90 YEARS AND COUNTING
BRAZOS RIVER AUTHORITY CELEBRATES GROWTH, CHANGE AND STEWARDSHIP

Just weeks after a record snowfall blanketed Central Texas, several of the state’s elected officials were beginning the arduous trek to Austin. The past decade had been a prosperous one. The state held the distinction of the 5th most populous in the union, one in every four Texans owned an automobile, and like much of the country, the state prospered. As the New Year dawned on 1929, several men that would attend the 41st biennial meeting of the Texas Legislature were preparing to take on their biggest opponent yet. Mother Nature.

Texas had always been a land of extremes. Prior to official weather records of the states’ extreme bouts of drought followed by record flooding, legends of tragedy and destruction existed in living memory. But, the documented loss of more than 200 lives and millions in property damage during the floods of 1913 and 1921 spurred the legislature to form an organization that would study, recommend and build possible remedies to the random power wielded by the longest waterway in the state - the Brazos River.

During that year’s second session, the Legislature passed a bill forming the Brazos River Conservation and Reclamation District, the predecessor of the Brazos River Authority.

This new organization was the first of its kind in the United States, an agency specifically created for the purpose of developing and managing the water resources of an entire watershed. The responsibility for more than 42,000 square miles of river basin that was home to about 1/6th of the state’s population was expected to be a great challenge. The Legislature provided for representation of a 21-member Board of Directors to oversee the growing task. But with little to no money available, the organization would do so without state funding or the power to levy taxes.

Over the decades the organization struggled, fighting alternating bouts of drought and flood. And after decades of stewardship, weather challenges continue. The Brazos River is at times restrained, yet untamed, and the basin continues to grow.

“What we’ve learned in the past 90 years is that there is no way to control Mother Nature,” said David Collinsworth, general manage and chief executive officer of the Brazos River Authority. “There is a way, however, to blunt and lessen the effect of a once uncontrollable resource, expand its supply to support a growing population, and work with the state to monitor and maintain the quality of this precious resource.”

WATER SUPPLY MANAGEMENT

It became evident in the 1950s that taking on Mother Nature was a task best managed in a cooperative rather than a competitive manner. The drought of the 1950s proved to the state that continued growth was not possible without additional “firm” or reliable water supply. Unlike the drought of the 1930s dustbowl, the Brazos River basin now boasted several small reservoirs to provide water supply and three huge reservoirs - Possum Kingdom Lake and the newly created Corps of Engineers flood control reservoirs at Lake Whitney and Belton. Though the water storage was located in the northernmost and central areas of the Brazos River basin, the ability to release water to supply cities, farms and industry downstream kept many areas of the basin supplied with drinking water that was previously not available.

The storms that followed close behind the record drought of the 50s were skillfully managed by the Corps of Engineers as their flood pools stored excess water, relieving the near-annual flooding and destruction experienced in Waco and several smaller cities in Central Texas.

With each flood control reservoir built by the Corps within the Brazos River basin, the BRA purchased the water storage and distribution right for the projects from the federal government. The ensuing years brought the addition of six additional flood control reservoirs built and operated by the Corps.

By the 1980s, the Brazos River Authority comprised a system of reservoirs with water rights adjudicated by the state to provide more than 700,000 acre-feet of water supply to municipal, industrial, agricultural and mining interests in the Brazos River basin.

WATER QUALITY AND TREATMENT

As decades passed and the importance of clean drinking water became apparent with the passing of the Federal Clean Water Act, the mission of the BRA expanded. In the 1970s, the BRA established regional sewage systems for the Waco Metropolitan area, the City of Sugar Land, and the Cities of Temple and Belton. Contracts to manage local wastewater treatment facilities for the cities of Hutto, Clute-Richwood and others were sought by their local governments.

In the 1980s, the BRA began operation of the Lake Granbury Surface Water and Treatment System, an inland water desalination plant treating brackish water in the upper Brazos River basin for potable or drinking use for Hood and Johnson Counties. The plant, located on Lake Granbury, was later sold to a newly formed municipal water district.

In 2004, the BRA purchased a potable water drinking plant from the City of Taylor, immediately beginning construction to expand the plant’s capacity. Construction was completed in 2008 on the East Williamson County Regional Water System that now provides drinking water from Lake Granger to the City of Taylor, Jonah Special Utilities District, and through contracts, to the cities of Hutto and Thrall and Nowak Water Supply Company. The expansion, completed in 2008, increased the plant's capacity from 5.3 million gallons per day (mgd) to 12.8 mgd, and is the mainstay of a long-term regional treated water system for Williamson County.

To continue to meet the needs of the rapidly increasing population in Williamson County, the BRA began work toward a conjunctive use project at the East Williamson County plant that will provide a mix of surface water from Lake Granger with groundwater from the Trinity Aquifer. The project’s first groundwater well will be completed in Spring 2019 and supply is anticipated for distribution in 2020.

WATER QUALITY

In the early 1990s, the BRA contracted with the State of Texas to carry out water quality testing throughout the Brazos River basin through the Texas Clean River Program. As part of this ongoing effort with the state, the BRA continues to perform water quality testing at more than 100 locations through the basin on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis to aid in identifying areas of pollution impairment. The BRA has also been involved in other water quality programs such as Perchlorate Studies, the Quality Water for the Brazos Project, and numerous water protection plans.

WATER TRANSPORTATION

Also during the 1990s, the BRA entered into an ambitious water agreement with five entities in Williamson County to move water from an area with abundant water supply to the Williamson County area that lacked the supply necessary to accommodate the growing capital-area bedroom communities. The 28-mile pipeline became operational in 2007 and continues to operate on a need-based system, moving water from Lake Stillhouse Hollow to Lake Georgetown as local supplies dwindle.

In 2002, the BRA again ventured into water transportation by acquiring a 57-mile former water distribution system from a West Texas oil operation. The West Central Brazos Water Distribution System served oil and gas and ranching interests via water from Possum Kingdom Lake. Ownership and operation for the pipeline were transferred to the West Central Texas Municipal Water District in 2016 with plans to expand to serve areas including the cities of Abilene and Breckenridge.

THE FUTURE

In 2004, the BRA began a unique cost-effective and environmentally sensitive project to expand water supply for the Brazos River basin without the need to flood thousands of acres of privately owned land to create a new reservoir. The System Operations Permit proposed use of a portion of the average six million acre-feet of rainfall that passes unused into the Gulf of America each year. Approved and finalized in 2018, the permit will allow the BRA to access a portion of these unused flows when they are available during wet periods, utilizing a Water Management Plan approved by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The BRA is expected to begin utilizing these flows in 2020 .

As the BRA’s efforts to provide water supply continue to expand, maintenance and rehab of now-aging dam infrastructure continue. In 1999, the BRA managed a decade-long project to rehab the floodgates at Possum Kingdom Lake’s Morris Sheppard Dam. In 2007, Lake Granbury’s 16 Tainter-style gates were rehabbed with corrosion resistant coating. In 2018, the BRA began a multi-year plan to fully replace the gates at Lake Limestone.

“The state and the Brazos River basin have seen a great deal of change and growth in the past 90 years,” said GM/CEO Collinsworth. “The use of our water supply has changed from a focus on farming and ranching to the need to supply growing municipal and industrial use. The staff of the Brazos River Authority is proud to continue to serve the people of Texas through its stewardship of the state’s water supply and look forward to serving the basin for another 90 years - and counting.”