FISCAL NOTES SEPTEMBER 2023 | 3 PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE OF TEXAS WATER The TWDB is tasked with supporting 16 regional water planning groups to create the SWP to address water supply needs for current and future Texans. The SWP, released every five years, identifies potential water shortages under “drought of record” conditions and recommends water management strategies to address those potential shortages. Existing water supply in Texas is the combined amount of surface water, groundwater and reuse water (wastewater that is treated and reused for other purposes) available for production and delivery in the occurrence of a drought. As of 2020, groundwater accounted for roughly 55 percent of the water used in Texas. Surface water accounted for 42 percent, and reuse water contributed less than 3 percent. The 2020 water supply was roughly 16.8 million acre-feet per year and is expected to decrease to roughly 13.8 million acre-feet per year by 2070. TEXAS WATER ISSUES Urgent concerns regarding statewide water supplies include aging water infrastructure and weather extremes. “There are several intertwined issues that are at play. The first is the demand on the system combined with the frequency of drought conditions in the state,” says Robert Greer, associate professor and director of the Graduate Certificate in Public Management at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service. Greer continues, “We have more people demanding more water, and we have seen several significant drought events that have kept supply low. That scarcity puts pressure on the overall system, but of course that severity will vary by region.” AGING WATER SYSTEMS The age of water infrastructure varies across the United States: Some water utility systems are still equipped with pipes that were installed in the 1800s, but most systems date from the early to mid-20th century. There are more than 165,000 miles of pipes in the water distribution system in Texas. According to a 2022 survey from the Texas Rural Water Association, the average year of installation of small- to medium-sized water systems in the state was 1966. “We are dealing with aging infrastructure that needs to be replaced or requires costly maintenance,” Greer says. “In Texas, we have a large number of small water providers that are responsible for maintaining their own infrastructure, and they do not always have the capacity to keep up. Many of the older systems lose water and break often.” Greer clarifies that capacity in this case means both fiscal resources to pay for the maintenance and replacement, and the workforce to keep the system functioning. “One piece of evidence of the system breaking down has been the large number of boil water notices that we have seen over the last couple of years,” Greer says. In 2022, there were 3,143 boil water notices in Texas compared with 1,993 notices in 2018, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. In 2021, an estimated 130 billion gallons of water were lost due to infrastructure issues. Of that total, 30 billion gallons of water loss can be attributed to broken pipes and water leaks — enough to provide a year’s supply of water to nearly 1.2 million average American households. The TWDB Water Loss Audits Summary Report, a repository of data, illustrates that in 2021, the East Texas Water Planning Region (I), in which the largest cities include Beaumont, Tyler, Lufkin and Nacogdoches, led all other regions with a reported water loss average of 79.87 gallons per connection per day. They were followed by Region F, where the major cities include Midland, Odessa and San Angelo, with a water loss average of 78.54 gallons per connection per day. The statewide water loss average in 2021 was 54.68 gallons per connection per day (Exhibit 2). EXHIBIT 2 AVERAGE REPORTED WATER LOSS IN GALLONS PER CONNECTION PER DAY (GCD), 2011-2021 YEAR AVERAGE STATEWIDE WATER LOSS GCD NUMBER OF AUDITS SUBMITTED 2011 72.30 117 2012 65.34 334 2013 53.46 472 2014 58.50 591 2015 51.21 1,729 2016 58.24 743 2017 56.87 642 2018 62.13 689 2019 54.39 901 2020 55.02 1,776 2021 54.68 828 Note: Data from submitted water loss audits after quality control has been completed. Water loss audits with obvious data issues were removed. Source: Texas Water Development Board Summary Audits by Category Texas’ Water Demands Could Outpace Supply in Parts of Texas by 2070 Robert Greer, Texas A&M University DEALERS’ CHOICE 30
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