East Texans united to stop a water sale to Dallas suburbs — for now

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This article is part of Running Out, an occasional series about Texas’ water crisis. Read more stories about the threats facing Texas’ water supply here.

DAINGERFIELD — Mary Spearmon owes everything to Lake O' the Pines. It's where she met the love of her life. It's where they raised their family. It's where her husband of 57 years, Sammie Ray, died.

“My children grew up on the lake,” Spearmon said. “We spent weekends on the lake, swimming, fishing and picnicking. My husband would take me around the lake, and we would just ride and look at the beauty.”

That's why, one evening in March, she stood with more than 100 of her fellow East Texans and demanded the regional water utility not sell one drop of the majestic lake to North Texas.

“What about our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren?” Spearmon asked. “Not only mine, but everyone’s in here. What legacy are we leaving for them?”

For most of this year, residents like Spearmon in this corner of northeast Texas have been on a singular mission to stop a potential sale of Lake O' the Pines water to a cluster of North Texas cities. Dallas suburbs like Frisco and Forney, dominated by single-family homes, expansive shopping centers, and towering office buildings that have spread far out from the urban core, have driven much of the growth in North Texas, increasing that region’s need for more water.

Lake O’ the Pines is one of the state’s 188 reservoirs built for drinking water. The lake’s almost 18,700 acres of surface water stretch across five northeast Texas counties: Marion, Harrison, Upshur, Morris, and Camp.

Built in the 1950s, deep in the thick pine forest near the Louisiana border, the lake has provided drinking water to seven cities surrounding the lake: Avinger, Daingerfield, Hughes Springs, Jefferson, Lone Star, Ore City and Pittsburg. Over the next 70 years, Lake O' the Pines became a defining force in the region's economy and culture. Boats regularly dot the lake while visitors cast lines for ​​bass, catfish and crappie.

Christopher Lepri, a Jefferson resident, said selling the water would result in a decline in tourism, growth and property values.

“Lake O’ the Pines is East Texas’ lifeblood, and that lifeblood should never be for sale,” Lepri said at one town hall meeting. “If Lake O’ the Pines is drained or sold, there would be a decline in tourism, growth and property values.”

News of the Northeast Texas Municipal Water District’s potential sale kicked off months of angry meetings, online speculation, and criticism of secrecy. By March, one official had resigned, and talks of a sale had paused. However, that’s done little to assuage fears. The heated conflict and lingering tensions portend what could be Texas’ future if lawmakers do not act this spring, as they have promised, to solve the state’s water crisis.

Rapid growth like that in the sprawling Dallas suburbs, climate change and decaying water infrastructure threaten the state’s water supply. Texas does not have enough water to meet demand if the state is stricken with a historic drought, according to the Texas Water Development Board, the state agency tasked with managing Texas’ water supply.

East Texas is the most saturated part of the state, making it a natural target for thirsty regions. The idea of piping water from East Texas to fuel growth in another region touched a nerve for many residents, raising the question of whether one area should bear the cost of another’s expansion.

Lake O' the Pines was created when the Ferrells Bridge Dam was built on Big Cypress Creek, an 86-mile-long river. Before construction, the Cypress ran freely to Caddo Lake, a 25,400-acre lake and wetland bifurcated at the Texas-Louisiana border.

After the dam went up, Caddo Lake, 30 miles west of Lake O’ the Pines, nearly disappeared.

In the early aughts, the Northeast Texas Municipal Water District, which manages Lake O’ the Pines, began voluntarily releasing water to Caddo. That decision reinforced the fact that the fate of Caddo Lake has been directly tied to Lake O' the Pines.

So when in 2023, Laura-Ashley Overdyke, the executive director of the Caddo Lake Institute, saw Wayne Owen, the executive director of the northeast water district, speak at a conference in Denver, she paid attention.

Later that day, Overdyke heard a Dallas-area utility director tell Owen: “Wayne, I’d love to buy your water, but you’ve already sold it to North Texas.”

Overdyke was shocked. No sale had been publicly discussed.

“Was Caddo’s water going to be sold off to the highest bidder?” she recalled wondering. “Was East Texas a willing participant in her demise?”

Before moving to East Texas to help manage Lake O’ the Pines, Owen was a water planner in Tarrant County, which includes Fort Worth. He said, in an interview with The Texas Tribune, he was hired in part to help facilitate a sale of water to North Texas.

“There has been … interest from the water suppliers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to secure additional water supply,” Owen said. “And, ostensibly, water supply that is a surplus in the Cypress Basin.”

Overdyke returned to Shreveport and went to work, understanding what a potential sale would mean for Caddo. In late 2024, scientists determined Caddo Lake would be fine if water were diverted away from East Texas about 70% of the time. But any more than that and lake levels could be cut by a foot.

“For a lake that shallow, it averages about five or six feet deep, losing another foot would be devastating,” Overdyke said.

Two months later, the proposed water sale was publicly discussed at a northeast water district board meeting. The possible sale was then brought to the Jefferson City Council, which met the next day.

“The local people saw it and they started calling me,” Overdyke said. “I was terrified.”

Hundreds of East Texans took notice and went on a mission to save both Lake O’ the Pines and Caddo.

Anytime a city council or county commissioners met, they went. They drove along winding two-lane highways lined by 80-foot tall pine trees to cities like Jefferson, population 1,875, and Daingerfield, population of about 2,500.

More than 400 people attended a February town hall at the Mims Fire Station in Avinger hosted by state Rep. Jay Dean, a Longview Republican. Weeks later, more than 100 people filled the largest courtroom at the Marion County Courthouse to tell county commissioners their concerns.

Water is the new oil, Jerry Thomas, a Jefferson resident, said.

“We all grew up in East Texas and know people who sold rights to their oil and watched others get rich from it,” Thomas said.

Others wrote letters to any elected official they could think of. They submitted opinion pieces to local newspapers covering the fight, like the Marion County Herald & Jefferson Jimplecute, the Marshall News Messenger and the Longview News-Journal.

Residents spoke at length about the impact they believed this sale would have on the local economy, ecology and culture.

The lake, as a 2020 report from Texas A&M Forest Service put it, is vital to the timber industry, the poultry industry, dairies, cow/calf operations, and for irrigation. Each year, the report said, boating and fishing — especially for trophy bass, catfish and crappie — attract a lot of visitors. These activities bring in significant income for people living on its 144-mile shoreline.

The incensed East Texans had few details on how much water would be removed or how often. In lieu of facts, many painted a picture of a pipe the size of a train car draining the lake at an impossible speed. They looked at other reservoirs used by North Texas cities and were worried.

The northeast water board — each member appointed by one of the seven cities they represented — did little to assuage those fears. They were bound by a 2023 nondisclosure agreement signed by Owen to keep details quiet. What little information was available was often released by the North Texas utility.

That self-imposed silence only made the unrest worse. The response of water board members at one city council meeting stood out to Lone Star Mayor Brianna McClain.

“We had a full house, and on the front row there were three Northeast Texas Municipal Water District members,” McClain said at the Daingerfield meeting. “One individual immediately rolled her eyes and sighed loudly.”

Sharilyn Parr, a Marion County resident, worked with many others to find and disseminate whatever information they could.

“There’s a lot of misinformation out there,” Parr told the Tribune after the Marion Commissioners Court meeting. “And water, itself, is a complicated thing.”

In Texas, surface water — water in rivers and streams, lakes and reservoirs — is owned by the state. However, the state issues water rights to agencies, like the Northeast Texas Municipal Water District, to use or sell. The northeast utility has held the permit to water in Lake O’ the Pines since 1957.

The northeast water district is permitted to use 203,800 acre-feet of water per year, according to data provided by the Caddo Lake Institute. That amount is divided into two allocations: 47,000 acre-feet per year for member cities and 156,800 acre-feet of water per year for the Northeast Texas Municipal Water District, which is sold to other East Texas cities such as Longview.

In normal weather conditions, the lake holds 241,363 acre-feet of water, according to the Texas Water Development Board. In flood conditions, which raise water levels into the flood pools, the lake can hold up to 842,100 acre-feet of water.

The North Texas water utility, which serves cities like Allen and Rockwall and was negotiating the purchase or lease of water with Northeast Texas, wanted 75,000 acre-feet, enough for 450,000 Texans a year. A draft water plan for the region said that water would be transported 91 miles by pipe to Lake Tawakoni, a reservoir about 48 miles east of Dallas.

Jenna Covington, executive director for North Texas Municipal Water District, told the Tribune she believed the project was a “win-win” — a way to share a resource that would otherwise go untapped.

“They've got excess water that is valuable, and we want to properly compensate the folks in that area for the purchase of that water,” Covington said.

No dollar figure was ever disclosed.

The sale of water rights has become complicated and rare, even as demand for water increases, said Gabriel Eckstein, a professor at Texas A&M University who specializes in water law. Most of the current deals are leases, which give buyers access to water for a specific amount of time but leave the original permit holder in control.

That money could be used to upgrade the northeast region’s water infrastructure. Officials said those upgrades — projected at around $74 million — would allow the district to hold more drinking water and for longer, reduce daily operational costs and help keep current rates steady.

After the criticism arose with such ferocity, Owen, the northeast water district executive director seen by many as the mastermind of the sale, resigned in March.

Owen called his tenure in East Texas a “career milestone.” He maintained he was following orders to execute a sale.

“I was just trying to do the best job I could do,” he said in an April interview.

The Northeast Texas Municipal Water District board accepted his resignation at a meeting in Daingerfield and told attendees they were never seriously considering selling water from Lake O’ the Pines.

“If and when there is ever a proposed sale on the table that we think is worthy of consideration by the cities, we, being the district, are going to go to the cities,” said Jimmy Cox, the board’s chair. “We’ll present that sale, explain it, review the pros and cons, answer any questions they may have. And then they will make the decision.”

The more than 100 angry East Texans in attendance didn’t buy it.

That’s when Spearmon told the story of her family.

“If we sell our water to Dallas, what are we going to do? Are we going to move to Dallas to have water or purchase our water from Dallas?” Spearmon asked. “No. We don't want to do that. No. We want our water. Please vote no.”

Sammie Ray would have loved that she spoke up, though probably would have told her to be meaner, Spearmon said later.

Kim Hall, another resident, suggested that instead of sending North Texas water, East Texas could send folks to fix North Texas’ aging water infrastructure. Leaking pipes cause cities to lose what water they do have.

“Were it not for the public outcry, your plans may have been consummated,” said former Republican State Rep. David Simpson.

Several called for board members to resign with Owen.

As the meeting ended, the board appointed Osiris Brantley, a lifelong East Texan and the water district’s chief financial officer, as interim general manager.

It was a small win. But the fight isn’t over, East Texans said.

“This is just the beginning,” said Marion County Judge Leward LaFleur.

Last week, Dean, the state representative who hosted a town hall, posted on Facebook that the threat was over.

“WE DID IT! WE SAVED OUR LAKES!” his post said.

“The North Texas Water District Board has negotiated a deal to get water from resources closer to them,” it went on. “And they have abandoned their proposal to buy the water rights to Lake O' the Pines!”

Hundreds of his constituents liked the post and shared it. Dozens of self-congratulating comments followed.

But any celebration appeared to be premature, as the North Texas Municipal Water District countered in its own statement Friday.

“While we’re not currently in active negotiations with the Northeast Texas Municipal Water District regarding a water purchase from Lake O' the Pines,” it said, “we continue to believe a future agreement for the sale of water could make sense for North Texas and Northeast Texas.”

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