LeakBird

More than a decade ago, Texas kicked off an ambitious and comprehensive program to guarantee that the state’s urban and rural regions would have the water supplies they needed through 2050.

Much good work has been done under the framework established by 1997’s Senate Bill 1, but Texas still faces alarming trends when it comes to our water needs. This legislative session, more action — and more funding — will be needed to keep Texas on a path that heads away from the water crises seen in other Southern and Western states.

Right now, for each person in Texas, we have about the same capacity in the state’s reservoirs as we did in the early 1950s, right before the worst drought ever to impact the state.

Back then, as the scale of the water crisis became evident, Texans embarked on a conservation program and building boom that quickly tripled the state’s effective water supply. That level of effort today would be much, much more difficult and expensive; the permitting process alone could take 15 to 20 years.

Texas could be lucky when it comes to the weather in upcoming years, although, as I write this, many parts of the state are already experiencing significant drought.

But it’s a near-certainty that, whatever our chance of rain, the number of people in Texas will grow faster than our capacity to supply the water they need. The situation calls for increased effort to keep moving forward with new water strategies.

The planning process under SB 1, which instituted a regional approach and enables cooperation between local water suppliers, has outlined a combination of conservation efforts, pipelines, new reservoirs and underground supplies. We have a good idea of how much water we’ll need and what we can do to obtain and supply it, although there are some areas, such as the future water supplies required to generate electric power, where more analysis is needed.

What we don’t know nearly as well as we should is how implementing these plans will impact the state’s environment, specifically the inflows into the rivers, bays and estuaries.

These impacts have real human and economic costs for industries such as agriculture, fishing, tourism and others that depend upon the state’s natural resources, and understanding these impacts is required under state and federal law. The SB 1 framework does not establish sound, well-funded scientific approaches to executing this important component of water planning.

As an example of what will be needed, consider the proposed project to transfer water from the Lower Colorado River Authority supplies to the San Antonio Water System.

This project, authorized by special legislation after SB 1, requires this kind of environmental analysis, which has taken five years and is expected to cost $50 million. Texans — including lawmakers — should expect to factor in that kind of effort and expense for many, perhaps most, of the water projects we’ll need to ensure adequate future supplies throughout the state.

Much of the financing capacity to pay for the projects themselves (the hard costs of construction) is already accessible through the state’s water utilities, river authorities and special taxing districts.

But as the state’s population grows, and as engineering and environmental analyses and costs expand in scope, we need to look at additional revenue streams. We especially need to look at ways to fund upfront costs for projects that need to be studied even though they may not, in fact, prove viable.

Ideas for generating this revenue, ranging from water-rights fees to sales taxes on bottled water, have been thoroughly reviewed by the Texas Water Development Board, which estimates such measures could raise from $50 million to $175 million per year.

This would allow us to move quickly to understand what options are viable and worth pursuing, so we can in turn move forward on constructing the projects that will help us avoid future water crises. The Legislature needs to devote attention this session to considering and choosing the best options to help keep Texas taps from running dry.

Joseph J. Beal is the former general manager of the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) and a senior consultant for PBS&J. He is past president of the Texas Water Conservation Association. www.twca.org