Feb. 12, 2026 – There’s no question that with Texas’ population expected to double by 2080, something has to be done to ensure all those new neighbors have water to drink, hospitals have water for sterilization, and factories have the water needed to keep the lights on.
Population growth in Texas has outpaced the national average since Texas joined the United States in 1845, and the Lone Star State has gained more residents than any other state since 2000, according to the State Water Plan.
As part of its legislatively mandated mission, the Brazos River Authority is charged with developing and managing water to help meet supply needs within the watershed. Through a unique and innovative project with the US Army Corps of Engineers, the BRA is one step closer to meeting that goal.
The Whitney Lake Reallocation Feasibility Study and Environmental Assessment Project was launched to evaluate whether the reservoir's stored water could be used more effectively than how it is currently used. The evaluation is being conducted by the Corps of Engineers, which owns and operates Whitney Lake, at the BRA’s request.
In the proposed plan, the share of water currently allocated to water supply would be increased to make more water available to meet water needs, while still preserving sufficient storage for continued hydropower use.
“This project could provide an additional 184,000-acre feet of water for the Brazos River Basin, which is almost the size of the conservation storage at Lake Limestone,” said BRA Water Services Manager Aaron Abel. “This reallocation project at Whitney Lake is basically like building another reservoir without having to build a reservoir. The project cost would be less than $100 million, while building a new reservoir of this size would likely cost upwards of $1 to $2 billion.””
It's not just the costs that make this particular project such a good one for the future of the Brazos River Basin’s water supply.
One, the water is already there, so the project would require no additional construction or infrastructure, which means lower costs for those needing water and none of the environmental impacts that come with building a new reservoir. Two, geographically, Whitney Lake is on the main stem of the upper Brazos River and can therefore serve as a regional supply for both local and downstream needs. Three, the reservoir is so large that reassigning a portion of water from hydroelectric generation to water supply use can meet multiple regional needs.
For much of Whitney Lake’s life, hydropower generation was very active and occurred during peak periods of energy demand, which typically occur during Texas’s hot, dry summers when flows in the river are normally low. That hydropower generation resulted in water being released from Whitney Lake, adding to the flow in the river and making water available to those in need of water supply downstream.
Over the past decade, the use of hydropower has changed, being used less often and resulting in much less water being released downstream when river levels are low. Yet, water demand remains. This change shifted more of the burden of meeting downstream water demands to the BRA’s water supply storage system.
The objective of the reallocation study is to identify a way that maximizes the water supply benefit from the lake with the least impact to other lake uses (such as hydropower and recreation) and by accruing the least costs, said Peyton Lisenby, BRA senior water resources planner. Whitney Lake is unique compared to other federal reservoirs in the basin because there is water supply already available within the conservation storage space. In the other federal reservoirs, the entire conservation storage space is already dedicated to water supply, so any reallocation study would need to evaluate flood control storage.
“That’s something no other water supply project has unless you start building big expensive reservoirs,” Lisenby said. “This reallocation could not come at a more important time. This is uniquely opportune.”
The Tentatively Selected Plan was established in March 2025 as the best use of the water stored in Whitney Lake for the project and is now the recommended plan under review by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Should that plan be approved, the BRA will begin negotiations with the Corps of Engineers to store water at Whitney Lake. Once negotiations are complete, the BRA will begin working with the state to obtain a water right permit to make the water available for use within the Brazos River Basin. (Learn what a water right is here.) The whole process could take roughly six years.
Once implemented, the water level in Whitney Lake would be higher, on average, than lake levels during the period when hydrogeneration was most active, from 1973–2014, and would fluctuate similarly to lake levels during that same period. The proposed plan does not recommend permanently lowering the lake level.
At this stage, none of the potentially reallocated water supply has been reserved for future use. However, if approved, the BRA would make water available through multi-year contracts to cities, water supply districts, businesses, industry, and agricultural interests.
For more information on the study, go here.