Water is key to the future

Water is key to the future

It is spring 2022 in North Texas and we are experiencing drought again. Water is the key to sustainable development for all of the DFW Metroplex, both cities and unincorporated areas. It is a complex subject, but a long-term, stable water supply is the solution.

The key agency  providing water to Fort Worth and surrounding areas is  the Tarrant Regional Water District (TRWD), created in the 1920s after a major flood. Today that agency with its non-partisan elected board operates four major reservoirs, including Bridgeport and Eagle Mountain Lakes that feed into Lake Worth. They also operate Cedar Creek Lake near Athens and Richland-Chambers Lake near Corsicana.

The TRWD used eminent domain to obtain the lands in East Texas to build these lakes. Amon Carter, the father of Fort Worth,  was a shrewd man who saw that the cycle of floods and droughts had to be controlled by these lakes. No water — no Fort Worth.

You can imagine how the citizens of Corsicana felt about Tarrant County’s condemnation of their farmers’ land to capture water for Tarrant County. There were a lot of lawsuits to say the least. A pipeline connecting Richland-Chambers to Benbrook Lake was completed around 1998.

I invite you to look at the TRWD website to study the history. Some very forward-thinking people understood what flood control and the capture of water into reservoirs meant.

Climate changes are not the subject of this essay. The purpose here is to help our local citizens realize that even here in Parker County we need a reliable source of water to continue the phenomenal growth. Well water is not a long-term, reliable source. Hard to believe, but there can be more water captured into lakes than into subsurface aquifers.

When it rains around here, it rains hard and the reservoirs need to be there to capture the water before it flows to the Gulf of Mexico.

Aledo was the first city in this area to tie onto the TWRD water, followed by Willow Park. Others have to follow because the wells do not provide enough water for these cities.

Those of us who live in unincorporated areas, meaning part of no city, rely on personal wells. Our unincorporated areas may eventually have to form water districts to contract with TRWD for a permanent supply.

You may say that the drought and flood cycles are part of nature and that things balance out. That may have been true for the past 100 years. The population growth and demand for water will eventually upset the balance of nature.

We need to calmly and deliberately plan for water for the future so that there will be water for people living here for the next 100 years to come.