Riverbend to hold town hall in Hooks

Riverbend Water Resources District will hold a town hall meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall in Hooks, Texas.

Consultant Susan Roth will give a presentation on population and water demand projections, water source and supply assessment, regional selected alternatives and capital and cost estimates. Riverbend contracted with Roth in 2016 to

conduct studies within Riverbend’s service area and gather data for water demand projections to be included in the Regional Water Master Plan.

Riverbend’s Board of Directors will also consider approval of these projections during Tuesday’s meeting.

“One item we are focused on for finalization of this meeting is the revision to the state water plan population and water demand projections,” said Liz Fazio Hale, Riverbend executive director/CEO. “The reason we’re focusing on finalizing those for Riverbend’s board to vote on is the Region D Planning Group will also hear a presentation from Riverbend on those same population and water demand projections, and they will be able to vote on whether to accept those and send those to the state for approval.”

That meeting will be held at 1 p.m. Tuesday at Mount Pleasant Civic Center. If approved, Region D would then send them to the Texas Water Development Board to be included in the 2022 Texas State Water Plan. Since 2002, TWDB has used a bottom-up process to get real numbers from municipalities and water groups to more accurately plan the state’s future water needs.

Hale said it was extremely important to have accurate numbers for this region and that some of the projected water use included in the 2017 will show a significant increase for the 2022 plan.

“We’re only asking for a slight increase to our municipal needs. Nonetheless, that increase means that more water will need to be reserved for our area,” she said. “On non-municipal numbers—industry—the increase is more significant.

“Currently, the water development board only has data that states that our industry uses in Bowie County alone are 2,000 acre-feet per year. This is a pretty low baseline that we are working with, but it is really important to understand that it would be nearly impossible to grow our economy based on that number.”

Riverbend will submit industry projections of 80,000 to 100,000 acre-feet per year.

Hale said the numbers included in the previous plan did not come from a regional master plan but from municipalities and entities that may not have understood the importance of submitting the data to the state water board.

“The numbers came from water-use surveys that the state issues. Local entities are supposed to fill them out and send them back to the state,” she said. “The problem with this is why Riverbend has committed to doing the study.

“A lot of times, people who receive the surveys are the same ones who run safety, traffic and roads for the city, and they are dealing with a lot. These people have a variety of jobs in small communities, and they may not turn the survey back in or may not put the correct information on the survey. They also may not understand exact questions and how they’re being asked.”

Completion of the regional master plan aligns with Riverbend’s five strategies, she said. They include a new intake at Wright Patman Lake to provide raw water to TexAmericas Center, building a new water treatment facility at TexAmericas, providing a small box plant for water supply to the city of Atlanta and making improvements to the New Boston Road facility to bring it from 18 million to 24 million gallons per day.

The full agenda for Tuesday’s meeting can be viewed at rwrd. org. Hooks City Hall is at 603 E. Avenue A.