Water board to interview applicants for director

MOUNT PLEASANT, Texas— The Sulphur River Basin Authority’s Board of Directors took the next steps to hire an executive director during their regular meeting Tuesday.

Chairman Chris Spencer said they will hold two special meetings in the next few weeks to interview two applicants for the position.

“That way we possibly will have a selection in mind, and the process will be going forward that we could perhaps present at the March meeting,” Spencer said. “What we are looking to do at our next meeting is name a lone finalist. It is the hope of the board that we come back with a unanimous selection, so whoever that candidate is has the full confidence of the board.”

There were seven applicants for the position, he said, and six were interviewed.

The hiring of an executive director for SRBA, which was created by the Texas Legislature in 1985 to protect and preserve the resources in the basin, is mandated by HB 2180, passed by the Legislature in 2016. The bill requires the river authority to not only hire for this position but also to be more transparent with stakeholders and the public, to undergo board training and to seek outside funding. Except for the Clean Rivers Program, which is funded through the state, the organization is fully funded by the Joint Commission for Program Development, a group of five water districts in the Dallas Metroplex seeking water for their rapidly growing population. Although SRBA was created by the Legislature, it was not given a funding source. Spencer said the board will soon hold a workshop to review and suggest revisions to the annual funding contract.

In other business, the board heard a report on the volumetric and sedimentation study Arroyo Environmental Consultants and LJA Engineering performed on Wright Patman Lake in July and August 2018. Bianca Whitaker, environmental consultant with Arroyo, said they used the same methodology as the Texas Water Development Board, which performed a similar study on the lake in 2010. That study showed the lake was filling rapidly with sediment, an issue which alarmed many, as the reservoir serves as the main source of drinking water for Texarkana and the surrounding communities.

Both Whitaker and Dawn Pilcher, senior project manager with LJA Engineering, said that while sediment is going into the lake, the rate is not much greater than that of other area lakes. The reports show that since the Army Corps of Engineers began impounding water for the lake in 1956, the lake has experienced sedimentation at a rate that is much lower than the original expectations of the corps’ designers and that the accumulation experienced in the reservoir is “not alarming or offensive.”

The original design allows for a sediment reserve of 68,000 acrefeet over a 50-year period. The predicted rate equates to .40 acrefeet annually per each square mile of the contributing watershed. The 2018 Arroyo study shows an annual sedimentation rate of .16 acre-feet per square mile, while the 2010 TWDB study showed that rate to be .25.

“Although each survey yields different results, it is clear that the Wright Patman Lake is not experiencing excessive or unanticipated sediment loading or loss of water storage capacity,” the report states. “The displacement of water storage space with sediment accumulation is occurring at a reasonable rate, which is one of the lowest sedimentation rates for the region’s lakes.”

The study was funded by both SRBA and Riverbend Water Resources District and can be found on Riverbend’s website, rwrd.org.

The board also heard an update on the Tentatively Selected Plan, a report from the corps on how to reallocate the lake and raise it for additional water supply.

SRBA Consultant John Jarvis said the long-awaited report was scheduled to be released Feb. 17. He added that it was originally due to be delivered in August 2015, then was pushed to December 2015 and the corps has been working toward completion despite the delays.

“It’s encouraging,” Spencer said. “Were we ever a week out like we are now?” he asked Jarvis.

“No, we’ve never been this close,” Jarvis said.

If the TSP shows that the lake can be raised, additional water rights will become available in the reservoir. Riverbend’s 16 member entities, including the city of Texarkana, Texas, have passed resolutions supporting the water district pursuing those additional rights.

The next regular meeting is scheduled for 1 p.m. March 19 at the Mount Pleasant Civic Center, 1800 N. Jefferson, Mount Pleasant, Texas.