SENATE APPROVES “GENERATIONAL” WATER PLAN

(AUSTIN) — The state of Texas will have the water it needs to continue to grow for the next 100 years, says the author of a bill creating a permanent funding stream for water infrastructure projects. The state is currently expected to be short about 6 million acre-feet of water – just under half of the current annual use – within 50 years. Communities around the state are already feeling the pinch, said bill author and Water, Agriculture, and Rural Affairs Committee chair Senator Charles Perry of Lubbock. “Over the last two years, through interim studies and traveling the state, it’s been clear to me that cities are asking ‘are we going to have water for future development’,” he said. SB 7 would fund projects aimed at meeting those needs through the next century by directing $1 billion in revenue into the state water fund every fiscal year.

SB 7, by Lubbock Senator Charles Perry, would put $1 billion in state money each year behind future water infrastructure projects.

Some areas of the state are already drying up. The Rio Grande Valley, one of the premiere agricultural zones in Texas, is seeing decreased production. The state’s only sugar mill, founded in 1970, had to close due to lack of water supply. The once robust citrus industry, the source of the state’s famous Ruby Red grapefruit, is struggling as the area faces severe drought conditions. “The capacity and the supply of water from the Rio Grande River and its tributaries has gone down about thirty percent,” said McAllen Senator Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa. “We have to be proactive ourselves and address this issue, to make sure the economy continues to grow, that people still have water to live and have a good quality of life.”

Perry was adamant that the state cannot meet its needs through existing sources; it must develop new ones. “We have used up all our freshwater systems. We have a water supply problem,” he said. “I’m forcing us to go to the next level, which is: brackish, marine, produced, and other surface water that has not been permitted.” The bill could fund projects like desalination, aquifer recharge and recovery, and new reservoirs: but only reservoirs where all the needed land and permits have been obtained. For smaller municipalities, the bill prioritizes wastewater treatment. What the bill won’t pay for, said Perry, is moving fresh water from one area of the state to the other, forcing parts of the state to compete against each other for this precious resource. “I will not fund overdevelopment of existing fresh water” he said. “It has to be new input, and the only place you can get new inputs is developing the second layer of water supply.”

The bill also seeks to foster cooperation between the different regions of the state, working together instead of competing over water sources. Planning is done by 16 different regional water groups; all of these regional plans need to be brought together to ensure no one in Texas goes thirsty. “That’s kind of the magic behind Senate Bill 7; it’s that coordinated approach of having a target for all water supply future development to shoot for and shoot to,” said Perry. “It’s a 254-county water supply plan, or it’s no plan.” The Texas Water Development Board would facilitate cooperation and coordinate implementation of the plan across the entire state. San Antonio Senator Roland Gutierrez, whose largely rural district stretches from the city almost all the way to El Paso, gave Perry high marks for his efforts to get the different regions to work together. “This is the single most important thing for our state for the next 50 years,” he told Perry. “This is the most forward-thinking bill we’ve seen in an area where we used to fight each other and will likely fight each other in the future if we don’t do this.”

It’s imperative, said Perry, that we get started on the problem as soon as possible. The nature of water supply, he said, is that projects are expensive and take 20 or more years. “We’re 25 years behind,” said Perry. “We got the billion-dollar conversations ahead of us, we can’t fix this overnight, but what we can do is start.” The bill was passed unanimously and now heads to the House for consideration.

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