Land rights vs. water needs pits property owners against Texas city
HENRIETTA, Texas — Shane Cody found out by chance about an effort to build a reservoir — Lake Ringgold — practically in his backyard.
While waiting to ship a load of cattle one morning about seven years ago, Cody struck up a conversation with a young man who had been laying pipe north of Henrietta, a small town to the southeast of Wichita Falls. The worker explained they were sleeving the pipe in concrete because there was going to be a lake on top.
A look at a map of the planned lake showed Cody his home would become waterfront property.
“You see that?” Cody said he asked as he pointed at a mark on the map. “That’s my home that I live in, and that lake’s going come right up, almost to my back porch.”
Cody said he and other landowners joined together in 2017 “to figure out if anything can be done” to fight it, forming the Texoma Stewardship Coalition with 10 other landowners.
The fight continues Friday as the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is scheduled to take up the Lake Ringgold application, which is sponsored by the city of Wichita Falls.
Those challenging the reservoir project had some wins.
The coalition, along with some independent landowners and other organizations, presented their arguments against Wichita Falls’ permit application at an administrative hearing in August.
After days of testimony and months of filings, the judge recommended the TCEQ board deny the permit.
Those opposed to the project described the recommendation, which was released a few days before Christmas, as “an early present” and were pleasantly surprised.
“There was a real anxiousness on our part, it’s like David fighting Goliath,” said Deborah Clark, another member of the coalition.
Russell Schreiber, public works director for Wichita Falls, said the city was “very disappointed” with the decision, particularly because TCEQ employees from two different arms of the agency said their application met all requirements.
He said the judge veered from the traditional method of evaluating permit applications, something that “caught us completely off guard.”
WATER NEEDS DEBATED
Lake Ringgold was first proposed in the 1950s, with the most recent revival of construction efforts coming after the drought in the early 2010s. Schreiber said the city undertook significant water conservation efforts and implemented potable water reuse projects, which cut demand by more than half.
“We knew the [indirect potable reuse project] was going to make up some of that demand, but we knew it wasn’t going to make up all of it and therefore we still needed to continue to pursue Lake Ringgold,” he said.
A central argument surrounding Lake Ringgold remains whether the city still needs water — and how much.
The landowners argue the size of Lake Ringgold doesn’t match the city’s reported need and also criticized how that need was calculated.
They argued in the August hearing that the city overestimated its projected population for 2070 and calculated an unnecessarily large water reserve.
But even ignoring these concerns, they say the city’s projected 2070 demand of about 11,000 acre-feet does not show a need for Lake Ringgold, which is projected to yield 27,000 acre-feet annually.
The judge agreed with the landowners, citing the lack of need as the primary reason for recommending denial of the permit.
Schreiber said the water capacity for the project was chosen so the city could be better prepared for drought years.
It also would allow the city to manage water availability and usage between Ringgold and the two existing reservoirs owned by the city.
“We want the flexibility to maximize all the water that those three reservoirs can hold,” he said.
“During wet periods … we have to be able to capture and store that surplus water in order to be able to have a water supply. If we don’t capture it and store it, it’s gone.”
In response to these arguments, the judge wrote that while the TCEQ does allow for over-appropriations of water rights, the city did not adequately prove the need.
The judge also identified issues with plans to alleviate impacts on the local ecosystem.
The city prepared a conceptual mitigation proposal as a part of its application, which describes affected habitat types and species plus explains the city’s plans to limit negative impacts or create new habitats.
The judge found the plan didn’t have enough details.
Schreiber said TCEQ allows applicants to submit conceptual plans because a more detailed examination of ecological impacts is required in the federal permitting process.
He added that the draft permit is usually contingent on adherence to the more rigorous federal standards.
“We did everything we thought we were supposed to do, and now it appears the goal lines got moved on us, from the city’s perspective,” Schreiber said.
LOCAL IMPACT
The reservoir wouldn’t just impact the local habitat, but the livelihoods of the landowners as well.
Clark, of the Texoma Stewardship Coalition, said she would lose 2,000 acres of her 12,000-acre ranch to the lake construction, leaving the remaining land split into three pieces.
This would be particularly problematic as Clark and her husband, Emry, follow regenerative agriculture practices, constantly herding cattle across the land in a way that mimics nature.
“The whole point is to continuously move those cattle as if they were animals across the plains so that they are never grazing in one spot long enough to bring detrimental harm to the forage and the grasses,” Clark said.
She said Lake Ringgold would reduce the number of livestock they could raise and limit the range of some cattle, damaging long-term soil health.
Cody, the landowner whose home would become “waterfront property,” said the land that would be flooded is used for raising cattle, hunting, and growing wheat.
He also mentioned its sentimental value.
“I raised my three sons here. … This is where they grew up, learned how to be a man, drive a pickup, operate equipment,” he said.
Gil Staley, another landowner with the coalition, pointed to a mix of similar impacts.
He said his family has been operating their ranch for over 100 years, something he is very proud of.
The reservoir would require moving a farm market road and dividing their property, separating some cattle from their water source.
Officials in Clay County, east of Wichita Falls, also spoke out against the reservoir at the August hearing. County Judge Mike Campbell said the county was primarily concerned about the loss of property tax revenue and additional infrastructure projects they would have to undertake, such as new roads or bridges, to accommodate the reservoir.
Campbell also called reservoirs “old technology” and said other options, such as underground aquifer storage and desalinization, should be explored.
Janice Bezanson of the Texas Conservation Alliance shared similar concerns and noted the amount of water lost to evaporation in reservoirs, something researchers have noticed as a growing issue with Texas’ rising temperatures.
The alliance was also party to the hearing.
“There’s a lot of things they could do that would not increase the amount of surface acreage and the evaporation,” Bezanson said. “Those are kinds of things we need to be doing, not building any more reservoirs.”
Construction of major water supply reservoirs has waned considerably in recent decades in Texas.
Data from the Texas Water Development Board shows just two reservoirs of this type have been completed since 2000, compared to the nearly 100 reservoirs built between 1950 and 1970.
Schreiber, with the city of Wichita Falls, said he is aware of the water lost to evaporation, but pointed out that these losses are already factored into the modeling that predicts water yield from the reservoir.
“Reservoirs get a bad rap because ‘Oh, all they do is evaporate all this water,’ but in actuality, up in here in North Texas, that’s the only water we have to drink,” he said.
As they wait for a decision from the TCEQ board on the permit, some of the landowners have expressed mixed feelings about the future of the reservoir.
“Is it done for my generation? Perhaps,” said Staley. “This thing could go again, come up again in my children or my grandchildren’s era, so, can you really ever be comfortable?”