Mayo: Area far behind on water issues

Water liaison warns others ‘know more about us than we do’

“In our region, all we have cared about is if the water comes out when we take a shower, wash our dishes, when we wash our clothes. ... That was fine in 1980... but it is not fine in 2015.” —Steve Mayo, Texas-side water liaison

When it comes to securing water rights and water issues in general, Texarkana and the surrounding region are behind the times, according to Steve Mayo, Texarkana, Texas’ water liaison.

“The thing about us in this region is a lot of people think we are alone here. We don’t look past our borders,” Mayo said in a recent interview. “We have a bad history of not looking ahead and of not working with other people, i.e. the metroplex, i.e. the water districts.

“I went into Mike Rickman’s office (deputy director of North Texas Municipal District) in 2011, and he had a one-year plan and a map of a 20-year plan, 50-year plan, 75-year plan and a 100-year plan, and Wright Patman (Lake) was on every one of those maps. They know more about us than we do. They know about the water rights situation. They know about the contracts. It is their job to know.” Mayo, former Texas-side mayor, has been involved with water issues since the 2010 creation of Riverbend Water Resources District, the city of Texarkana’s designated entity on regional water issues. Most recently, Mayo has been heavily involved with matters pertaining to a 1968 Army Corps of Engineers contract tying the city of Texarkana, Texas, to a $28 million obligation for the cost of building, operating and maintaining Wright Patman. This is needed to for the city to maintain water rights.

Mayo became the city’s water liaison this June and discovered a yearold email from the corps to former Texarkana Water Utilities Executive Director Bill King about the money owed by the city. The email was received by Mayo after he sent a Freedom of Information request to TWU asking for all written corre-

spondence between TWU and the Corps of Engineers for the past five years.

In late August, Mayo provided the information to the council, having already met with Mayor Bob Bruggeman and City Manager John Whitson weeks earlier about the matter. However, the Aug. 17 budget workshop was the first time the council had heard of the $28 million. Weeks later on Sept. 4, King, TWU’s executive director since 1991, sent his retirement letter to the city.

Difficulty obtaining information from TWU is something that was in play when Mayo was mayor. Mayo said when he was first elected mayor in 2008, the city was involved in a lawsuit brought by Riverbend’s seven member cities.

“I had to spend thousands of hours just to get member cities to trust Texarkana, then we get into another lawsuit with Texarkana, Ark., that is really similar to the one before,” Mayo said. “In both lawsuits, there was one common denominator: the management of TWU. During the whole process, Texarkana, Texas, could not get information from TWU. I had to file a Freedom of Information request just to get the contracts. I was not aware of the ultimate rule curve.”

The ultimate rule curve is the curve that will govern reservoir operations once the city starts paying the Corps of Engineers on the $28 million debt. It will replace the interim curve that was put in place a year after the original 1968 contract was signed, because the original terms couldn’t be fufilled until after Cooper Lake was finished, and that wouldn’t happen until 1991, an unexpectedly long time.

The ultimate curve would take Wright Patman to 228.64 feet. The interim curve provides a contractual obligation of 220 feet.

Mayo said he did not hear about the ultimate rule curve while he was mayor, and when he sent the FOI request to TWU, he did not find out because he was not asking questions the right way.

“We had no idea that the $28 million enacted the ultimate rule curve,” Mayo said. “This is how that department has operated. It has been on its own as far as Texarkana and why they didn’t know about it; you know I faulted every elected official for the last however many years.”

While he was mayor and working with then-City Manager Dr. Larry Sullivan, no information was made available about the contract.

“Texarkana, Texas, has always entrusted TWU with handling the corps matter. TWU handled Wright Patman,” Mayo said. “I got into a quagmire when I asked questions. But my job as mayor and the city manager’s was to find out how to save money, how do we use tax dollars effectively, and the questions we asked were valid questions. We were just not able to get into any answers. I knew there were a lot of problems, I just didn’t know what the problems were. Did past city managers and mayors have access? I don’t know.”

Aug. 17, when the discussion about the $28 million was tackled, Mayo said he told the council he wanted them to agree to figure out a way for paying the money to the corps or he would no longer serve as their water liaison.

“I told them I wanted them to show the Corps of Engineers they were committed to pay what they signed up for,” Mayo said. “If you aren’t going to do that, there is no point in me being involved.”

Mayo said Ward 1 Councilwoman Jean Matlock asked him at that meeting if the amount had to be paid and what it would say about the council if they did not pay the $28 million. Mayo said the council did not have to pay the money, but that it would send a message if they did not.

“It would say we don’t care about our kids, we don’t care about economic development (or) Red River Army Depot, and that we don’t care about Lone Star, paper mills, and don’t care about the future, but yes, they did have options to not pay this,” he said.

Andrea Williams-McCoy, public and governmental relations director for Ward Timber LTD, has been working on water issues in this region for the past five years. She said the $28 million asset is really worth a billion dollars and should not be sold for less. In the world of water, $28 million is the equivalent of 28 cents, she said.

“Our region has to develop a higher acumen on the economics of water. They need to understand the value of our water asset and understand that costs associated with protecting and maintaining them are wise investments,” she said.

Mayo said he wants people to understand how important it is that Texarkana can pay for the water, unlike other places in the state. For example, North Texas Municipal Water District is in the final phase of a USCOE 404 permit to construct the Lower Bois d’Arc Creek Reservoir in Fannin County, just east of Bonham, to get 120,200 acrefeet of water. The 2016 Region C water plan lists the cost of this reservoir at $626 million.

“This is an example of where they could not afford to pay and they did not have the money to build a water treatment plant, so North Texas Municipal Water District is in the process of building this,” Mayo said. “North Texas will come in and build a treatment facility, and then they will sell water. Jim Parks told me they are at $1.84 per thousands of gallons, and ours is roughly 79 cents. This is what happens when someone else takes control over water and takes control over your destiny.”

Mayo estimated that Texarkana, Texas, has infrastructure needs such as $8 to $12 million worth of pipes that need replacing and that its sister city has similar needs.

“We need raw water lines, we need a new water-intake system; we need a water treatment plant, whether now or eventually. I told Mike (Rickman) I’m not anti-anything. We are pro-Patman and using the Sulphur (River) Basin effectively. I think if we can use that, then we can have access to water. We are pro-metroplex.”

There are three levels of water in Wright Patman that can be thought of as tiers. The bottom layer includes Texarkana, Texas, and Texarkana, Ark., and represents the interim curve. The second tier has to do with the ultimate rule curve and was formed when Texarkana, Texas, made the contract with the Corps of Engineers. The third level could be at 232.5 or 235 feet, which is yet to be determined, and is the portion local leaders would like to eventually belong to Riverbend. But organizations such as the Sulphur River Basin Authority want it, too.

“They are looking at it hard,” said Linda Price, chairwoman of the Region D Board of Directors.

Region D includes 19 counties in Northeast Texas, and mostly has an abundance of water options, including reservoirs both built and unbuilt. Region C, made up of 16 counties in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, has a growing need for water.

Mayo said it is imperative that people in this region become more aware of the power it holds when it comes to water, because in 2015, they cannot afford to be unaware.

“In our region, all we have cared about is if the water comes out when we take a shower, wash our dishes, when we wash our clothes,” Mayo said. “That is all we have ever cared about. That was fine in 1980, fine in 1990, and might have been fine in 2010, but it is not fine in 2015.”