A public forum on the water situation in north Texas will be held on Saturday, Sept. 24. The forum, titled “Will There Be Enough Water in Texas,” will be co-sponsored by six area chapters of the League of Women Voters of Texas and two area groups of the Sierra Club. It will be held at the Irving Central Library, 801 W. Irving Blvd, from 1:00-4:30 and is free to the public.
Several distinguished speakers have agreed to present information on the supplies and delivery of water in our region and will answer questions from the audience. They include Lewis McMahan, a Director of the Texas Water Development Board, Tod Maurina of the North Texas Groundwater Conservation District, Denis Qualls of Dallas Water Utilities, and Tyson Broad of the Sierra Club. A talk on the basics of Texas water law will be given by Simone Kiel of Freese and Nichols, a consulting firm to the State of Texas.
Mr.McMahan will speak on the role of the Texas Water Development Board, Mr. Maurina will discuss groundwater conservation districts and how they work, Mr. Qualls will cover the regulations governing water utilities, and Mr. Broad will give the environmental perspective.
In addition several other water professionals will sit on a panel titled, “Are We Ready for a Major Drought?” They include the above speakers and Todd Reck of Irving Water Utilities and Linda Christie of the Tarrant Regional Water District. Mary Vogelson of the Region C Water Planning Group of the TWDB will moderate the panel discussion. She also serves as the Water Issue Chair of the League of Women Voters of Texas.
More information can be found at http://texaswaterforum.org, including links to the websites of the League of Women Voters of Texas and the Sierra Club. A new publication of the LWV-Texas, “Should Water Be A Commodity?” is available on the lwvtexas.org website. Sponsoring Leagues from this area include Dallas, Tarrant County, Irving, Arlington, Richardson, and Plano/Collin County.
Downloadable flier available at: http://www.dallassierraclub.org/eventfiles/files/water-conference-20110924.pdf.
The public is invited. While the event is free, space is limited, so people interested in attending are urged to reserve a seat by calling the Dallas League at (214) 688-4125 or sending an email response from the above web site.
