Monte Land is a merperson.
He and his wife have lived on Possum Lake in North Texas for decades. They used to do boat and jet skiing, although those activities have toned down over the years. Now they love fishing and enjoying being away from the city.
But Land and his neighbors are concerned about the lake he calls home.
The city of Abilene plans to draw water from the lake for its water supply. Along the way, the water in Breckenridge will undergo reverse osmosis – a process that filters the water to remove salt. The salt that is filtered out then goes back into the lake in the form of waste water, the so-called ‘reject water’.
It’s the latter part that is raising concerns among Land, president of the Possum Kingdom Lake Association, and others in the community.
“I think it’s going to hurt the environment of the lake, especially in that area there,” he said, referring to the discharge site in the Cedar Creek portion of Possum Kingdom Lake in Stephens County. Most of the lake is located in Palo Pinto County, about 90 miles northwest of Fort Worth.
Abilene has been given permission by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to take water from Possum Kingdom Lake and release the rejected water back into it, but has never done so. The permit for reverse osmosis is now due for renewal.
At the request of state Rep. Glenn Rogers, a Graford Republican, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality will hold a meeting Tuesday to answer questions about the project. Ultimately, a hearing in a contested case may also be requested.
Rogers said he has received calls from constituents with concerns and wanted to give them a chance to ask questions and understand the facts.
“We certainly recognize that the City of Abilene needs additional water resources, but we also recognize that the health of Possum Kingdom Lake is critical, in terms of the region’s economy and their tax base, recreation, water supply and wildlife.”
According to the Possum Kingdom Chamber of Commerce, the lake attracts 1 million visitors annually.
The history of the project
Abilene supplies water to the city itself and to other customers in the region, drawing its water from Lake Fort Phantom Hill north of the city and Hubbard Creek Reservoir, outside Breckenridge.
Around 2011, the city found itself in dire straits when a drought struck, prompting officials to look for additional water supplies to bolster existing water sources, said Rodney Taylor, Abilene’s water utilities director.
The city contracted with the Brazos River Authority to purchase water from Possum Kingdom, but that required it to build a facility in Breckenridge to treat the lake’s salt water. The water would be used as a supplementary source in times of drought.
The city rushed to build the plant, and by the time it was nearly finished, the drought eased, Taylor said. It has never been necessary since.
Abilene, a city of 129,000, grew 3.1% from 2020 to 2023, according to the U.S. Census.
“As we move into the future, the yield from those lakes decreases, and so we need to find new sources to make up for the water we’re losing from our existing sources,” Taylor said.
According to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, approximately 50 water supply facilities in Texas have reverse osmosis water treatment permits. Taylor said he understands there are other discharge locations on Possum Kingdom Lake in addition to the one in the middle of Tuesday’s meeting. He noted that more salt is taken out of the water than is put back in.
An average of 1.51 million gallons of water treatment waste per day could be released back into the lake annually, according to a draft TCEQ permit shared by the neighborhood association.
If water conditions continue to develop, Taylor predicted the city would begin getting the facility ready for operation within the next year.
“Once we get to a point where we need that plant, it takes a lot of time and money to get in, start up and operate that plant,” Taylor said.
Once operational, it is possible it will become a constant water source for the city in the future, he said.
The concerns of Possum Kingdom
Those concerned about the project have no objection to water being taken from the lake, said Mert Fewell, former president of the Possum Kingdom Neighborhood Association, who has lived on the lake for 19 years.
“What we are opposing is them putting it back into the lake in a way that is not safe,” he said.
Land and the Possum Kingdom Neighborhood Association are concerned about the returning wastewater. They even hired experts to look into the case for them.
First, the association says the city of Abilene is operating under the assumption that the lake will be full all the time, which they say is not the case. The lake was nearly full as of Monday, according to the United States Geological Survey.
The site pipe where the wastewater is discharged is closer to the coast than it should be, they say. The association also believes that the water at the discharge site is stagnant and that the lack of current would prevent the ejected water from mixing with the rest of the water in the lake.
“We do not believe that the City of Abilene nor the TCEQ has adequately demonstrated that the facility is safe, i.e., that it will not violate codes and water standards and could be harmful to wildlife, fish, aquatic life, human health, etc. .,’ Fewel said.
Taylor said the models the city relies on for its TCEQ permit take into account variations in lake levels and discharge point characteristics. He also claimed that the discharge site was in the right place.
A TCEQ spokesperson did not directly address the association’s concerns, but noted that the draft water quality permits prepared by the commission “comply with state and federal water quality rules and regulations.” When the public comment period closes Tuesday, the commission’s executive director will respond in writing to all timely comments.
Tuesday’s public meeting on the project is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the Possum Kingdom Lake Chamber of Commerce in Graford.
“We feel good about our renewal process and understand that there are public concerns,” Taylor said. “We accept that, but we just want to make sure that there is good, factual information out there and hopefully people can use that information and make good, good decisions based on that information.”
For Land, a possible solution is to choose a new discharge location, in a deeper part of the lake where there is current, but the ultimate goal is that the water does not return to the lake at all: “Take it somewhere else, it in a drying bed…use it for water fracking,” he said.
