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The City of Richardson's new City Council held their first substantive meeting June 5, 2024. The agenda was packed with meaty subjects (water, wastewater, new city hall, Texas legislature). It was a refreshing change from the usual diet of considering whether to approve a new drive-through chicken restaurant (spoiler: it's always yes). All that and a new City Council still finding their place on the dais. Let's focus on that new City Council and how they reacted to the topic of long-range water supply planning.
NTMWD
Much of the planning is done in collaboration with other cities in the North Texas Municipal Water District (NTMWD). That graph above shows the ticking time bomb facing us. As early as 2036 (just thirteen years from now), demand will exceed supply. NTMWD is working on a whole slew of mitigations (conservation and reuse being a couple), but they forecast new reservoirs will be needed to meet 17% of future demand. How confident are we that we can meet that demand? The recently opened Bois d'Arc reservoir was the first major reservoir constructed in Texas in over 30 years. No other reservoir is under construction. So, Council member Jennifer Justice gets our first honorable mention for asking "where are you in the process of deciding which one we're going forward with."
Council member Dan Barrios gets an honorable mention for zeroing in on the question Justice raised. "That 2036 number is a big one. And as she mentioned, it took 30 years to get a new reservoir. I heard that you were working on it. I have no doubt you are. But what I didn't hear were some details on the timeline that's a very few years away... What are your biggest drop dead dates? And when can we expect to see a new start?" This is a key question. A 30 year project needs interim milestones to avoid being surprised in 30 years. The answer Barrios received was all over the place. NTMWD is not just working on a new reservoir. "There's a couple of other things that we're in active negotiations regarding that we're not able to provide detail on because we're in active negotiations." Barrios was never given any short term schedule deadlines for any of them. But he gets credit for asking.
Council member Joe Corcoran asked about money. First, how the transition to NTMWD's new cost-sharing formula among its cities is going (answer is good), and second, how the bill the Texas legislature passed, creating a $1 billion fund to finance water projects in the state meets NTMWD's needs (answer is $1 billion for the state meets NTMWD minimum ask). For both of these good questions, Joe Corcoran also earns an honorable mention.
Council member Ken Hutchenrider asked if NTMWD would ever take on new cities and what that would do to projections of supply and demand. The answer is that, now that Bois d'Arc is online, NTMWD will be studying that question. For this risk management question, Hutchenrider earns an honorable mention. Hutchenrider pointed out that besides road maintenance, the water rate is probably the number one concern he hears about from constituents. A slide shows that the rate NTMWD charges cities is expected to double in the next ten years. The answer to cost control was vague and unspecific ("It's something that's on our radar and we're paying attention to and looking for how to minimize the impact and provide the service.").
Council member Curtis Dorian asked about how much benefit we can get using "conservation and sustainable materials, such as artificial turf and other indigenous plants." The answer was that NTMWD doesn't have a specific number on that. Still, Dorian gets honorable mention for showing interest in conservation, even if he phrased it in such an odd way ("artificial turf and other indigenous plants").
Mayor Pro Tem Arefin asked about not just capacity in terms of reservoirs, but the capacity of the system to deliver the water to cities. NTMWD answered that they are conducting three studies on water treatment capacity and transmission capacity. Reportedly, based on projections through 2040, NTMWD is in good shape. Arefin gets an honorable mention for focusing on an engineering aspect of the problem that he is best qualified to analyze and critique.
That brings us to our new Mayor Bob Dubey. He asked no questions. He made no requests. He wrapped up the time the Council devoted to NTMWD by saying, "Are we going to have to pay a little bit more? Possibly, and probably..." How about certainly? There was no doubt in NTMWD's presentation. There was no doubt in John Sweeden's comments (Sweeden is one of two City representatives on the NTMWD board). Several Council members honed in on steadily rising water rate as a primary citizen concern. If there was any doubt in the Mayor's mind, he should have grilled the NTMWD about what was needed to keep those rates from going up.
Instead, Dubey went on, "The message that [NTMWD] are sending is hey, we have a job to do and it's way out there 50 years from now." NTMWD's job is not "50 years from now." Even if it were, 50 years is not "way out there." Remember, NTMWD's rate is set to double in the next ten years. That's a problem now. NTMWD has a job to do now.
Dubey concluded with, "They're doing a great job." If the job is supplying water, I'd agree they are doing that. Great. If the job is to supply water at rates growing no faster than people's incomes, then NTMWD isn't doing a "great job." Maybe the problem is that Dubey hasn't told NTMWD (or us) what he's asking NTMWD to do. Dubey's blasé attitude risks giving citizens a false sense of security. For all that, I'd give Dubey the "Is he living on the planet Mars?" award, except that if he were on Mars, he'd know the importance of water.
P.S. In case you missed it, this week's national news ("Arizona Limits Construction Around Phoenix as Its Water Supply Dwindles") is a warning sign that there's a limit to growth. Just keeping that limit at bay takes everything we've got.
to keep in the same place.
If you want to get somewhere else,
you must run at least twice as fast as that!"
— Red Queen, Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll,
I've written too much already but there's too much left to say...about getting NTMWD-supplied water from the City's pumping stations to your house, about treating and getting rid of wastewater, about the plans to rebuild City Hall, and about how the Texas State legislature treated cities in the just finished term (spoiler: badly, as usual, but it's how Richardson is talking about it that I find worthy of comment). Maybe I'll cover those in a future post. Or not. I'm exhausted.
Part 2: "Our New Council Discusses Water, City Hall, and Texas Leg"
1 comment:
I didn't mention it in my piece, but I was struck by how this public utility, without experts on the public's side, is rife with opportunity for graft. I ask myself how the public would know if that's happening. I don't have the answer.
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