Senator Charles Perry is a man on a water mission as he prepares to file a package of five bills that address the future of Texas water, including asking his fellow lawmakers to make at least a $1 billion-a-year commitment. The veteran Republican legislator from West Texas has been part of a years-long push to dedicate significant funding for water infrastructure to prepare our fast-growing state for its thirsty future. Some of the ideas he’s proposing would have sounded outlandish just a few years ago but, as he told the Texas Observer, Senator Perry thinks there is the technology, and the votes, to get it all done now.
TO: We’ve been hearing about your plans for a series of ambitious water bills. There’s been talk about multiple new desalination plants and of a statewide water pipeline system running along every interstate. What’s your vision? What are your biggest goals for 20 years from now?
We have to develop 10 to 12 million acre-feet [of new water supply] in the next 30, 40 years. And that’s not any small task. … It’s multiple decades, billions of dollars. So it only makes sense to treat the water supply needs just like we treat state highways, and that continuity, connectivity, that oversight to make sure dollars that are spent on supply development benefit as many people as possible. So we’re proposing this session to frontload the cost of starting massive infrastructure projects that are overdue in some areas and will be needed most certainly within the 20-year time frame.
Basically, the reason this hasn’t gotten done is there’s no local taxing jurisdiction or city council [or] mayor that can tell people we need to charge X number of dollars a month for the next 30 years so that we have water supply. That’s just not a politically doable deal.
And if we leave it to the locals, we end up developing depleting resources, which is shortsighted, and we typically end up not getting what we needed but what the taxpayers were willing to pay for. And so this statewide look [is] coordinating new supply plans from new developments, undeveloped resources in brackish, fresh, produced water in the oil and gas [industry], marine desal on the coastline where it makes sense, and surface water where we can develop and acquire in Texas and outside of Texas. [Before] we always went to the lowest-hanging fruit and developed the cheapest water. We have developed all the cheapest water, and it’s not enough to get us where we need to be. We can’t keep moving existing resources around the state and calling it “new supply.” This actually adds new inputs.
How many big desalination plants do you think might be involved? You know, there’s some concern about whether those would harm the bays’ ecosystems, or even create ‘dead zones.’
So there’s multiple desal conversations, right? There’s produced water desal, which is in the Permian Basin. There’s brackish aquifers, which are scattered all over this state. … And then there’s marine desal. Marine desal is typically federally regulated … because of the Gulf conversations that it usually involves. The science that allows us to use salt water—marine desal—is well-established, it’s been implemented in Israel and other places around the world for decades. And the one that’s currently going into Corpus Christi was permitted after almost a decade of compliance and application processes. It was pulled in the Biden administration and subsequently was re-permitted after the environmental concerns were addressed. So the science is there.
[Then there’s the] discharge that comes up out of brackish and produced water out of the oil and gas fields. If you have it in that great of supply, there are commercially viable minerals, rare earths, and other components of those discharges that will literally be a new commercial value. And then the private sector and the scientists of the day will find uses for just about all of [that]. And actually the desal cost on the marine side and the brackish cost is significantly lower than what it was just 10 years ago. So technology keeps advancing.
We’ve had ranchers, some East Texas towns, and a West Texas Baptist church camp raise concerns about the recent permitting of oil and gas wastewater sites by the Texas Railroad Commission. People worry how those might contaminate water supplies. What ideas do you have to address those concerns? Are you talking about literally recycling that water or treating it instead of having to store or inject it?
I have six pilot projects currently ongoing [to study produced water]. Those pilot projects are there to prove out the viability of beneficial use for agriculture as well as possible potable use. We’re testing the crops [and] making sure the soil’s not accumulating any unknown or known constituents at harmful levels. [This] is proving out to be very, very successful. We are doing the testing and the other things required to develop a produced water standard for potable use. We’re probably three years out from the scientific data that’s required to support that. As a practical level, there’s not a single person in that arena that will dispute the fact that today the technology exists to clean up produced water for drinking use. It’s just how far do you want to go with it and how much money you want to spend?
How big of a priority is it for you to dedicate more funding to improving the efficiency of the current systems and fixing leaks that waste lots of water?
This leaking infrastructure is an issue. We kind of let it go too far, too, so it’s time to address them all. But we’ve got to address supply the most. But I do believe a large part of these communities have actually collected water and sewer fees that were intended to repair leaky pipes and plants and water sewer treatment along the way. And [instead] that was diverted to pay general fund expenses. I’ve been told it’s a $3 to $4 billion dollar number across the state. So as we have the leaky pipe infrastructure conversation, there’s going to have to be transparency and we’re going to have to stop those practices so that the taxpayer is not being double charged for something that should have been done. So we’ll correct that and we’ll put funding in place to address leaky pipes. It just won’t be the priority until we get supply under control.
How soon do you expect to file a bill (or bills) and how confident are you that you can get the votes to pass it with the other competing priorities?
I have 30 ‘“Yeses” in the Senate on the concept of [at least] $1 billion a year. And in the lump sum [proposed total], I have not gotten a single “No.” And as far as that goes, I have not gotten a single “No” with the members in the House with whom I’ve had opportunities to visit. So conceptually, there’s nobody against it. It’s a five-bill package. I’m hoping [tweaks] will be addressed and the Senate will be able to vote on the bills this week.
We need pipelines for water and oil. I prioritize water right under air. We need air to breathe. We can’t last four or five minutes without it. We need water to live. After about four or five days, it’s a problem. And everything else is convenience. You know, energy is awesome. We need electricity. It’s important. It does a lot of great things. But if I had to pick some[thing] I can’t do without, centuries have proved this out, it’s water. If you have water, you have people. And if you don’t, you don’t. So it’s time to address water.
Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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