Lack of planning on water needs may someday leave E. Texas high, dry

LUFKIN — Proposed legislation that could enable faraway cities like Dallas to more easily take East Texas water emphasizes the need for accurate future water planning, local officials are saying.

"The idea is that areas of high growth can take water from areas that have surplus water," said environmental attorney John Stover, of Lufkin. "And the way you determine if it is surplus, is you look at the regional water plan."

The group charged with culminating a regional long-term water plan for the Pineywoods is the Region I East Texas Water Planning Group. Earlier this year, the Texas Water Development Board approved the 2007 state water plan which included Region I's meticulous plan.

"It's incumbent on the regional planning group not to underestimate the future need of water in East Texas. In my opinion, they have done so," said Stover, who has extensive experience in water law and planning.

This is something Stover and others have repeatedly tried to convey to Region I planners. In past years, Stover has expounded on usage assumptions, applied by the group, that could leave some East Texas water utility suppliers in trouble.

It is something the group plans to review this year.

However, Stover said, it may be out of their hands.

"It's not necessarily the planning group," he said, so much as the methodology the state water board tells them to use.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality requires groundwater suppliers be able to supply each connection with a minimum .6 gallons/minute, Stover said. Across town in Austin, the other state agency is telling water planners to use data based on actual usage — which ranges from .1 - .3 gallons/minute.

This means they are planning for East Texas groundwater suppliers to be out of compliance — with the assumption the commission will grant them a waiver, Stover said. However, most waivers are temporary, he added.

Bill Roberts, Region I's former state water board liaison, disagrees.

"You can't directly compare the TCEQ requirement to our projected demands," he responded in an e-mail interview. "Our water demand projections are based on actual reported use. That is different from a minimum capability requirement. Just because TCEQ requires the ability to provide .6 gal/min. doesn't mean that demand has ever actually occurred."

Regardless of whether that amount was ever used, the ability to provide it is still required by state law, says Region I group planning member Kelley Holcomb, also with the Angelina and Neches River Authority in Lufkin.

Holcomb works with this type of water information on a daily basis — particularly regulations governing water and sewer systems — and caught on to the underplanning after joining Region I.

"I began to notice that the math didn't work out," he said, adding that data for capacity and demand didn't make sense.

Inquiring into the methodology used to generate the presumed water needs, Holcomb said he was surprised to learn that the results stemmed from historic water usage, as Stover had described.

"This discrepancy is important for several reasons," Holcomb said.

The use of historical vs. required water usage creates a contradiction between the law mandating regional water planning and pre-existing laws establishing minimum water capacity requirements, he said.

Perhaps more importantly to rural water customers, it puts the rural water supplier in a bind when TCEQ cites the water supplier for being out of compliance, possibly issuing a fine. The water supplier's solution would be to drill another well, Holcomb said of the hypothetical future scenario. This would require money, or a loan, from the Texas Water Development Board. However, based on the regional planning group's data, it will appear to the water board that the water supplier shouldn't require additional water.

Consequently, the board will reject the water supplier's request for funding.

"As water professionals continue to grapple with the need for additional water supply, the regional water plans will be used as the measuring stick for water issues across the state," Holcomb said.

The discrepancy between required capacity vs. actual historic usage eventually will lead to a conflict between water suppliers and planners, Holcomb said, "simply because there is not a consensus on what that magic number should be."

Holcomb voiced his concerns of underplanning water needs to his Region I peers.

"I hate to say it, but after several rounds of discussion there was no advice given — because the water planning process is prescribed by statute," he said.

As a result, local planners have little leeway in developing future water needs data until legislators take action.

"The only solution is for legislators to commission a study group of water system professionals from across the state to research, evaluate and recommend changes to the statutes that govern water system operation and water system planning," Holcomb said.