Majority of Texans oppose spending $1 billion on new water supply, pipe replacements, UT Tyler poll says

TYLER, Texas (KETK) – A new poll from UT Tyler shows that 60% of registered Texan voters polled oppose the state spending $1 billion dollars a year to tap into new water supplies and replace existing pipes in order to save water.

In November’s constitutional amendment election, Texas voters will be able to vote on House Joint Resolution 7, which works in conjunction with Senate Bill 7 to dedicate $1 billon in state sales tax revenues to the Texas Water Fund every year. If passed the fund would spend the tax revenue on groundwater infrastructure across the state.

A UT Tyler Poll conducted between May 28 and June 7 asked 1,154 registered voters from across Texas if they “favor or oppose the state spending $1 billion a year for 10 years to tap into
new water supplies and replace existing pipes to save billions of gallons of water each year?”

The question received bipartisan opposition with 58% of Democrats opposing the spending and 64% of Republicans opposing the proposed spending.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 7 and House Joint Resolution 7 (HJR 7) on June 18 in a ceremony which was attended by East Texas State Rep. Cody Harris, one of the authors of HJR 7.

“Water is a critical need for all Texas,” said Abbott. “In my State of the State Address, I called on the Texas legislature to make the largest investment in water in Texas history. This law written by Chairman Perry and Chairman Harris does just that, providing a $20 billion generational investment for both new water supply and for the repairing of existing infrastructure. With this law, we will secure Texas water future for generations to come.”

Many East Texans have long opposed new water projects like the controversial Marvin Nichols Reservoir, attempts to buy water from the Lake O’ The Pines and recently, the proposed drilling of high capacity water wells in Anderson County.

In May, a bill to stop the Marvin Nichols Reservoir died in the Calendar’s Committee. The reservoir would flood at least 66,000 acres of East Texas land. In Oct. 2024, East Texans voiced their concerns about the reservoir in a meeting in Camp County.

In February, State Rep. Jay Dean hosted a ‘Let’s Save Our Lakes’ town hall which mostly focused on the potential sale of water from the nearby Lake O’ The Pines to Dallas but also touched on the Marvin Nichols Resorvoir.

In April, Dean declared victory against the Lake O’ The Pines water sale by announcing that the North Texas Water District Board had negotiated a deal for other water sources but the board then attempted to refute that claim.

Earlier this month, many East Texas officials, including Crockett city administrator John Angerstein, Houston County Sheriff Zak Benge, State Rep. Cody Harris and State Rep. Trent Ashby, expressed their opposition to an application for 21 high-capacity groundwater wells that could extract 10 billion gallons of water a year from the Carrizo and Wilcox aquifers.

On June 19, hundreds of East Texans gathered in Jacksonville to express their own opposition to the well applications at a meeting of the Neches and Trinity County’s Groundwater Conservation District.