IRVING — With roughly a thousand people a day moving into Texas — about a third of them landing in Dallas-Fort Worth — water and state officials are exploring all sorts of alternatives to meet critical needs.
At the 2014 North Texas Water Summit, hosted by the North Texas Commission at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport Marriott, experts talked about projects that will convert wastewater to drinking water, tap the Gulf of Mexico for water for coastal towns and push strict conservation to stretch the state’s supply.
Some of those projects could get a jump-start from the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas — SWIFT — using $2 billion for loans from the state’s rainy-day fund after voter approval last year.
“We have to build projects — we have to do that,” said Carole Baker, executive director of the Texas Water Foundation. “And there are so many new technologies out there that can be funded upfront [with SWIFT money] that will make your projects so much more effective.”
Robert Mace, deputy executive administrator for the Texas Water Development Board, said almost any project focusing on infrastructure improvements can receive SWIFT funds — “desalinization plants, storing water underground, pipe replacement, pipelines and reservoirs.”
Coupled with significant conservation, new approaches to providing water can help meet the state’s steadily increasing demands.
Good thing, said Ken Armbrister, a former state senator and now legislative director in the governor’s office.
He said the state is 14 years into its 50-year water plan, which calls for 29 new reservoirs.
“We’re never going to build 29 reservoirs in the years left in this plan,” Armbrister said. “The last two lakes we built took 28 and 32 years. Maybe we’ll get two or three.”
But concerted conservation can reduce demands on the state’s existing reservoirs, and new approaches could provide water enough to meet the growing population.
“I believe conservation is everybody’s business,” said Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, who gave the summit’s official welcome. Conservation — including limiting landscape watering to twice a week — will allow Dallas to put off a major water supply project for 10 years.
“And my lawn is just as green watering two times a week,” Rawlings said.
But cutting back on water use is just part of the solution. State Rep. James Frank, R-Wichita Falls, told Armbrister his city has only six to seven months of water left in its reservoirs without significant rainfall this spring.
Wichita Falls is turning to reuse — running wastewater through a sophisticated filtering and treatment process and returning it to the water supply. Big Spring, in West Texas, is already using a similar system.
South Padre Island is considering a saltwater desalinization plant, a process that could be considerably more expensive than existing projects that convert brackish groundwater to freshwater. Those are “very affordable compared with other strategies,” Mace said.
But sometimes there isn’t enough groundwater available. The Dallas area sits on the Trinity Aquifer, a significant source of water in the region’s early days, Baker said.
“Unfortunately, though we’re blessed with this aquifer, it doesn’t provide enough water for the metroplex,” she said. “It used to be 50 feet below the land surface. Now it’s 1,000 feet below.”
Joe Straus, speaker of the Texas House, closed the summit by lauding what he called “a remarkable team effort … to make the largest investment in water infrastructure in the state’s history.”
The approval of Proposition 6 last year showed broad voter approval and bipartisan agreement among officials.
“In community after community, Democratic and Republican leaders joined to voice their support,” Straus said, and voters responded.
“It was a very important signal from the voters,” he said. “They not only approved money for water projects, but they showed they are willing to support bold solutions.”
