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TOLEDO BEND COMMUNITY CLUB INC.
Rt. 1 Box 536B
Burkeville, TX 75932
May 29, 2003
Board of Directors
Texas Sabine River Authority
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Board,
We want to thank you for responding to the petition and establishing this meeting today to discuss operations of Toledo Bend Reservoir. Also, we appreciate your travel and time to hear and consider inputs pertaining to the lake we love and call home.
But now for a moment, imagine yourselves as one of us. Your backyard is Toledo Bend Lake. When the lake level is between 172’ and 168’msl, your backyard is beautiful; your swimming piers give safe access to the water for your grand-children to fish, swim, etc.; your boat house and launch devices are fully functional. Life is beautiful. However, if in addition to all the working forces of nature trying to disrupt this beauty, you would not appreciate a lake management policy that could bring this beauty to an end, but the Board has approved just such a policy. This policy is our issue.
The lake level issue has been at the forefront of our concerns for many years. After this Board commissioned a study by Brown & Root, Inc. to review lake level history and identify possible procedures to control lake level, Proposition #6 was developed and seemed to us a means to satisfy the needs of all concerned with only minor concessions. Still, here years later, the Board has denied this solution citing the “Power Sales Agreement”(PSA). But two unbiased groups have reviewed the PSA and they conclude the PSA is not an adequate reason to deny changing the OS.
We know you as the Board of Directors can change policies affecting this issue. We also have observed the powerful influence lobbying groups have on yours and our daily lives. But today, we ask that you listen to the citizens and property owners and not the managers, lawyers and lobbyists. Simply, all we ask is that if the lake level falls below 168’msl, power generation be limited to that water required for down river flow. This change will minimally impact successful operation of the Texas Sabine River Authority.
Respectfully,
Bud Collier
Chairman
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