When the draft state permit to construct Lake Ringgold was issued in February 2020, more than a dozen governmental and non-profit organizations and numerous individuals filed formal requests for a Contested Case Hearing. Among those contesting the permit are Clay County, the county seat of of Henrietta, Texas and Southwestern Cattleraisers Association, Texas Wildlife Association, Farm Bureau, and Texas Conservation Alliance.
“The opposition came from a number of directions,” says Janice Bezanson, who coordinates the project for TCA. “Conservationists and sportsman worry about lost wildlife habitat. Cattlemen and landowners are concerned with eminent domain. County and city officials recognize the negative economic impacts of taking land out of production.
The people of Wichita Falls would be required to pay $443 million to build Lake Ringgold
“The segment of the populace we haven’t heard from much, however, is the people of Wichita Falls who would be required to pay $443 million to build Lake Ringgold. The City of Wichita Falls applied for the permit, but City officials have kept the project pretty much under the radar, downplaying the cost and obscuring the lack of need for additional water supply.”
TCA continues its education campaign, to help the people of Wichita Falls and its customer cities understand the cost and negative impacts of building an unneeded reservoir that would inundate a significant portion of the wooded creek bottoms in Clay County and more than a thousand acres of rare native tallgrass prairie.
