Lake Ralph Hall

Upper Trinity was created by the Texas Legislature to supply treated water to towns in the general area of Denton County. Currently there are 27 towns and utility districts in UTRWD. Flower Mound joined UTRWD in 1992, when it was believed that an additional water supplier would be beneficial to the town. The state law that created UTRWD also set up its governance procedures. The Upper Trinity Regional Water District is a quasi-governmental, super municipality composed of appointed directors who have no accountability to voters. Towns buying neither water nor other services from UTRWD are permitted to vote on issues that do not affect them in any way. In addition, Flower Mound’s weighted vote on the UTRWD board is only 24%, even though Flower Mound buys 47% of Upper Trinity’s water.

Initially, Flower Mound ordered a maximum of 10 MGD from UTRWD. During the 1990’s boom in the economy, Flower Mound’s growth exploded with double-digit percentage increases in population year after year. Our water supplies became stretched to the limit, and rationing was instituted to keep us from running out of water during some very hot, dry summers. Seeing the water problem as the most important issue for our town, the Town acted decisively to solve the immediate and future supply problem.

In 1998, UTRWD (at the request of its governing board and executive director, Tom Taylor) commissioned a study by Chiang Patel & Yerby to give UTRWD participating towns a projection of their future water needs. The UTRWD study stated that Flower Mound would need an additional 20 MGD to supply the town’s water demand in 2005, which confirmed the projections of the Town's consulting engineer, Kimley-Horn. As a result, the Town

of Flower Mound ordered an additional 20 MGD to be phased in through 2005. This makes our total water demand from UTRWD at a maximum of 30 MGD and our total water available from DWU and UTRWD at 41 MGD.

Over the past few years, UTRWD has been exploring various sources for future water supplies. Most of the raw water UTRWD currently uses comes from DWU; the balance comes from Lake Chapman. The source of future raw water has been the subject of debate by the Upper Trinity board, but from the very beginning, Executive Director Tom Taylor has advocated building Lake Ralph Hall on the North Sulphur River in Fannin County. The Town of Flower Mound objects to the proposed lake as unnecessary. Of all the alternatives available, Lake Ralph Hall is the most expensive possible future source of raw water.