A Reformer Tackles Texas's Water Woes

By Joe Nick Patoski, Texas Observer. Posted February 28, 2008.

Joe Beal Jr. sat in the boardroom of the Lower Colorado River Authority headquarters in Austin talking about how impressed he was with China. A year earlier, as LCRA general manager, he had traveled to see the recently completed Three Gorges Dam, the largest in the world, on the Yangtze. The construction appealed to the engineer in him, but he failed to mention the forced relocation of more than 1 million people, thousands of landslides, the pollution, and the massive environmental destruction caused by the dam. Earlier in the conversation, he had cited China to minimize the pollution threat posed by the agency's plan to build another coal-fired power plant in Central Texas. "They're building one of these every week in China," he said.

The conversation underscored a common complaint about Beal's tenure at LCRA, heard in particular from residents of western Travis, eastern Blanco, and northern Hays counties, that the agency has become a handmaiden to the development and sprawl consuming Central Texas. That viewpoint has been informed by LCRA's construction of water pipelines to rural areas over the past five years, and by the LCRA's new transmission lines across private property throughout the state. The water pipelines made possible recent residential developments such as Lazy 9, Sweetwater, and Ruby Ranch that are popping up around Bee Cave, along Hamilton Pool Road, and along Highways 71 and 290 toward Dripping Springs.

That the LCRA has become one of the most despised and misunderstood governmental organizations in Texas has a lot to do with its varied and sometimes conflicting responsibilities. The agency has come a long way from its New Deal mission to build dams, boost employment and control floods in a region known as Flash Flood Alley, as well as supply water and hydroelectric power to raise the Hill Country out of Appalachian-level poverty. Today, its stated mission is to provide "reliable, low-cost utility and public services in partnership with our customers and communities and to use our leadership and environmental authority to ensure the protection and constructive use of the area's natural resources."

There are no elected officials among its 3,200 employees. The agency has no taxing authority and receives no state or federal money. It is run like a business, but cannot make a profit. Decisions are made by the board of directors, relying on guidance from the general manager. In many respects, LCRA is a shining example of government efficiency, the antithesis of the scandal-ridden Pedernales Electric Co-op, one of 43 electric retailers who buy power from the LCRA. Its revenues in 2006 exceeded $1.1 billion, most of it derived from the wholesale electricity business, with a smaller amount coming from water sales. Three percent of the revenue stream is set aside for community service in the forms of grants and the maintenance of 40 parks along the Colorado River and the Highland Lakes created by the dams -- Lake Buchanan, Lake LBJ, Inks Lake, Lake Marble Falls, Lake Travis, and Lake Austin. The agency is the largest purchaser of wind power in Texas, and it generates better real-time hydrological and meteorological information about the region than any other public or private entity. The LCRA Rivers Operations Center is ground zero for flood control in the Hill Country, the most flash flood-prone region in the United States. The Highland Lakes Watershed Ordinance, passed in 2006, establishes standards where none existed for a 10-county region. Without question, the LCRA has done more to raise water quality standards than any state agency. At the same time, led by a board stocked by Republican governors, it has answered a regional population boom by promoting growth without restrictions or much concern for environmental impact.

Last fall, after eight years at the LCRA's helm, Joe Beal announced his retirement. The selection of his replacement has surprised and pleased environmentalists and critics of the agency. Tom Mason is an environmental attorney with an extensive career in public service. He sued cities on behalf of the state for failing to comply with water quality ordinances, and while in private practice he represented farmers, ranchers, and citizens fighting waste sites, hazardous dumps, and power lines. That suggests that his appointment to the helm of the oddest, most influential state agency in the fastest-growing part of the state signifies a new direction for the LCRA.

It turns out, it's a little more complicated than that.

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