Coalition's Depiction of Region C WPG Strategies

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Our observations about the sources and quantities chosen by the RCWPG for the Draft Plan, depicted above, are as follows:

1. The Draft Plan recommends enough conservation, reuse, and obtaining water from existing sources to meet projected needs through the half-century planning horizon.
    
2. The Draft has also chosen (as “alternative” strategies) enough additional feasible, viable existing sources to fulfill any reasonable margin of error. Together, these lower-impact existing sources provide twice as much water as we’re projected to need along with today’s permitted supplies to meet the required year-2060 planning horizon. With these existing sources alone, the RCWPG has fulfilled its responsibility to plan prudently for future water supplies.
    
3. But without justification, the Draft goes on to pursue eight unneeded new reservoirs. Region C’s four new recommended reservoirs and four new alternative reservoirs would flood hundreds of square miles of East and Northeast Texas, destroy increasingly rare wildlife habitat, take over 500 square miles of land from thousands of mostly unwilling Texans, and devastate ranching, farming, and timber industries in large areas of Texas. These destructive new reservoirs would bring the total supply to close to three times as much water as is needed to fill the projected future supply gap. To pursue these new reservoirs instead of the vast quantities of available supplies in existing reservoirs is not only unnecessary but unconscionable. And counting on obtaining permits to build new reservoirs is far less certain and far less responsible a strategy than fully utilizing existing, less-harmful, less-controversial supplies.

For further details, please contact:

Beth Johnson
Phone: 2214-902-9260
Fax: 214-353-2027
Email: beth@bethjohnson.com