Locals still working to keep reservoir out of state water plan

Water.

Or maybe a better description would be water rights, but either way you look at it, they are a valuable commodity. When you look at long range plans for any community, any size or any place, you have to look at water.

People need water to drink, manufacturers need water to operate, and whether we want to look at it that way or not, water is a key ingredient to the current and future prosperity of Northeast Texas.

For about 20 years now, the name Marvin Nichols Reservoir has been kicked around in our area and across the State of Texas. This proposed behemoth, 66,000 acres, would fill up the Sulphur River Basin with a mostly shallow reservoir, and eat up another thousands of acres required for mitigation.

One might ask, do we need this lake to fulfill our water needs for say oh the next 100 years? The answer to that question would be no.

So why has the name Marvin Nichols Reservoir hung around so long? The answer to that is pretty easy to explain.

If you ever drive up around Dallas, you have seen the answer with your own eyes. Places like McKinney, Frisco and The Colony, once suburbs of Dallas and little more than cow pastures and corn fields, are now connected to the beast called DFW and growing more every day. Corn fields have been replaced with shopping malls, strip centers, high rise towers, and residential neighborhoods that stretch as far as the eye can see.

With all of that expansion comes people and businesses. Both of which need water for drinking, manufacturing, fire protection, etc.

You take all of that and lump it together and Dallas/Ft.Worth needs our water. Their thirst for the water and the associated water rights is insatiable. They want to protect their needs, their forecasts and their growth, regardless of whether we have a need in our area or not.

Case in point would be the newly approved $1.2 billion Lower Bois d’Arc Creek Reservoir over around Honey Grove. Not nearly as big as Marvin Nichols, but it was finally approved by the federal government after a 15-year battle. Now those folks over there are dealing with the loss of their lands, and their history. Bois D’Arc is filling up rapidly with all of the rains we have seen this year, so maybe soon we can see exactly what benefits it brings to those who live around it.

It is time again for a state water plan and Region C again wants Marvin Nichols in that 2022 plan. The Marvin Nichols Reservoir, proposed on the main stem of the Sulphur River in Red River and Titus Counties, would flood 66,000 acres of heritage farmland, hardwood forest, and wetlands. The impacts will be felt across the entire region. An estimated 130,000 additional acres would be removed from private land ownership for mitigation required by the federal government. In fact, experts say that there is not enough available resources in the Sulphur River bottoms to mitigate all that will be required for the lake’s construction.

A new group has been actively working toward keeping the proposed reservoir out of that 2022 water plan. Preserve Northeast Texas-Stop Marvin Nichols was formed by a group of area citizens that have been fighting the creation of the lake for decades. They say the projected cost of the project is an astonishing $4.4 billion and expected to climb higher. At least 80% of the water would be piped to DFW and its completion would force property owners off thousands of acres of family lands, drown resources that would devastate the timber and agriculture-based economy in the region, negatively impact wildlife habitat and inundate archaeological and historic sites and cemeteries.

To learn more about the proposed reservoir, or to join the effort to stop its construction, go to https://preservenortheasttexas.org/