Implementation in Region H, a state water planning area for the Houston Area, of massive water projects will provide water for growth but will cause environmental impacts. These impacts will affect rivers, lakes, wetlands, wildlife habitat, and Galveston Bay. This transition and transformation from groundwater to surface water is implementation of part of the Texas Water Plan. Surface water supply lakes in the Houston Area include Lakes Houston, Conroe, and Livingston.
The Region H area covers Harris, Galveston, Brazoria, Fort Bend, Waller, Austin, Chambers, Liberty, Montgomery, San Jacinto, Polk, Trinity, Walker, Madison, and Leon Counties. There are regional water projects and proposals from the City of Houston, other cities and counties, and water districts and river authorities that will provide raw and drinking water supply distribution and or purification for residential, municipal, commercial, industrial, agricultural, recreational, wildlife, river, and bay/estuary needs.
For instance, the North Harris County Regional Water Authority (NHCRWA), which was created by the Texas legislature and approved by public vote in January 2000, secures surface water and distributes it to municipal utility districts (MUDs) to reduce groundwater use. This has been done so that subsidence (sinking of the land), due to groundwater withdrawal, is slowed or stopped as required by a plan implemented and enforced by the Harris-Galveston Subsidence District.
One huge project, which will help convert the City of Houston, Harris County, Montgomery County, and other local areas from groundwater to surface water, is the Luce Bayou Interbasin Transfer Project. The Luce Bayou Project brings water from Lake Livingston and the Trinity River to Lake Houston and the San Jacinto River where it will be treated to drinking water standards by the City of Houston’s Northeast Water Purification Plant (NEWPP). The entities working to implement the Luce Bayou Project are the City of Houston, NHCRWA, West Harris County Regional Water Authority, Central Harris County Regional Water Authority, North Fort Bend Water Authority, and the Coastal Water Authority, which provides water to Houston Ship Channel industries and City of Houston.
The Luce Bayou Project begins at Capers Ridge on the Trinity River. A huge pumping station is being built here which can divert as much as 500 million gallons of water a day from the Trinity River, via two underground 8-foot diameter pipelines, to a storage and sedimentation basin, and then into a canal which will take the water to the NEWPP on Lake Houston.
The City of Houston is expanding the NEWPP so that it can increase drinking water treatment from 80 million gallons a day to 400 million gallons a day. The NHCRWA, by 2025, will have to construct two major pump stations and 94 miles of transmission and distribution lines to link to at least 45 MUDs. NHCRWA already has constructed an 84-inch Northeast Transmission Line and is building 16.5 miles of additional transmission line which will deliver 113 million gallons of treated water a day from the NEWPP to a new SH 249 Regional Pump Station and Storage Facility. The size of these lines is staggering. One 2,200-foot segment has a 120-inch line (10 feet in diameter) and another segment has a 9-foot diameter line that will be almost 8 miles long.
While this water will supply present water needs it will also fuel future growth in the Region H area. This will create significant population and development pressure on river, stream, forest, prairie, wetlands, and other habitats as well as Galveston Bay. Some of the environmental issues that result from supplying water for massive population and development growth in the future include the need for:
1) Freshwater flows to protect optimal year-round habitat for rivers/streams and Galveston Bay/other bays/estuaries to ensure that fish, wildlife, riparian woodlands (streamside vegetation), bottomland hardwood forested wetlands, and other sensitive areas are healthy.
2) Strong water conservation requirements for residential, municipal, commercial, industrial, institutional, and agricultural uses so water supplies are not wasted which would require that more water is pumped (energy used and climate change pollution created) due to inefficient water use.
3) Reuse of water return flows that guarantees rivers/streams and bays/estuaries are not harmed.
4) The addition of new ecologically unique stream segments in the Region H area and Sam Houston National Forest including Caney Creek, Little Lake Creek, Winters Bayou, and the East and West Forks of the San Jacinto River.
5) A survey of area residents to determine what they, their children, and grandchildren want between now and 2070 regarding Quality of Life, environmental health, and population growth. The survey should make clear how a doubling of population to over 11 million in our area will impact their desires and could result in the construction of more ecologically damaging water projects.
6) Removal of proposed environmentally destructive and unneeded dams (like Millican Dam) and the giant Sabine to Region H pipeline/canal water transfer project because of the unacceptable environmental impacts they would have on Sam Houston National Forest, fish, wildlife, riparian woodlands (streamside vegetation), bottomland hardwood forested wetlands, Brazos River, Trinity River, San Jacinto River, Neches River, Sabine River, Big Thicket National Preserve, Galveston Bay, and Sabine Lake.
We can have adequate water supply and a clean environment but not with unlimited population growth and development. People have to choose whether they want a high Quality of Life for themselves, their families, and communities or a more crowded and degraded environment and Quality of Life. The choice is ours to make and will affect future generations in our climate changed lives.
For more information contact Brandt Mannchen at 832-907-3615 or brandtshnfbt@juno.com.