Texas Comptroller Visits North Texas for Third Stop of Good for Texas Tour: Water Edition
WYLIE, TX – September 22, 2022: Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar today visited the North Texas Municipal Water District (NTMWD) on the North Texas stop of his Good for Texas Tour: Water Edition. The NTMWD is overseeing the construction of Bois d’Arc Lake in northeast Texas, the first major Texas reservoir to be built in 30 years. This surface water project is being built to meet a population expected to nearly double in the NTMWD region by 2050.
“Once completed, the Bois d’Arc Lake would provide up to 82 million gallons of water per day to the North Texas region, highlighting the efficient coordination between state, local and city governments,” said Hegar, a member of the board of advisers for the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas (SWIFT), a critical financial assistance tool for high-cost projects. “The project is funded with a nearly $1.5 billion investment from the SWIFT program, which will save the district and its taxpayers $240 million in financing costs.”
During his Good for Texas Tour: Water Edition, Hegar is sharing the results of a new Comptroller’s office report highlighting the roles that water planning and management play in ensuring enough water is available for future generations of Texas families and businesses. He is touring a handful of key water facilities across the state, focusing on water topics such as desalination, aquifers, cloud seeding, surface water, canal systems, groundwater, flood mitigation and water reuse.
The NTMWD provides essential water, wastewater and solid waste disposal services to 2 million people across 10 counties in North Texas.
The Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) estimates that implementing new water infrastructure will require $80 billion in capital costs over the next 50 years, and $47 billion of that is expected to come from state financial programs. This funding is essential: TWDB reports Texas’ water demands are projected to increase by about 9 percent over the next 50 years, while its existing water supplies are estimated to decline by about 18 percent during that same time.
Given increasing municipal water demands, the 2022 State Water Plan projects the highest percentage of new water supplies in 2070 will come from strategies based on surface water, which is water that is located above ground in rivers, lakes, bays, ponds, wetlands, marshes, canals, estuaries and reservoirs. Texas has 7.2 million acre-feet of surface water available. The water plan recommends 1,829 new surface water projects — including 23 new major reservoirs. This will provide an additional 2.8 million acre-feet of water per year by 2070. Surface water projects will account for 37 percent of the proposed new water supplies by 2070, up 24 percent from 2020.