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Lake decision could come in fall
By Chris Roark, croark@starlocalnews.com
Both sides of the Lake Ralph Hall issue have stated their case, and now they must wait several months for a decision.
The contested case hearing for the 30-million-gallons-per-day (mgd) lake concluded Jan. 25 after nine days of testimony before two administrative law judges at the State Office of Administrative Hearings in Austin.
Years ago, the Upper Trinity Regional Water District submitted a water rights application for Lake Ralph Hall, which is set to be located near Ladonia in Fannin County.
Flower Mound officials, including Mayor Tom Hayden, said there are less expensive ways to address the region’s water needs that haven’t been explored, including purchasing more water from Dallas Water Utilities. Flower Mound representatives expect the lake to cost $460 million, though UTRWD projects the lake to cost $275 million.
UTRWD, however, argue that projections from the Texas Data Center have Denton County more than doubling in population by 2040. They said the lake is necessary to meet those demands.
Hayden has said Flower Mound residents’ water rates will increase because of the added debt taken on for the lake project. UTRWD president Tom Taylor has said the rates go up because the town over projected its water need in 1999 when it purchased an extra 10 mgd of water.
During the next few weeks, a brief summation of the hearing will be prepared and given to each side. They will each have a chance for a rebuttal.
Later this spring, the administrative law judges are expected to make a ruling. The side that is ruled against will have an opportunity to present a brief arguing the ruling.
Sometime in the late summer or early fall, each side will make their presentation to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), which will then make the final ruling. TCEQ is not obligated to go along with the judges’ ruling.
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We have no WATER shortage, we simply have a RESERVOIR shortage. Even under drought conditions, if Texas reservoir capacity was higher, both residents and farmers could make it through multi-year droughts like we're experiencing now.
I am 100% in favor of building as many new Texas lakes as we can possibly afford - DESPITE their distance from Flower Mound and despite increases in water rates.
I'm sorry, but localized price considerations take second seat to Texas' current reservoir shortage. The new lake will STILL benefit Flower Mound indirectly - but more importantly, it will benefit North Texas as a whole.
If towns over toward Fannin County use the new lake as their water supply, then naturally it will reduce the load on lakes in the East Dallas area. Since Flower Mound buys water from Dallas (last I heard), then anything that increases Dallas water reserves will automatically increase Flower Mound's water reserve.
Each summer, Texas gets dangerously close to draining many of the lakes that already exist, and in fact a few of them in Central Texas have already been drained completely. If any of you have ever seen the drained lakes in Texas, you know exactly where I'm coming from.
At the same time we are in a record multi-year drought, North Texas population is exploding due to our relatively low unemployment rate. it could get MUCH worse before it gets better. God forbid we have to drain Lewisville or Grapevine lakes twenty years in the future.
Texas MUST plan for at least 100-year historical WORST-CASE CONDITIONS, and at least 30 years in advance of projected population growth - it obviously takes years to construct and fill a reservoir, especially during the record drought we are experiencing now. Let's not treat this issue with the same lack of forethought that we've planned Metroplex freeway capacity.
Even though I don't normally water my grass at all, and don't even have a sprinkler system, I for one am sick and tired of arbitrary water restrictions each and every summer.
Water is one of the few self-recycling materials we have, so there's really no such thing as "wasting" it by watering grass, anyway - The waste occurs when we let the water we do have run back into the ocean, eventually.
Charlie Barrett
Flower Mound "