MOUNT PLEASANT, Texas-The Sulphur River Basin Authority's Board of Directors elected officers, heard an updated on the feasibility study and tabled action on their strategic plan during their regular meeting Tuesday.
Members re-elected Wally Kraft as vice president and Nancy Rose as secretary for the board.
Consultant John Jarvis told the board there had been no action on the feasibility study and that they are waiting to hear the Assistant Secretary of the Army's views on reallocation.
"The schedule of when that may happen is unknown," he said. "It could be something we receive today or it could be months. We don't know. Once that comes back, I am assuming the funding partners will put their heads together with SRBA and determine what the risk is at that point to move forward."
The Tentatively Selected Plan to raise the water levels in Wright Patman Lake was released in February, with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recommending a level of 235. The multi-year study, for which SRBA partnered with the corps, shows that if the lake was raised to that level, it would provide an additional 200,000 acre-feet of water per year. An acre-foot of water is the amount of water that would cover one acre of land one foot deep, equal to 325,851 gallons of water.
In 2005, the river authority and the corps entered into a 50/50 cost-sharing agreement for the study, and that contract was modified in 2012.
SRBA is funded by the Joint Commission for Program Development, a group of five water districts in the Dallas Metroplex seeking water for their growing population.
In other business, a resolution to take action on a strategic plan was tabled, as Alysia Cook of Opportunity Strategies, who led a strategic planning workshop with the board in April, did not send an email outlining the group's agreed-upon goals until early Tuesday. Executive Director Meg Shelton recommended the board take time to look at the email before they took a vote to adopt the strategies.
The board also passed a resolution making Shelton the media point of contact for SRBA and that she would also be regulating all email communications from the directors.
The next meeting will be held at 1 p.m. June 18 at the Mount Pleasant Civic Center.