Texarkana Gazette, 26 April 2004

By Greg Bischof

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While 11 of 12 Texarkana, Texas, area cities made waves last week by re-creating the Wright Patman Regional Water Supply Agency, they have yet to set an organizational meeting.

With the exception of Queen City, the city councils of Wake Village, Atlanta, Annona, Avery, Clarksville, De Kalb, Hooks, New Boston, Maud, Nash and Redwater agreed last week to create the agency.

However, plans for holding its first organizational meeting are still pending, said Wake Village Mayor Mike Huddleston.

Huddleston said an organizational meeting will likely be held during the first or second week of next month at a location central to all the cities involved in it.

The first public meeting will also likely cover preliminary and general topics in nature, since the agency is just getting started, Huddleston said.

One of the agency's stated tasks will be to supply water to residents in these 11 cities. Because of this, the newly re-created public utility organization will need to submit engineering plans and specifications to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

The plans and specifications involving the water system's formation are needed for the state commission to inspect and verify that WPRWSA is meeting state water consumer health and safety regulations, TCEQ officials previously said.

David Tuckfield, an Austin-based attorney that said even though the agency was initially created Feb. 5 by the vote of five cities, there was no attempt to register with the TCEQ, or take any other action, until the agency could be re-created last week in order to welcome six additional cities.


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