoever, to start with!
The people of the DFW Metroplex pride themselves on being "conservatives". As such, they should learn how to "conserve" before they attempt to "destroy" someone else's heritage. Neither they nor anyone else can hypocritically have it both ways.
Thank you in advance for taking the time, under the law and your own publicly stated Authority guidelines, to consider all of my questions. I shall look forwards to your Authority's future meetings and reading all of your clarifications about my concerns.
Copies of these documents may also be distributed, as a matter of public record, at future meetings of regional groups affiliated with the Texas Water Development Board, or to other interested parties; and just this morning, prior to attending this meeting, I have uploaded a copy of this letter to my website and plan also to upload your eventual response to it. We who are opposed to these abominable reservoirs demand immediate and public answers to our questions. Be advised that if you refuse to provide this information, and attempt to continue to operate in secrecy and stealth, legal action may be taken in a court of law to force your compliance with the Texas Open Meetings Act and other pertinent statutes that govern your Authority. After all, we do still live in the world's greatest open democracy, do we not?
Sincerely Yours,
Robert T. Russell
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