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By David Bowser AMARILLO
— T. Boone Pickens is optimistic that he'll be able to sell the
water beneath his Texas Panhandle ranch. He says interest is
increasing. Pickens,
a Dallas businessman and Panhandle rancher, heads Mesa Water Inc., a
company he established to sell ground water from Roberts County in the
rural Texas Panhandle to thirsty cities downstate. "I
think everything's going along about as well as you could
expect," Pickens says. "We've got interest." He's
in talks with the Brazos River Authority about using the river to move
water downstate, and this month, the Dallas City Council refused to
fund a $600,000 study in connection with the proposed Marvin Nichols
Reservoir on the Sulphur River near Gilmer in East Texas. That
project was initially estimated to cost about $1.7 billion. Pickens
says today it would probably cost closer to $3 billion. "That
has been roundly opposed by the people over in East Texas,"
Pickens says. Senate
Bill 1, which addressed water planning in the state in 1997,
established 16 water planning groups across the State of Texas. The
water planning group for North Texas, which includes the Dallas-Fort
Worth Metroplex, initially listed the Marvin Nichols Reservoir as a
future water source. "That's
been removed now because there's been such a ruckus caused by damming
up the Sulphur River," Pickens says. "It would encompass
something like 65,000 acres of surface water." A
second water source, the Toledo Bend project, will take a long time to
build and develop. A
third water source, Mesa's plan to pipe ground water from the
Panhandle to the Metroplex area, however, has received little
criticism in North Texas, a sign Pickens sees as positive. "When
you look at our competition, they're slowly but surely eliminating
themselves," Pickens says. "Marvin Nichols is fading away in
the sunset. Toledo Bend looks like it’s going to take a long time to
put together." Major
water projects take time to develop, and therein may lie Pickens'
strength. "That's
starting to be a pretty interesting factor," he says. When
communities realize they need more water, they need it within a year
or two. "It
takes a lot longer than that to do it," Pickens points out. Major
water projects can take decades to develop and implement. "We
are ready to go," Pickens insists. The
question is where will it go. "When
you look back over at who has water," Pickens says, "Dallas
is in pretty good shape for water." Because
of the drouth of the 1950s, the leadership of Dallas responded and
built a series of reservoirs around the city, but that water is for
the City of Dallas, not the surrounding suburbs. "That
water doesn't go to North Texas," Pickens points out.
"That's North Texas Municipal Water Authority. They have Irving
and Rowlett and Frisco and those towns around Dallas. They have a
problem." It's
not Dallas that has a problem with water, or lack thereof. It's the
surrounding communities that have the problem, and it will show up by
2009, Pickens predicts. The
Dallas suburbs that have been expanding rapidly for the last several
decades are now looking at what could happen to them if they don't
have enough water. "Marvin
Nichols was the water that was going to help them the most,"
Pickens says. The
Toledo Bend project was expected to bring about 600,000 acre-feet of
water to the Metroplex over a 50-year period. "That
also was about a $3 billion project," Pickens says. While
the Dallas City Council seemed less than pleased with the Marvin
Nichols and Toledo Bend projects, they did not criticize the Mesa
project. "We're
being looked at very seriously," Pickens says. Mesa
Water is listed in the region's plan as a potential water supplier. Tom
Kolius, a business development specialist for an Amarillo real estate
company, says an increasing consideration is the timeline involved in
producing water. "I
think Mesa Water's pretty confident that it can do this pretty
quickly," Kolius says. "We're
permitted to do it now," Pickens says. "We still believe
that if a deal is struck in '04, we could be producing by '09." The
only thing slowing Pickens down is finding a buyer. "We
have made an agreement in principle with the Brazos River
Authority," Pickens says. He
says it's a totally different prospect for sale than he's ever dealt
with before. "We're
working diligently with them to finalize that agreement," Pickens
says. "What that might call for — underline ‘might’ because
I'm not sure this is the route we want to go — but it could be that
we would put a pipeline down to Possum Kingdom and put the water into
the Brazos at Possum Kingdom." The
water would go down the Brazos and could be withdrawn and moved to San
Antonio by pipeline, or the water could go all the way down the Brazos
to south of Houston and be taken to Houston. It could also be taken
out and piped to the Metroplex. "My
feeling is that it's more likely, if you're going to go into the
Metroplex with it, you'd never put it in the Brazos," Pickens
says. Mesa
has engineering studies on a number of possible pipeline routes from
Roberts County to various end points. One
study, presented to a Texas House Natural Resources Committee hearing
almost two years ago, calls for a 323 mile-long pipeline paralleling
the CRMWA pipeline from Lake Meredith through Amarillo to Lubbock,
then on down through West Texas. Pickens
says Mesa proposed to go down through West Texas because there are
more than 40 towns in the region that need additional water. "The
CRMWA line is getting pretty old," Pickens points out. "It
was put in, I believe, in 1968. That line is almost 40 years
old." Pickens
says he'd planned to parallel the CRMWA line, making it a redundant
system and service some 42 towns along the way. "You'd
go into Midland-Odessa, then out of Midland-Odessa to San Angelo, go
just south of Lake Ivie, and you could tie into the Abilene line that
comes into Lake Ivie and pump out of this line back up to Abilene
north," Pickens says. "Then the line could actually go to
San Antonio." To
make that work, however, San Antonio would have to sign on for 150,000
acre-feet of water per year. "You
have to have volume," Pickens says. "You have to really sell
some water." The
small towns along the route would take only about 50,000 acre-feet a
year. San
Antonio is growing fast, and while they use the Edwards Aquifer, they
are at the mercy of the Lower Colorado River Authority. "There's
always a water question in San Antonio," Pickens says. Another
proposed pipeline could take water to the Metroplex. "The
one we proposed to North Texas would be 328 miles long," Pickens
says. "This has already been done, as far as building a pipeline
300 miles long." Pickens
has also explored building a pipeline to reach El Paso. After
laying all that out, however, he says he never heard from anybody
wanting to buy his water. Yet,
he remains optimistic that he will be able to sell his water as the
need becomes more critical. It
is a complex issue, and often an emotional one. While
there has been concern in some areas that environmental activists may
try to block Mesa's plans to transport water from the Panhandle to
urban areas, Pickens says he doesn't think that will happen. "I
don't believe so," Pickens says. "Environmentalists seem to
have practically no interest in what we're doing." He
notes that a lot of pipelines are being built. The problem is when
habitat is damaged by a pipeline, but Pickens says a water pipeline
from Roberts County to North Texas can be pretty selective. "One
of the environmentalists told me that the problem they have with our
deal is that we're helping the insatiable appetite of the Metroplex,"
Pickens says. "They have the highest water use per capita of any
place in the state, and we're going to give them more water." Pickens
says environmentalists like the Mesa deal because the water is all
“new” water. "It's
water that goes into the system," Pickens says. "Then some
of that gets into the wetlands, and they like that. It's totally
unused. It's stranded, surplus water." Pickens
also has a good reputation for improving wildlife habitat at his
ranch. "I
haven't gotten one complaint from environmentalists," Pickens
says. Using
ground water from the Panhandle also simplifies some of the business
dealings. "Surface
water in Texas is owned by the state," Pickens points out.
"Ground water is owned by the landowner." In
other states, water laws vary, but one thing is for sure. The demand
for water is rising and the supply is limited. |
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