Irving, Texas, officials approve water plan

August 2008

U.S. Water News Online

IRVING, Texas — City leaders have agreed to purchase water from the Oklahoma city of Hugo, while acknowledging a number of hurdles to clear before these sales begin.

The Irving City Council approved a water purchase agreement, and agreed to spend up to $500,000 to try to resolve legal roadblocks to obtaining the water.

Oklahoma has a moratorium on out-of-state water sales, which is being challenged in a pending lawsuit brought by the Tarrant Regional Water District in Texas.

Jim Cline said the first step to getting water from Hugo is establishing the legal right. Irving would then have to design and build the project to capture the water.

"It is a 10-year time frame if a lot of things go right, but if we don't start, it won't happen," he said. "If all these things happen, we will be buying water, but to be respectful of the citizens of Oklahoma we have to resolve a lot of issues first."

Irving, a city of 200,000 people, is just outside Dallas, or about 150 miles south of Hugo, a city of about 5,500 people. Hugo has water and storage rights at Hugo Lake in southeast Oklahoma.

Irving officials said a pipeline to bring the water from Oklahoma to North Texas would cost about $125 million, which would probably come from bond money.

If the legal right to the water is established, the agreement requires Irving to pay Hugo Municipal Authority about $3.8 million while the pipeline is designed and built. Irving would also pay $1.7 million a year once the pipeline is operational. Those amounts do not include money Irving would pay to buy the actual water.

Oklahoma officials have argued that they need to do a statewide study on their water supply and projected demand before selling it to other states. That study is expected to be complete in 2011.