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Wading into future

City plans for increased water demand

Planning for growth is a bit of a guessing game as to the when, where and how fast it happens.

But it becomes a critically important issue when it comes to meeting the water needs associated with that growth.

FUTURE NEED – The city of Decatur will need another elevated water storage facility in the future, according to a water study. Messenger photo by Mack Thweatt

Decatur City Manager Brett Shannon said the city is in good position to meet that growth, but it must constantly monitor residential and commercial growth and water usage to make sure the city keeps up with demand.

To understand how the city is keeping an eye on the future, it’s necessary to look at the rather unique history of how the city supplies its residents with water.

In the city’s earliest days, the town relied on water wells, but around 1950, the city did a study to look at the feasibility of expanding a reservoir southeast of town to provide the town’s water.

The study concluded that would not be a good option.

“The results of that study showed that given the annual rainfall, that in periods of extreme drought, it would basically be a mud hole,” Shannon said.

The city then began discussions with the Tarrant Regional Water District, which owns the water rights at Lake Bridgeport. The lake was built in the 1930s as a flood control reservoir for the City of Fort Worth.

The city would need to build a pump house at the lake, a raw water pipeline from the lake to the city and a water plant.

But there was a problem with how to pay for the water service – the city already had the maximum tax rate allowed by law of $1.50 per $100 valuation. Shannon pointed out that was back in a time when different taxing entities might only tax at certain percentages of property valuations before they were required to tax at 100 percent valuations like they do now.

That’s when the idea of creating a water district for the city was explored.

“The idea was to create the Wise County Water Supply District basically to be a financing mechanism for surface water, and there was enabling legislation introduced and shepherded through the 53rd Legislature that provided them the mechanism to issue the debt,” to build the aforementioned infrastructure.

With an eye to the future, the city not only purchased the land to build the current water plant but also enough property to double its size at some point in the future.

By the mid-1960s, the water plant came online, and water from Lake Bridgeport made its way to customers in the city.

The allocation from TRWD has increased over the years, from 1,000 acre feet a year to the current level of 4,000 acre feet per year. Shannon said when the allocation was increased to 4,000 in the early 1990s, it was estimated that at the rate the city was growing, it could serve a population of 18,000.

Shannon said the annual amount of water pulled from Lake Bridgeport is often affected by how much rain the area receives. With higher than normal rainfall in the past year, for instance, Shannon said the city has used less than 1,500 acre feet, but even in dry years, the city has never pulled as much as 2,000 acre feet.

“So we’re in no danger of hitting our allocation limit, and even if we get to the point where we needed to double our plant, we’re still OK,” he said.

The water district acts as a wholesaler, purchasing the water from TRWD, and the city is the retailer, responsible for the maintenance and operation of the water plant, Shannon explained.

In the enabling legislation, the water district’s boundaries were set up to match the city limits. The law requires the city to hold an election each time the city annexes land to allow citizens to vote on expanding the water district to add to its boundary accordingly.

While it may seem fairly straight-forward, Shannon said the ballot language required by the state can often lead voters to think they are voting on a tax increase when they really are not.

In fact, the latest proposition to expand the water district’s boundaries to include the newly-annexed land a year ago failed 51 to 49 percent.

Shannon said what that means is the water district can’t tax that newly annexed area, meaning other city residents are paying for it instead.

Over the years, the city has made improvements to its water system. For instance, in 1997, the water district issued the debt on the overhead storage tank on Sunset Hill on land owned by the city.

The water district has also purchased land for a future overhead storage tank to replace an aging tank on Thompson Street. Shannon said in that case, it will be the opposite case of the Sunset Hill tank in that the water district will own the land and the city will own the tank itself.

At a city council meeting in August, City Engineer Earl Smith said the new 1 million gallon Thompson Street replacement tank would “meet (the city’s) elevated storage for a 30-year planning window.”

Shannon said the city will also continue to monitor the type of growth seen in the city.

“We have to watch what we try to recruit for the industrial park, for example, if someone needs 5 million gallons a day for their operation, we can’t do that. But we keep an eye on things like multifamily developments or any type of larger use,” he said.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) will also be monitoring the city’s water capacity and will essentially require the city to expand its plant when the time comes.

“TCEQ has a rule, when we get to 75 percent of your permitted intake on water or outflow on sewer, if you can’t get those allocation numbers increased, when you hit 75 percent of those limits, they expect you to get engineering work started to get ready to build an expansion, and when it gets to 90 percent, they expect you to be letting bids and beginning construction,” Shannon said.

If a city doesn’t begin the expansion project at that point, they face steep fines from TCEQ.

The city is currently running at about 60 to 65 percent, he said.

So while there is still plenty of uncertainty about what future growth will look like or what future state legislatures will do to current laws, Shannon said the city is in good position to address that growth.

“We have the property already under deed for the tank on Thompson Street and for the plant expansion adjacent to the existing water plant,” he said. “So we feel like given our size community, our citizens’ tolerance of taxes, we’ve tried to position ourselves the best we can within the limits of what people will tolerate or accept.”

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