PITTSBURG — Roughly 200 people descended upon a regional water meeting in northeast Texas on Wednesday afternoon with “Stop Marvin Nichols” signs, custom T-shirts and handwritten speeches.
Nearly 40 attendees looked officials in the eyes and repeated the same sentiment: The proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir project needs to be removed from all future water plans.
The meeting, lasting about four hours in Camp County, was specially called by the Region D water planning group whose jurisdiction includes the land that would be used to build the 66,000-acre reservoir to pump water more than 100 miles to North Texas. Some Region C water officials, who are part of the group calling for the project that would benefit the North Texas area, also attended.
At one point, Region D chairman Jim Thompson sat beside Region C chairman Kevin Ward at the front of the room.
Ward talked about Marvin Nichols being just one of the many alternatives leaders are looking at to meet water needs in North Texas and said having the project in the plan isn’t a “green light” to start developing but rather a placeholder in case the plan is needed in the future. He noted the permitting process could take decades to complete.
Ward said he doesn’t know of any other strategy in the state that’s undergone so much study and analysis, calling the reservoir a “lightning rod for the entire state of Texas.” He said the voices of northeast Texans have been heard far and wide.
“All these years it’s been heard in the halls of the Legislature down in Austin, it’s been heard by your state representatives here, by your senators and by those members out there in Region C as well,” Ward said. “We’ve heard it so you’ve got to believe that if we thought there was another way to do what we’re trying to do right now … we’d certainly latch onto it as fast as we could.”
Much of the crowd was attentive but unsympathetic. Thompson responded later in the meeting, reiterating he is willing to work together to find additional water supplies in the Region D area that could help Region C.
“That does not, in my opinion, in any way, form or fashion mean that I’m going to agree to Marvin Nichols because I never am,” Thompson said. “It’s a flawed project. It should not go forward. It should be removed from the state water plan.”
A majority in the room applauded Thompson’s comment. The men eventually shook hands before Ward took a seat in the audience and Thompson presided over the 38 public comments made about the plan.
‘Here we are again’
For decades, Region C water planners in North Texas have suggested the reservoir is one of the best solutions to quench Dallas-Fort Worth’s growing water needs that continue to increase as its population grows.
Discussions around the project have occurred since the 1960s, when it was first included in the state water plan, but are being revamped as the regional groups prepare their latest plans, which are completed every five years. Tensions began boiling in the last 20-some years as the need for water in North Texas became even more apparent with its population boom.
Many, including Ward, said Wednesday’s meeting drew the largest crowd of any Marvin Nichols meeting they’d been to in the last couple decades.
Proponents for the manmade lake have recently called for it to be online by 2050, and a recent estimate put the cost at $7 billion. The Texas Water Development Board recently completed a review of the project, concluding it was feasible.
Those opposed to the project — including residents in parts of Franklin, Red River and Titus counties whose generational land, homes, churches and cemeteries where their family members are buried would be flooded — have repeatedly spoken against the reservoir, including at a Region C meeting in Arlington at the end of September.
They’ve said the project would destroy their small, rural communities that are made up of blue-collar workers who are the backbone of not only Texas but the U.S. They also say the negative impacts of the project beyond where its footprint would be haven’t been adequately portrayed, including detrimental effects to Rivercrest ISD and the thriving timber industry.
“Here we are again,” Gary Cheatwood Jr., 48, told the water planners. Cheatwood’s family has been in the Red River County community called Cuthand for more than a century and throughout his entire adult life he’s watched his dad, 85-year-old Gary Cheatwood, battle the reservoir plans.
Cheatwood said in the decade or so he’s been speaking at meetings, he typically talks about data and numbers but he chose to switch up his approach Wednesday. Instead, he talked about his dreams of living in Cuthand and a desire to keep raising his kids there.
Those hopes are something that can’t be taken from him, he said, adding that he won’t leave. “Amen,” someone from the audience said before people applauded. Cheatwood said the deal was a land grab before anything else.
“I will sit on my land until I’m dead or Jesus comes back, whichever comes first,” he said.
‘We need our water’
A handful of other residents in the area that would be drowned agreed that giving up their land for the reservoir wasn’t an option.
More than a dozen people referred to the project as “thievery,” “theft” or “stealing.” One man called it “interregional imperialism” and a woman compared the issue to David and Goliath.
Though a lot of the public commenters were familiar faces who have been traveling to meetings across the state for decades, others said they recently learned about the project and felt compelled to speak up.
Tawnya Cagle, 50, said her family moved from Rockwall to northeast Texas in 2017 and had never heard of the Marvin Nichols Reservoir.
“There are people who are literally pouring their foundations right now and they know nothing about this,” she said. “So imagine our surprise when we came out here.”
Now, as she’s learned more, she’s joining the movement to call for the project to be scrapped.
“It’s about our kids and our grandkids and our legacy we want to leave them,” Cagle said.
Others also voiced concerns. One Region D resident called for more active water conservation in Dallas-Fort Worth, comparing the matter to not buying more cattle if there’s not enough grass. Another called for Region C to look elsewhere for water, like the Gulf of Mexico.
Robert Hurst of Delta County said he grew up in North Texas and appreciates the water needs but wanted to make one thing clear.
“Frankly, it’s growing out our way too,” he said. “We need the water, too. Y’all are not the only ones.”
He said his county is also planning what it’s going to do to handle the expanding population.
“We’re not trying to be ornery but, we’re trying to self preserve and we all need our land, we need our water and we’re going to be seeing the growth you’re seeing also,” Hurst said.
