Coalition's View of Region C WPG Strategies

(For a high quality printable PDF copy of this slide, click here.)

The slide above is our coalition's depiction of the sources and quantities that Region C Water Planning Group has tentatively selected as "recommended" and "alternative" water strategies that utilize EXISTING water sources. This slide is explained below in items 1 and 2. Region C WPG gave approval April 25, 2005 for their consultants to integrate into the document that they plan to vote on at their May 23 meeting as their "Initially Prepared Plan" (i.e. Draft Plan). The Draft Plan will then be subjected to a public hearing tentatively scheduled for July, followed by a 60-day public comment period, and a final vote in the fall on the regional plan, which will then undergo a year's scrutiny at the state level by Texas Water Development Board before approval as the 2007 State Water Plan. The explanation below is our DRAFT summation of Region C WPG's April 25 vote (detailed explanations were not provided by RCWPG at that time on all suppliers' strategies).

Non-controversial EXISTING sources and quantities that RCWPG voted into tentative Draft Plan on April 25, and depicted on the coalition's "Meeting Water Demands with No New Reservoirs" slide--

1. RCWPG chose as recommended strategies a volume from conservation, reuse, and existing reservoirs with available unclaimed water that would completely fill the 1.4 million AFY year-2060 gap between demand and supply that RCWPG has projected.

2. Additionally, they chose as alternative strategies a volume from existing reservoirs with unclaimed water that provides approx. 1 million AFY ABOVE the projected gap. I.e. the chosen alternative strategies provide a reserve cushion of excess supply that's about 70% higher than the gap they assume they need to fill.

Unneeded, highly controversial and harmful NEW RESERVOIRS that RCWPG voted into tentative Draft Plan on April 25 (not depicted on our slide) --

3. In addition to selecting non-controversial, less-harmful recommended and alternative strategies that together provide 2.4 million AFY to fill a 1.4 million AFY gap (as per #1 and #2 above), RCWPG chose as recommended strategies an ADDITIONAL volume of 780,000 AFY from 4 NEW and unneeded reservoirs (Marvin Nichols, Fastrill, Lower Bois d'Arc, Ralph Hall). These 4 recommended new reservoirs would flood approx. 125,000 acres in inundated footprint--an area almost as large (92%) as East Texas’ Big Thicket National Preserve and five national forest wildernesses combined. These 4 new reservoirs are estimated to require a minimum of 250,000 acres for mitigation in addition to the inundated footprints. Thus, land for inundation and mitigation that would potentially be condemned by eminent domain for these 4 recommended new reservoirs is estimated to be a minimum of 375,000 acres. This is an area twice the size of Toledo Bend Reservoir on the Texas-Louisiana border--the largest man-made body of water in the South and the fifth largest in surface area in the U.S. These recommended new-reservoir strategies, together with the recommended existing-reservoirs/conservation/reuse strategies in #1 above, total roughly 2.18 million AFY and would provide an excess supply more than 50% higher than the 1.4 million AFY gap they assume they need to fill. Recommended and alternative strategies per #1, #2, and #3 herein total 3.18 million AFY--a supply more than twice the size (227%) of the projected gap.

4. In addition to the recommended 4 NEW reservoirs in #3 above, they have also included as alternative strategies 3 MORE NEW reservoirs--Parkhouse North, Columbia, Tehuacana. These 3 would provide 211,560 AFY. These total approx. 41,000 acres in inundated footprint and are estimated to require a minimum of 82,000 acres for mitigation in addition to the inundated footprints. Thus, land for inundation and mitigation that would potentially be condemned by eminent domain for these 3 alternative new reservoirs is estimated to be a minimum of 123,000 acres. The recommended and alternative strategies in #1, #2, #3, and #4 herein total roughly 3.4 million AFY of water. This is roughly 242% (almost two and a half times) the size of the projected gap. It is two million AFY MORE than they say they need.

NOTE: If you are using this page to disseminate information to others, please check with us (see below) to verify our most accurate, up-to-date summation of our views on Region C WPG's April 25 tentatively adopted strategies.

Beth Johnson
Phone: 214-902-9260
Fax: 214-353-2927
Cell: 214-415-5089
Email: beth@bethjohnson.com
P.O. Box 29561
Dallas, TX 75229-9561