AUSTIN, Texas — Investing in Texas’ water infrastructure is one of the emergency items Gov. Greg Abbott asked the Legislature to work on this legislative session during his State of the State address.
Texas Sen. Kevin Sparks, R-Midland, filed a slate of bills to address the state’s water supply issues.
“The state’s water sector faces growing challenges due to increasing demand and a rapidly evolving landscape, ensuring a stable and sustainable water supply is more important than ever,” a news release from Sparks’ office said.
“Everyone’s wondering where is our next water is going to come from,” said Lara Zent with the Texas Rural Water Association.
Currently, water and wastewater entities serving populations under 100,000 can’t hire the same company to design and build new infrastructure. One of Sparks’ proposals, Senate Bill 1301, would eliminate that barrier with the goal of quickly replacing aging infrastructure.
“Those four to five-year projects under a traditional delivery model are now taking somewhere around three, three and a half years, so there’s a significant time savings. There’s some certainly cost savings just as a result of the cost of time,” said Dave Kinchen, the national director of construction for Burns & McDonnell’s water projects.
Zent says they struggle to keep the cost of water down in rural areas.
“The infrastructure is basically the same whether you have a small utility or a very large utility. It’s expensive. But the smaller communities don’t benefit from the same economies of scale. So, services tend to be more expensive. And there’s less people to spread that cost amongst,” said Zent.
Among Sparks’ bills is a proposal to correct the definition of a rural political subdivision in current state law — Senate Bill 971. This error allowed some urban areas to get state funding allocated for rural regions, according to Sparks.
“What’s really nice about that is the small communities are not competing with the big entities to get those funds. It’s like a set aside for them,” said Zent.
There is also a measure — Senate Bill 1034 — to safeguard public utilities from cybersecurity threats.
“Water is something that’s targeted because it is critical infrastructure,” said Perry Fowler, executive director of the Texas Water Infrastructure Network.
Fowler explained that while there are protective measures for state-level entities, smaller government sectors face greater challenges in addressing evolving cybersecurity threats.
“With remote operating systems called SCADA systems, it’s really important to ensure that you have a secure network connection because anybody can just jump in and you don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Fowler.
The biggest focus will be on what the governor calls a “Texas-sized investment in water infrastructure” through Senate Bill 7, which was introduced by Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock.
Through SB 7, Perry wants to allocate $5 billion to help local utilities purchase more water and upgrade their water infrastructure. The proposal also aims to dedicate $1 billion every year to the Texas Water Fund, which was created during the last legislative session.