Riverbend director discusses water-related issues

By John Dilmore
john@casscountynow.com

The head of the Riverbend Water Resources District discussed a number of water-related issues during a speaking engagement in Atlanta last week.
Elizabeth Fazio-Hale, Riverbend’s executive director and chief executive officer, covered topics integral to management of northeast Texas’ water resources while speaking to the Atlanta Lions Club on Wednesday.
Riverbend, originally formed in 2009, describes itself as “a locally controlled regional water district that is created to protect, conserve and manage our area’s water resources.” 
In addition to Atlanta, member entities include Annona, Avery, Dekalb, Hooks, Leary, Maud, Nash, New Boston, Redwater, Texarkana, Wake Village and the TexAmericas Center, along with Bowie, Cass and Red River Counties.
The area, collectively, finds itself navigating through a number of challenges related to future management and security of one of its most precious resources: water.
Among the challenges to be addressed is ensuring that the region’s future water needs can be met in the face of efforts by metropolitan areas, including the Dallas Metroplex, to also utilize northeast Texas’ water resources. 
The area’s Sulfur River Basin has been described by some as the largest underutilized basin in Texas. 
Riverbend recently commissioned a Regional Water Masterplan to determine this area’s demand for water. Analyzing water demand in a different way – through counting taps – resulted in demand numbers that quadruple those presented in the past, Fazio-Hale said.
“That means in the future for planning, this basin, while it might be the most underutilized and there might be water available to send out-of-basin, we still need to take care of our needs in-basin first,” Fazio-Hale said. “We’re not opposed necessarily to helping the rest of the state -- we don’t want to be known as ‘not us, don’t look at us’ -- but we have to take care of our needs first.”
There are a number of plans and “conspiracy theories” about what forms future use of this region’s water by the Metroplex and other areas could take, Fazio-Hale told Lions Club members. 
There are also a number of factors to be weighed, including concerns about how the area would be impacted in terms of agriculture, industry and the environment, along with other considerations.
Fazio-Hale also provided an update on a project she’d discussed in Atlanta in the past, Riverbend’s acquisition of the “wet utilities” of the Red River Army Depot, which is the third-largest water user in the area.
“Now we are running those as water experts and there seems to be a lot more attention being given to the infrastructure out there, and the operations overall of those facilities,” she said. “So we’re almost into a year -- that acquisition was complete May 1 of last year and has gone very smoothly. 
“We have about 15 employees at the Army Depot and so in addition to doing a lot of planning, and what you read about in the papers, we also have those operations.”
After being formed by the Legislature in 2009, Riverbend was reconstituted in 2011 with a five-member board. 
There are two representatives from Texarkana, one from New Boston, one representing the Army Depot and TexAmericas Center, and one at-large member representing smaller entities. 
The breakdown of representation was determined by water usage, Fazio-Hale said.
Fazio-Hale previously worked for the State of Texas for 10-plus years, and for seven of those was focused on natural resources and issues related to statewide water planning. She was the architect of SWIFT, the State Water Infrastructure Fund for Texas.