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Toledo Bend Bi-State Alliance
Minutes July 28, 2003
The meeting was called to order by Larry Kelly.
J. B. Meyers lead the group in the opening prayer.
Larry asked members and visitors to introduce themselves and tell where they are from , beginning with Linda Mauer.
There were no changes to the Agenda.
Minutes of the June 23, 2003 meeting were approved and accepted as read.
There was no Treasurer’s Report available.
Old Business:
DETDA Report: No report. Charles English, DETDA representative, was not present.
East Texas Regional Water Planning Committee Report: Bill Heugel, representative.
Bill reported the Lake East Tex Reservoir Project name has been changed to Columbia, in memory of the Shuttle. It is probably the last reservoir to be built in East Texas, and will require mitigation before being approved. There will be no hardwoods, bird life, or anything involved other than flooding the land, but other land must be given to compensate for the land being flooded. The buffer lands around the Big Thicket Preserves are owned by Louisiana-Pacific, and are up for sale. As part of the mitigation, the Angelina Neches River Authority is donating $5 million to the nature conservancy, and possibly Ducks Unlimited & other environmental agencies will join in purchasing that land for compensation. There will be public meetings and public comments before the lake can be filled. If there are requests for letters to be written , Bill suggests the members join in writing in support of this worthwhile project. The Columbia Reservoir is to be built in Cherokee County near Jacksonville.
Another project going on by the TPWD and the Texas Environmental Quality Organization is a series of modeling studies of the water requirements for the streams. This will require about 15 years to complete. The third item being discussed is the potential tansfer of water from Toledo Bend up to North Texas. There were major discussions, and Bill had private discussions with Jerry Clark and Jack Tatum on the subject. Toledo Bend was set up as a 2 million acre feet reservoir shared between the Louisiana and Texas Sabine River Authorities. Texas has only permitted about 750,000 acre feet, so about 300,000 acre feet are being held in Austin, and anyone can apply for a permit for those 300,000 acre feet. Texas SRA has applied for that 300,000 acre feet in order to be in control of that water. This is the water being quoted as potentially being shipped to the Dallas area. “Junior Water Rights” has nothing to do with this potential sale of water. The plan is to build a pipeline from the north end of Toledo Bend and eventually on to Lake Fork. About 400,000 acre feet of water will then be taken, with 300,000 going to the the Dallas area, and 100,000 to the Longview area, where there is a tremendous shortage of water. About 40% of the water to the Longview area will be returned to Toledo Bend, but the water sent to the Dallas area that is not used, will be returned to the Trinity River. That fact is very significant in that it is not returned to Toledo Bend, and would be an Inner Basin Transfer of water. Under SB 1, there are certain requirements that have to be met to make the plan work, such as determining how much water is required to meet the needs in the river system, and negotiating with the areas that are short of water. The water being sold is much more profitable to the SRA than water being generated by the power companies. Hopefully, this would bring money back to the communities around the lake. The only way for us to help make this work is for us to participate in public discussions. In response to a question, Larry said the Power Sales Agreement runs to 2018, and the earliest the proposed project would be completed would be about 2015, leaving only about 3 years when the Power Sales Agreement would come into play. We still need to keep in mind that a minimum lake level of 168 is our goal. In times of a drought situation, though, the bottom of the conservation pool is 127 msl. There will be many things to consider in the feasibility study as to the timing of when the water would be moved and if power generation would be stopped at that time. One other thing to consider is half of this lake belongs to Louisiana. So Louisiana will probably be invited to join in discussions.
Discussion also followed on Ground Water Conservation and the aquafers.
New Business:
Lake Level: Larry Kelly
Larry said the Shreveport Times on July 20th had a good article, with illustrations, giving information about Toledo Bend Lake and this movement of water, and what our goal has been. Larry sent out the article by e-mail, but did not have or know about illustrations that were with it. He complimented the author of the article, but noted there were a few mistakes in the article. The article explains just what is an acre foot of water. Since 1998, our organization has been fighting to get a lake level usable to us, so we must keep attending public meetings and working toward that goal.
Larry thanked the visitors for coming tonight , and encouraged them to join us as members, or to have a representative from their area to join us. He also explained to the visitors the progress made with legislation on the Louisiana side, and the need to get legislative support in Texas. Linda Mauer made membership applications available.
Larry said the TX SRA has 3 lots for sale at Toledo Village (Lots 1.2. & 3). Bill Heugel reported the TX-SRA is also trying to buy land in the Six Mile area to make more parking for the boat ramp.
Approval of New Members: None
Approval of Payment of Outstanding Bills: None
Next Meeting Date: August 25, 2003
Meeting Adjourned.
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