Posted: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 12:00 AM - 13,883 Readers
By: Patricia Kilday Hart & Gary Sharrer
When the Legislature approved a statewide water plan in 1997, then-Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock hailed it as "the heart of our legacy," while its sponsor, Sen. J.E. "Buster" Brown, promised it would provide plentiful supplies of the crucial resource "for our grandchildren and our grandchildren's grandchildren."
Then came the Great Drought: Since passage of the landmark 1997 legislation, state funding for water projects has been as scarce as rain in the summer of 2011.
Fourteen years after Bullock and Brown laid out a road map for securing adequate water resources for the state's booming population, state leaders still have not found a reliable way to finance water development beyond asking voters for authority to issue debt through bonds.
With the population of Texas expected to double by the year 2050, Gov. Rick Perry is fond of saying that people have been "voting with their feet" for the state's conservative governing principles. The additional population, however, has severely strained the state's infrastructure.
As Texas endures its most severe one-year drought in its history, state leaders have identified $53 billion in state investment needed to expand water capacity by 2060 but have not resolved how to pay for it. Unless Texas increases its water resources, experts say 83 percent of Texans will not have an adequate supply of water in times of drought.
"If we don't fund the water plan and get it going, 2050 is going to be chaotic," said Rep. Alan Ritter, R-Nederland. "As our population continues to grow, you've got to do the infrastructure. If you want people to leave Texas, then don't have water."
The current drought provides a glimpse into the future, with a historic number of communities implementing water restrictions, such as banning outdoor watering. Some towns, such as Llano, are seeking alternative sources of water as their municipal supplies run perilously low.
Bond vote is comingIn November, Texas voters will be asked to approve $6 billion in bonds that the Texas Water Development Board will use to help local communities grow and maintain water supplies.
Perry, who took note of the withering drought in April when he issued a proclamation calling on Texans to pray for rain, endorsed the legislation authorizing the bond election.
"As Texas' population and economy continue to grow, Gov. Perry is committed to making sure both families and businesses have clean and reliable sources of water," said spokeswoman Lucy Nashed. She noted that since the Water Development Board was established, Texans have voted to authorize more than $4 billion in bonds for water projects.
The 1997 plan called for spending $53 billion for expanding water resources and identifies $142 billion in capital costs for water treatment and distribution projects and flood control.
Brown and Ritter say other financing tools are needed to help the state secure water resources for the future.
In the late 1990s, Brown and others proposed fee surcharges on bottled water or on consumption exceeding 5,000 gallons a month for residential users. Opposition was swift and stout.
"This is a water tax. The people I represent are viscerally opposed to this," one Houston lawmaker said at the time.
To this day, a prevailing anti-tax sentiment "makes it pretty difficult" to invest in the state's future water needs, said Brown.
Just this past legislative session, Ritter proposed an annual "tap fee" — $3.25 a year per household - as a steady revenue stream for the water plan. His bill was approved by a legislative committee but failed to pass.
Former state Rep. Ron Lewis, who chaired the House Energy Resources Committee and now is a lobbyist with several water district clients, said the current drought demonstrates the state is running out of time.
"There's no way we're going to have enough water 50 years from now to take care of the population growth," he said. "We're now in a situation where we may not be able to take care of the water needs in this state for the next 15 years."
More reservoirs, linesTexans, he said, must invest in more reservoirs and in pipelines to carry water from existing East Texas reservoirs to the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, which would use the water before discharging it in a network of pipelines connecting Austin, San Antonio and South Texas in addition to Houston and Corpus Christi, Lewis said.
The combination of continuing population growth and continuing drought, Lewis predicted, eventually will grab everyone's attention as water wells dry up and some families will be limited to weekly showers while cities fight over water with agriculture users.
Texas has not opened a major reservoir since 1987, though a small one near Nacogdoches was completed in 2005.
Reservoirs can cost between $13 million and $2 billion - depending on size and location, according to the Texas Water Development Board.
"It's hard to figure out what happened," said Brown, now a capitol consultant. "I fully expected with the passage of SB 1 that we would begin to see water projects all over the state - identified by regional planning groups and then put into motion by private and public partnerships. We don't have any of those."
