Should salty water be dumped back into Possum Kingdom Lake? Residents raise concerns

Monte Land is a lake person.

He and his wife have lived on Possum Lake in North Texas for decades. They used to boat and jet ski, though those activities have tempered over the years. Now they like to fish and enjoy being away from the city.

But Land and his neighbors are worried about the lake he calls home.

The city of Abilene is planning to take water from the lake for its water supply. On its way, the water will go through reverse osmosis in Breckenridge — a process that will filter the water to remove salt. The salt that is filtered out would then go back into the lake in the form of waste water, known as reject water.

It’s the last part that’s raising concerns for Land, who is 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 over there,” he said, referring to the discharge site at the Cedar Creek portion of Possum Kingdom Lake in Stephens County. The bulk of the lake is in Palo Pinto County, about 90 miles northwest of Fort Worth.

Abilene has been permitted by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to pull water from Possum Kingdom Lake and discharge the reject water back into it, but hasn’t ever done so. The permit allowing reverse osmosis is now up for renewal.

At the request of state Rep. Glenn Rogers, a Graford Republican, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is holding a meeting Tuesday to answer questions about the project. A contested case hearing could also eventually be requested.

Rogers said he has received calls from constituents with concerns and wanted them to have a chance to ask questions and understand the facts.

“We certainly recognize the city of Abilene needs additional water sources, but we also recognize that the health of Possum Kingdom Lake is vitally important, in terms of the region’s economy and their tax base, recreation, water supply, wild life.”

The lake brings in a 1 million visitors a year, according to the Possum Kingdom Chamber of Commerce.

The project’s history

Abilene provides water to the city itself as well as other customers in the region, getting its water from Lake Fort Phantom Hill north of the city and Hubbard Creek Reservoir, outside of Breckenridge.

Around 2011, the city was in a tough spot when it experienced a drought that had officials scrambling for additional water supplies to help bolster existing sources of water, said Rodney Taylor, Abilene’s director of water utilities.

The city contracted with the Brazos River Authority to purchase water from Possum Kingdom, but in order to do so it had to build a facility in Breckenridge to treat the lake’s salty water. The water was to be used in drought conditions as a supplemental source.

The city rushed to build the plant, and about the time it was almost done, the drought subsided, Taylor said. It’s never been needed since then.

Abilene, a city of 129,000, grew 3.1% percent between 2020 and 2023, according to the U.S. Census.

“As we move into the future, the yield of those lakes decline, and so we have to find new sources to make up for the water that we’re losing out of our existing sources,” Taylor said.

About 50 water supply facilities in Texas have permits for reverse osmosis water treatment, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Taylor said it’s his understanding there are other discharge sites on Possum Kingdom Lake, aside from the one at the center of Tuesday’s meeting. He noted that more salt will be taken out of the water than what’s returned to it.

An annual average of 1.51 million gallons per day of water treatment waste could be discharged back into the lake, according to a draft TCEQ permit shared by the neighborhood association.

If water conditions continue on their trajectory, Taylor predicted the city would start getting the facility ready to operate over the next year.

“Once we get to a point where we need that plant, there is a lot of time and expense to go in there and to start it up, to operate it,” Taylor said.

Once it’s up and running, it’s possible it would become a constant water source for the city into the future, he said.

Possum Kingdom’s concerns

Those concerned about the project don’t object to water being taken from the lake, said Mert Fewell, a past president for Possum Kingdom Neighborhood Association, who has lived on the lake for 19 years.

“What we’re resisting is their putting it back in the lake in not a safe manner,” he said.

Land and the Possum Kingdom Neighborhood Association have several concerns about the returning reject water. They’ve even hired experts to look at the matter for them.

For one, the association says the city of Abilene is operating under the notion that the lake will be full all of 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 reject water will be discharged is closer to the shore than it’s suppose to be, they say. The association also believes the water at the discharge site is stagnant, and the lack of a current would hamper the reject 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. it will not violate the standards, water standards, and could be harmful for wildlife, fish, aquatic life, human health etc.,” Fewell said.

Taylor said the modeling the city relies on for its TCEQ permit accounts for variations in lake levels and the characteristics of discharge point. He also maintained that the discharge site is in the correct place.

A spokesperson for the TCEQ did not directly address the association’s concerns, but noted that draft water quality authorizations prepared by the commission “comply with state and federal water quality rules and regulations.” When the public comment period closes on Tuesday, the commission’s executive director will provide written responses 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 obviously we understand that there are public concerns,” Taylor said. “We accept that, but we just want to make sure that good, factual information is out there and hopefully people can take that information and make good, sound decisions based off that information.”

For Land, one possible solution is to pick a new discharge site, in a deeper part of the lake where there’s a current, but the ultimate goal is to have the water not returned to the lake at all: “Take it somewhere else, putting it in a drying bed ... use it for fracking water,” he said.