TO THE EDITOR:
The Wright Patman Water Agency is planned for a vote in 12 city councils at 7 p.m. Thursday [April 22]. These 12 cities are Annona, Atlanta, Avery, Clarksville, De Kalb, Hooks, Maud, Nash, New Boston, Redwater, Queen City and Wake Village.
This agency is being set up to lay claim to any excess water available in Wright Patman and Cooper Lakes and more water if the levels were raised. This would tie up the water so that no one else could have it. This then, supposedly, would make building Marvin Nichols Reservoir more attractive.
The mayor of Wake Village, Mike Huddleston, who has wanted to build Marvin Nichols for a long time, says that forming this water agency has nothing to do with the reservoir. Maybe not, but I heard Huddleston in a public meeting in Clarksville on March 18, 2002 [prior to his removal from the SRBA -- R], say that testifying against Marvin Nichols would cause more land to be mitigated, the amount of land to be mitigated would not be as much as all the agencies said, giving misinformation about the cost of the lake, that the North East Texas Regional Water Development Board [Region D] would not listen to the people opposed to the lake, that Dallas supplied North East Texas with a lot of tax money and would shut it off if we didn't allow Marvin Nichols to be built, that the lake would bring 5,000 to 10,000 jobs to Red River County and bring in $2.75 billion just in the construction phase and finally, that without the SRBA the powers that be in Austin would have come in and taken all the water in the Sulphur River. I will not go into refuting these points because they are so ridiculous but I will say that the last point would come as a surprise to Gov. Perry.
I believe that Huddleston has duped the city councils and mayors into thinking that forming their own water agency is in their best interests. The end of this thinking will come when the bill for new construction of pipelines, pumping stations, and perhaps new reservoirs comes due. This agency does not have the power to tax but can sell bonds.
The problem with bonds is that the buyer expects to make a profit on the interest they draw. Who has to pay the interest? The cities that charge the price for water to its citizens. And by the way, the storage fees on water in reservoirs is not cheap either. In fact, the city of Cooper could not pay the storage fees on water in Lake Cooper and had to give up its rights to the water and build its own reservoir. The same could happen to any of these cities. They will have to impose a tax to pay for the construction, operations, retirement of debt and interest and administrative costs.
If you live in any of these cities, you must let your council members know that you don't want to see the formation of the Wright Patman Water Agency. Call or write them today!