Background info on the proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir Projects

Basics

The proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir would inundate more than 65,000 acres of productive Northeast Texas bottomland, land that is very valuable for timber, agriculture, and wildlife habitat. An alternative project, referred to in the State Water Plan as “Sulphur Basin Supplies”, would combine a 42,000-acre version of Marvin Nichols Reservoir with raising the level of Lake Wright Patman. This project would inundate over 50,000 acres. The negative repercussions of building the Marvin Nichols project would be huge -- and would fall on the people and businesses of Northeast Texas.

Building either version would force hundreds of families to sell their land – land that provides their livelihoods and sometimes includes their homes, land that in some cases has been in the family since the 1800’s. In addition to the acres that would go under water, at least an equal amount of land, probably more (possibly a lot more) would be taken out of production and set aside to mitigate the enormous negative environmental impacts. The timber and agribusiness industries in Northeast Texas – and all economic activity dependent on these industries – would be devastated by the lost production.

At least 80% of the water would be piped to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The cost of developing any water not sent to the DFW Metroplex would have to be paid for by local residents.

Negative Economic Impacts:

The negative economic impacts on the 15-country region affected by construction of Marvin Nichols Reservoir would be devastating to the region’s economy. The No. 1 industry in the area is production of timber, in this case largely hardwood timber, which grows primarily in the nutrient-rich, well-watered river and creek bottoms. Taking upwards of 150,000 acres out of production would impact not only the timber industry itself, but all agribusiness, retail, and secondary economic activities fueled by the timber industry, such as banks, grocery stores, farm equipment outlets, restaurants, and gas stations.

Dr. Weihuan Xu, at the time the Principal Economist for the State of Texas, estimated in 2002 that the timber industry alone would lose from $51 million to $163 million in annual output, depending on how much mitigation land was taken out of production, and would suffer a loss of 417 to 1334 jobs. International Paper Company (IP) has indicated that the losses to the timber base from building Marvin Nichols Reservoir could cause them to have to shut down their Texarkana mill. Without the IP mill, timber growers from NE Texas, NW Louisiana, SE Oklahoma, and SW Arkansas would have to haul their products much farther to other mills, an economic burden on a large region.

When the Region C Water Planning Group and the Texas Water Development Board estimate the “cost” of Marvin Nichols or one of the other reservoirs, they count only the construction costs, not the negative economic impacts. Economists hired by the companies which make vast revenues off building reservoirs routinely exaggerate the economic “benefits” of a reservoir (such as bait shops and fish camps) while undercounting the negative impacts to the entire local economy.

The Best Alternative to

Building Marvin Nichols:

There have been a number of water supply options that have been proposed in place of building Marvin Nichols Reservoir: building other reservoirs, piping water to DFW from Toledo Bend Reservoir, desalinating or blending additional water from Lake Texoma, or pumping water from the Sulphur River into existing lakes.

The most economical and lowest-impact option to provide additional new water supply to meet the DFW Metroplex’s future water needs is municipal water recycling.

Water that goes down the drain in urban-area homes and businesses is captured and taken to a wastewater treatment plant to be cleaned enough to be released into a nearby stream. With municipal water recycling, also called municipal water reuse, some of this water is given advanced treatment, filtering it sufficiently to put it back into a water supply lake, or, in some cases, purifying it so that it can go directly into a city’s water supply.

There are various ways to recycle water. Manmade wetlands or high-tech filters can filter out excess nutrients, such as nitrogen, phosphorous, and ammonia, so that water can safely be returned to a city’s water supply lake. Reverse osmosis, combined with purification techniques such as ultraviolet light, can result in water with a much higher purity than most of the water we drink, suitable to be put directly back into a city’s water distribution system.

The benefits of municipal water recycling are enormous:

First, municipal water recycling is usually the lowest-cost source of new water supply. Texas Conservation Alliance commissioned a cost analysis by a nationally-known engineering firm, Kleinfelder, which estimated the cost of building a direct water recycling facility for the DFW area. The cost per unit of water Kleinfelder project from the facility would be about half the cost per unit of water from the proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir. Also, water recycling facilities can be built on a relative small scale, as the demand for water gradually increases, avoiding the huge up-front costs and long-term debt a project such as a big reservoir entails.

As water use grows, the amount of water available for recycling will also grow, making this source of water drought-proof.

Water recycling facilities impact much less land than building a new reservoir. The Elm Fork Wetland, for example, which filters wastewater to be piped into Lake Lavon, can provide roughly the same yield as Lake Lavon itself provides, while using about one-tenth the number of acres. Recycling facilities using high-tech filtration techniques can be located at existing water treatment or wastewater treatment sites and avoid impacting rivers and creeks.

When wetlands are used to filter water, the wetland area provides wonderful habitat for wildlife, fish, birds, and other aquatic organisms, and creates an opportunity for outdoor recreation and environmental education.

It Is Questionable whether Marvin Nichols (or the variation called Sulphur Basin Supplies) could be mitigated:

Many biologists and persons knowledgeable about federal mitigation question whether there is enough suitable land left in the Sulphur Basin to mitigate for the various kinds of wetlands that would be inundated by Marvin Nichols Reservoir.

Below is a summary of what mitigation is and how it would apply to the projects proposed in the Sulphur Basin.

Basics about Mitigation:

Section 404 of the federal Clean Water Act requires that any entity must have a federal permit whenever wetlands are dredged or filled. The 404 permit (“four-oh-four”), as it has come to be called, is technically granted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), but it is the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that actually works with the permit applicant and makes the determination of how much mitigation is required. Both U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the relevant state game and fish agency, in this case Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD), participate and provide input. The EPA provides comments on each stage of drafting the Environmental Impact Statement and has the authority to reverse the Corps’ decision (though rarely does).

Whenever wetlands are dredged or filled, there must be land set aside in perpetuity to compensate for the lost wetlands and wildlife habitat. This is referred to as mitigation land.

The amount of land required to mitigate a given project is determined by a formula of habitat values. It is not just a matter of how many acres will be lost to the project, but also how high-quality the habitat on those acres is. There’s also a provision that the mitigation land be “like kind” – that is, of the same habitat type as the land that is impacted. Bottomland hardwood forests must be chosen to compensate for bottomland hardwood forests lost, emergent wetlands to mitigate for emergent wetlands, etc. The mitigation lands are to be located as close as possible to the site of the project being mitigated.

The amount of acreage that would be set aside to compensate for lost wetlands and wildlife habitat for the proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir has not been officially determined – and wouldn’t be until the permitting process. There have, however, been some estimates. A preliminary look at it by USFWS and TPWD in 1990 yielded an estimate of 163,521 to 648,578 acres, depending on how intensive the management for enhancement would be. The consulting engineers to the Region C Water Planning Group in the DFW area, Freese and Nichols, who would also be the lead engineers for the Marvin Nichols project, contends that the amount of mitigation would be less than the lower figure in the 1990 study. We at Texas Conservation Alliance would be surprised if it were not at least in the neighborhood of 150,000 acres. The reservoir and the lowest number of acres estimated by USFWS/TPWD together would mean 235,000 acres taken out of production.

As noted above, many people doubt whether there is sufficient like-kind habitat left in the Sulphur River basin, or in Northeast Texas generally, to mitigate the impacts of the Marvin Nichols project.

Sulphur Basin “package”:

Some members of the Region C Water Planning Group are promoting construction of three reservoirs in the Sulphur Basin – Marvin Nichols, George Parkhouse I, and George Parkhouse II – as well as raising the level of Lake Wright Patman. Encouraging such massive construction is irresponsible. Developing that much water storage capacity is not needed and not economical. Building a reservoir upstream of another reduces the yield of the downstream reservoir. Each additional lake constructed on the same water course results in diminishing returns. If all these reservoirs were to be built, it is questionable whether the last one would even significantly increase the water supply in the basin.