The Lower Colorado River Authority approved another $17 million toward construction of a $215 million reservoir that would be Texas' first in decades.
The reservoir in Wharton County near the Gulf Coast is expected to be completed in 2017.
The LCRA board last year approved $18 million to buy property for the reservoir and to begin design, engineering and permitting. The $17 million approved March 19 will fund the final design and the infrastructure to pump water to and from the reservoir. It will also pay to move an electric transmission line off the reservoir site and other work.
The new reservoir is designed to help LCRA add 100,000 acre-feet of water a year to the region's supply by 2017, officials said. With a capacity of 400,000 acre-feet, the reservoir could be filled and used multiple times over the course of a year, making it capable of adding 90,000 acre-feet of firm water to the region's supply. Preliminary estimates show the reservoir will cost $214.9 million.
The new reservoir will reduce the need to send Highland Lakes water to customers near the Gulf Coast while improving agricultural water reliability and efficiency. It is the first project that will allow LCRA to capture and store significant amounts of water downstream of the Highland Lakes for use by multiple industrial and agricultural customers.
LCRA, which manages wholesale water and power in the Texas Colorado River basin, carries ratings of A1 from Moody's Investors Service, and A from Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings. Outlooks from Moody's and S&P are negative while Fitch's is stable.
An ongoing drought poses a threat to LCRA's future as a hydroelectric power producer, which was the reason for the public utility's creation in 1934.
Ryan Rowney, executive manager of water operations at the LCRA, said recently that water levels could plummet "within several years" below levels needed to turn the generators.
