Keeping Lake Georgetown from running dry

From the 28-mile Williamson County pipeline to the ambitious new drought project connecting Lakes Belton and Stillhouse Hollow, we’re talking to the experts about how pipelines aren’t just about digging trenches. With the Brazos River Basin population expected to double in the next 50 years, it's about balancing water quality, navigating thousands of property easements, and facing the hard truth that the era of cheap water is officially in the rearview mirror. Just how big a role will pipelines play in Texans’ future?

After you've listened to the episode, check out this awesome profile on BRA’s pipeline supervisor Colton Adkins.

Unpacking the Brazos River is a podcast by the Brazos River Authority. 
 

Share your thoughts, questions, and ideas for podcast episodes you’d like to hear about at [e-mail].

Host: Charlie L. Shugart, BRA assistant public information officer.

Guests: Matt Phillips, BRA deputy general manager, and Brad Brunett, BRA’s chief operations officer.

Intro music: Clay Sellers, BRA lab analyst. 

About us: 
The Brazos River Authority was created by the Texas Legislature in 1929 and was the first state agency in the United States created specifically for the purpose of developing and managing the water resources of an entire river basin. Today, the BRA's staff of 284 develop and distribute water supplies, provide water and wastewater treatment, monitor water quality, and pursue water conservation through public education programs. Although the Brazos River Authority is an agency of the State of Texas, it does not levy or collect taxes. Except for occasional governmental grants to help pay the costs of specific projects, the BRA is entirely self-supporting. The BRA maintains and operates its reservoirs and treatment systems using revenues from the customers it serves.

Creators and Guests

Host

Charlie L. Shugart

BRA assistant public information officer

Guest

Brad Brunett

BRA chief operations officer

Guest

Matt Phillips

BRA deputy general manager

What is Unpacking the Brazos River?

Ready to unpack the powerful stories of a Texas titan - the Brazos River? Listen as experts explain the Brazos River Basin's immense role in our daily lives. They'll cover everything from the river's fascinating history to all the work that goes into ensuring you have water when you turn on your faucet.

Hear invaluable insights on topics like why lake levels change, the important projects safeguarding our water, the many species that call the Brazos home, and even some tips for enjoying the water from Brazos River Authority experts.

This is your chance to understand the immense work that goes into developing, managing, and protecting the Brazos River Basin, which stretches from the Texas-New Mexico border to the Gulf. (The basin is the size of Tennessee, y’all, it’s big.)

It’s a huge part of our state’s story and we can’t wait to share it with you.

Clay Sellers: Got questions about the Brazos. No more unknowns. Ever wonder where that water comes from or where it goes? We're Unpacking the Brazos River.

Charlie L Shugart: Pipelines seem like a pretty basic concept. Right? You've got water here. You need it there. Simple. But you and I both know it's never that easy. When you actually dig into it, people sometimes have two big hang ups. First, they wonder if it's pouring rain in East Texas, why don't we just pipe all of that over to the dry spots? To a lot of people, that feels like a total no brainer. But on the flip side, and this one gets a little spicy, people hear you're putting in a pipeline and ask, “Why are you taking my local water and shipping it off to somewhere I don't even live?” Honestly, it's not a bad question. Chances are those individuals have never had anyone actually break it all down for them. So, let's fix that. I'm Charlie Shugart, and this is Unpacking the Brazos River. Joining us today is the Brazos River Authority's Deputy General Manager, Matt Phillips, and Brad Brunett, the BRA's Chief Operations Officer. You guys are already veterans of the show, so thank you for coming back to talk about this with me.

Brad Brunett: Yeah. You're welcome.

Matt Phillips: Yeah. Thanks for having us.

Charlie L Shugart: Let's hit the ground running with the basics. Why do pipelines matter?

Matt Phillips: You know, pipelines are necessary because growth doesn't always locate where water is. It doesn't always follow that pattern. Growth locates where it is, where it goes.

Charlie L Shugart: Right. It would be too easy if growth only occurred where there was enough available water.

Matt Phillips: You know, the I-35 corridor is a really good example. It's a huge area of growth. It is not plentiful in terms of water. It's the beginning of a very arid area of the state. And so, you know, at some point, water needs to be provided to those areas beyond their current supplies. And, again, the solutions become shorter and shorter, you know, the more that you implement the ones that you have. And so, at some point, you do have to look at the idea of bringing water to those areas from areas where it is.

Brad Brunett: Historically, though, there have been previous studies where people within Texas have looked at bringing water all the way from the Mississippi River.

Charlie L Shugart: That's a massive road trip for a drink of water.

Brad Brunett: Nothing on that scale has ever happened in Texas, but people have thought about it before. And who's to say someday, maybe it's possible. I don't really feel like that it will be, but you never know.

Charlie L Shugart: Yeah. Well, talk to me a little bit about what the Brazos River Authority has in terms of pipelines. What does that look like?

Brad Brunett: Right now, we've got several pipelines. The biggest one is a pipeline that transfers water from Lake Stillhouse Hollow to Lake Georgetown. It's about 28 miles long. It's a 48-inch pipeline. It's got four big pumps that move water, and we operate that pipeline based on lake levels at Lake Georgetown. So, when Lake Georgetown starts getting low, we turn the pipeline on and pump, and we've got pre-established trigger levels that we turn it off when Lake Georgetown if it gets rainfall or if we, you know, pump enough water over there and it comes up above those levels, we'll turn it off. So, it doesn't operate all the time.

Charlie L Shugart: Does this roughly 28-mile-long pipeline between Stillhouse Hollow Lake and Georgetown Lake have a name?

Brad Brunett: The Williamson County Regional Raw Water Line.

Charlie L Shugart: Okay. Okay. Tell me more about these pre-established trigger levels. What does that look like?

Brad Brunett: So, we don't want to turn it on too quickly because then we're subject to having rainfall come and fill Lake Georgetown up, and all the money we spend on electricity pumping water then is flowing down the river to the Gulf. And so, our goal is to try to only pump when we need to and try to minimize the spills or releases of that water should we have a flood at Lake Georgetown.

Charlie L Shugart: Yeah. Have we had that pipeline for a while?

Brad Brunett: Since 2006, it's been operational.

Charlie L Shugart: Okay. So, this goes back to what I mentioned earlier as something some people find confusing. In this case, we're moving water from one reservoir to another reservoir. Why do we have to do that?

Brad Brunett: It's really important because we've got three customers at Lake Georgetown that are all in a growing area, and Lake Georgetown is the smallest reservoir in our system, and it simply doesn't have enough yield or supply to meet their needs during drought periods. Whenever it's really wet and raining a lot, there's plenty of water, but when we have dry periods, there's just simply not enough water. And if we didn't have that pipeline, Lake Georgetown would go dry.

Charlie L Shugart: Okay. Alright. Yeah. So, a little important.

Brad Brunett: Yeah. Very important. Very.

Charlie L Shugart: I think what you said there couldn't have been emphasized more. If we didn't have that pipeline during drought periods, Lake Georgetown would go dry. I mean, wow. Okay. So, we have the Williamson County Regional Raw Water Line, mouthful, but that's not our only one. Tell me about the other.

Matt Phillips: So, at our East Williamson County Regional Water Treatment System, we have really two. We have a three-and-a-half-mile pipeline that brings the water from the intake where we take water out of the lake to the plant. Then we have another roughly three-and-a-half-mile pipeline that takes the water from the plant to Circleville where the customers pick it up. Those three customers of EWC, which are City of Taylor, Jonah Special Utility District, and Lonestar Regional Water Authority.

Charlie L Shugart: So, unlike the Williamson County one where we're moving from lake to lake, this one is moving from a lake directly to those who need the water.

Matt Phillips: Correct. From a lake to a treatment plant, and then from the treatment plant to the take point where the customers get it. And I think that pipelines are not always popular with folks in the public, but I think that at times it's forgotten that they're necessary to deliver water, period. Even your everyday water is going to likely at some point have come through a pipeline from somewhere. It's just how it has to happen. That's the delivery mechanism to deliver most water is going to be through a pipeline of some sort. May not be a big one. They're not always these massive, large ones, but they're a really critical part of the process in terms of water delivery. I honestly don't know, you know, from the standpoint of surface water, how you would really be able to deliver water to folks without them. I mean, they're critical. And then if you look at on the, I guess, the retail side delivering to actual end users, you know, that involves a much larger network of pipelines that go into neighborhoods and into commercial areas and things like that.

Charlie L Shugart: Yeah. Well, you said that they weren't always popular. Why is that?

Matt Phillips: I think that when you have issues with pipelines, it's not maybe even necessarily those everyday ones that are necessary for basic water delivery. It's the ones that have the potential to move water across large areas from areas where it's wet to areas where it's dry, ones that, you know, cross multiple different river basins, things like that. Folks where the water is coming from don't tend to like the idea of moving that water to somewhere else.

Charlie L Shugart: Even if it's in abundance in that particular area.

Matt Phillips: Even if it's in abundance in that particular area. At some point, if our state's going to continue to grow the way that it's growing, if we're going to continue to have this massive influx of population and industry and things like that, There are certain areas of the state where the water supply solutions, whether it's reservoirs or groundwater or whatever else, are going to get really, really in short supply. You know, essentially, you're going to run out of solutions at some point. In order to continue to meet needs, it's likely that you're going to have to move water. That's something that's necessary in order to be able to meet water supply demands. It's not always popular. Folks don't always like it. And especially when you're talking about surface water, where it becomes really important is surface water is you know, belongs to the state. It's a state resource. Obviously, groundwater is a completely different subject and, you know, we can stay away from that one. But, you know, surface water belongs to the state and, you know, it's meant to be put to beneficial use for the folks in Texas. And then sometimes that's going to involve moving it from one place to another.

Charlie L Shugart: Yeah. So those are the two pipelines that we own and operate?

Brad Brunett: Right.

Charlie L Shugart: Okay. The Williamson County Regional Water Line and then the East Williamson Water Transmission Line. And then we also maintain one for Sandy Creek Regional Water Treatment Plant too, but that facility is owned by the city of Leander. We just

Brad Brunett: Right.

Charlie L Shugart: Operate that one for them.

Brad Brunett: Right. It's very similar to our East Williamson County Raw Water Pipeline, where it's a pipeline from Lake Travis that takes water from the lake up to the treatment plant at Sandy Creek.
Charlie L Shugart: Okay.

Brad Brunett: And, again, it's owned by the city of Leander. We just operate it for them.

Charlie L Shugart: Okay. And we used to have a pipeline that ran out of Possum Kingdom Lake. Right? Can you provide some more background on that?

Brad Brunett: I think originally it was called the Kerr McGee Pipeline, and I don't remember when, but BRA acquired the pipeline to help provide more regional supply from Possum Kingdom moving west, and that pipeline historically had been put in place. It's a water pipeline, but the water through it was used for oil and gas drilling out in West Texas. And so, it was essentially BRA bought it to repurpose it to more of a, you know, municipal industrial water supply pipeline to move water from Possum Kingdom to the West. We owned it for maybe fifteen years, twenty years, or something like that. And the city of Abilene and the West Central Texas Municipal Water District are the two entities that benefit the most from that pipeline. And so, the Brazos River ended up conveying it to the West Central Texas Municipal Water District ten or fifteen years ago.

Charlie L Shugart: Okay. Yeah. A little bit of history.

Matt Phillips: Yeah. Yep.

Charlie L Shugart: Alright. What does it take in general to build a pipeline? What does that look like? High level?

Brad Brunett: Well, it's pretty straightforward, and it's been being done for years and years and years. And going back to what we were talking about earlier, nobody turns a faucet on in their house, and water comes out that hasn't flowed through a pipeline of some sort, whether it's a small pipeline running down the street or from that pipeline coming through your yard or a huge transmission line that's bringing water from one lake to another. In terms of building one, you've got to have the right to access the land. You know, pipelines can be 20 feet long or they can be a 100 miles long, and you have to have the legal rights to put the line in the land where it goes, and you can acquire the land where that it's owned and be simple ownership where it's like your property, or you can acquire easements, which is what's done most of the time. So, an agency like the BRA would go find or approach the landowners that are along the pipeline route if we were building a pipeline, and we would try to negotiate with them to basically compensate them to use their property to put the pipeline in. And they could still use their property just like before for the most part once the pipeline's in because it's underground. But it's a process that you go through to acquire the rights to put the pipeline. And then beyond that, it's a matter of engineering design, figuring out how big the pipeline needs to be, what type of material should be used, should it be a steel pipe or some type of PVC, those kinds of things. And so, there's an engineering process that goes through it. And then lastly, its construction, you know, and you hire a contractor that would come in and, you know, either traditionally, you know, dig a huge trench from the ground surface and lay the line in. And nowadays, we've got a lot of projects that use tunneling where there may not be any disruption to the surface that the pipeline may be tunneled underground from one point to another, and especially at creek crossings and under railroads and things like that, that's an option that's used a lot. But it's much more expensive to tunnel than it is to dig a ditch, essentially, and lay the pipeline in.

Charlie L Shugart: Yeah. That's interesting. I didn't actually know how they put pipelines past railroad tracks or creeks, so, yeah, that's neat. Going back to the East Williamson County Regional Water Treatment System, these names keep getting longer, which moves water from the lake directly to those who need the water. We're actually building a new pipeline as part of that system. Tell me about that one.

Brad Brunett: The pipeline that we're putting in there is going to be a new treated water pipeline, so it's going to take water from the treatment plant about three and a half miles to Circleville, where our customers will take it. And we've currently been operating with a 27-inch line that was put in there, I think, around 1990. The needs of the customers that are supplied through that line have grown to the point where the line is essentially too small to meet their needs moving forward. So, we need more capacity there. And so that's what's driving the new pipeline. It's going to be a, I think, a 40, it's either going to be a 48 or a 60-inch pipeline. The final decision hasn't been made on that yet. It's going to run about three and a half miles again to storage facilities there at Circleville. And right now, we're in the process of acquiring the easements that I mentioned a moment ago from the landowners along the route. And I think we've got maybe 15 or 20 or so landowners along that pipeline right away. We've got most of the engineering work done for it. And so, again, it's right now, it's a matter of finalizing the easement acquisitions and then putting the project up for bid and doing construction of the line.

Charlie L Shugart: So, for all of our listeners at home, if you're out here, chaotic shuffling through these episodes and not listening in order, I see you. Bounce back to episode six when we're done. That whole episode is dedicated to this project and answering the question of whether there will be enough water for one of Texas' fastest growing counties, Texas'. That was too hard for me to say. Okay. Go back, give that a listen. It's about more than just building a pipeline. Okay. Back to the here and now. Is there a limit to what these pipelines can actually do when the source itself is running low?

Brad Brunett: Pipelines are really only feasible when there is available water to convey through them. So, pipelines don't create water. They just help us distribute the available water that's out there. Whereas if you're looking to develop a new water supply, it's going to take a new reservoir, a new well in an aquifer somewhere, or something like that. And any water supply that's out there has pipelines connected to it.
Charlie L Shugart: Yeah.

Brad Brunett: I was going to say too, one thing I think a lot of people don't think about with pipelines, they're kind of like an artificial river, if you will. So, you know, the Brazos River runs 600 or 800 miles or something like that from out around Abilene to the coast, and that rainfall and water that's fallen on Abilene today may be being pumped at the coast by the Gulf Coast Water Authority in two weeks. And so, the river is kind of a natural, you know, Mother Nature's way of moving water from upstream to downstream, and it benefits people along the way.

Charlie L Shugart: Artificial river. I love that.

Brad Brunett: But a lot of times, people, wherever you live, you're associated with that lake, or that section of the river, and people have a natural tendency to feel like they have ownership. That's my water or our water, when in reality, the rainfall that produced that water might have fallen hundreds of miles away. And just like some of these pipeline projects, you know, for instance, the pipeline that we're building from Lake Belton to Stillhouse Hollow, the water in Lake Belton, people around there locally feel, you know, in that reservoir. You know, they've lived there. They've seen it. So, it's kind of like it's our water, but in reality, a lot of the water in Lake Belton, you know, may have come from hundreds of miles away, where it fell, you know, somewhere upstream of Lake Procter and just ultimately flowed into Lake Belton.

Charlie L Shugart: Yeah. This Lake Belton to Stillhouse Hollow Lake pipeline is not something we've actually talked about. Could you tell us a little bit more about what that looks like?

Brad Brunett: So, it's going to be, in similar concept to the Williamson County Regional raw water line that we talked about earlier that moves water from Lake Stillhouse Hollow to Lake Georgetown. Lake Belton is located very close to Lake Stillhouse Hollow, and it's about twice as large as Stillhouse Hollow. And so, it's got the ability to supply more needs from it than Stillhouse Hollow does. And so, we've been seeing growth in the water demand or the water use from Stillhouse Hollow, and part of that growth is coming from our customers down at Lake Georgetown where we pump water. But that lake also supplies many other water supply corporations and cities in the local area around Bell County and other surrounding counties. And it's gotten to the point where within the next, you know, five or ten years or so, it wouldn't be able to supply all those customers in a severe drought. Again, most of the time it can, but in a severe drought, it couldn't. And so, we're building another link to the system, if you will, so that we can pump water from Lake Belton to Stillhouse Hollow whenever it's dry and we need to. Kind of like the Williamson County Raw Water Line, this proposed pipeline that we're building between Belton and Stillhouse won't operate all of the time. And in fact, it's probably going to operate very infrequently, maybe, you know, on the order of once every five or ten years or something like that. Because most of the time, the watershed of Stillhouse Hollow can meet the needs. It's just in the bad droughts that it can't.

Matt Phillips: As Brad says, when we need it, we're going to need it.

Charlie L Shugart: Right.

Matt Phillips: And I think one of the important things that Brad also pointed out there is the fact that these reservoirs in this area have been regional supplies for a long time. They have been serving not just Bell County, but the surrounding counties around it, whether that's Milam, Lampasas, McLennan, Williamson. They've always been regional supplies, and that's one of the hard things to explain to folks locally because they see it as kind of again, they claim an ownership of it. They see it as kind of theirs.

Charlie L Shugart: They live next to it. They've grown up next to it.

Matt Phillips: They see all that. But these reservoirs were put in place to be regional supplies. To supply the entirety of the surrounding area, not just one area.

Brad Brunett: If you look further west in our state, you know, even outside of the Brazos River Basin, there's limited water out west. It just doesn't rain as much. And so, it's very common out there to have very long pipelines. You know, there are pipelines in West Texas that are over 100 miles long that are taking water from where it is to where it's needed. And, again, there's less water out there. And so, you know, within Central Texas, you know, the pipelines haven't maybe needed to have been as long or as many because there's more water here. There's more rainfall or more rivers or more lakes. There's, you know, aquifers. But, you know, as growth is coming, we're seeing a need to move that water around just like, you know, they have in West Texas for many, many years.

Matt Phillips: Pipelines will be a critical part of any future bigger picture, water supply solution, you know, even if it's not just within the state. The thing that I think people tend to focus on is moving East Texas water west. I think that's the one that kind of pops up in folks' minds the most. But, you know, there have been talks in the past years of eventually maybe bringing in water from another state. You know? Arkansas, Louisiana, if you're going to do that, a pipeline is going to be necessary to bring it to where it's going to you know, where it's going to go. Same thing with eventually, you know, desalination on the coast. Once you desalinate that water and, you know, treat it, it's going to have to go through a pipeline to get to whoever is going to be the ultimate consumer. So, they'll be a part of any major water supply solution going forward. They'll have to be.

Charlie L Shugart: You mentioned from other states. I mean, is that something or moving from east to west, is the Brazos River Authority looking for much wider reaching pipelines that extend outside of the basin?

Matt Phillips: We are not right now. No. We are focused on water that's within our basin and the major projects and initiatives that we're working on. When I talk about that, I talk about kind of broader statewide initiatives that, you know, that are even much bigger than us and way above our pay grade and then things that, you know, again, have been discussed over time as ways to meet the water supply needs in the drier areas.

Charlie L Shugart: Yeah. Just from your knowledge and your history, is there a reason us, state, regionally, people haven't already built giant pipelines out to where it rains way more to help the more drought-prone areas?

Brad Brunett: It kind of happens as it's needed. We haven't needed a pipeline from Belton to Stillhouse Hollow for many, many years, and now we're getting to the point where we need one. So, you know, you don't see these huge, long pipelines happen just randomly because they're very expensive. It costs a whole lot of money, and it's a big disruption to landowners and stuff. Again, if you think about let's say, if you're thinking about a 100-mile pipeline, you might be talking about hundreds, maybe thousands of different landowners that you have to acquire property from. And so, it's very complicated and it's very expensive, and you typically don't do it until you really have to, and the economics of it justifies the expense and the, you know, the difficulty of getting it done.

Matt Phillips: To build on that, I think you do it once the drier area, I guess in this case, has essentially exhausted or come very close to exhausting all of its other potential solutions.

Charlie L Shugart: Yeah.

Matt Phillips: Because it is a much more expensive solution than things that are closer to you. So, yeah, you're going to do it once you've gone through everything else you can do, and you're still growing, and you still need more water.

Charlie L Shugart: Talk about that a little bit. When we say growth, what are we looking at?

Matt Phillips: If you just look at our basin alone, the population in the Brazos Basin is going to nearly double in the next fifty years.

Charlie L Shugart: That's an incredible statistic.

Matt Phillips: And with that population growth, that creates a massive additional water supply need. And, again, there are only so many solutions, you know, within our basin. There are only so many solutions within our state. There are only so many different things that you can do. And so even with those solutions, many of those are going to involve the need to move water, as Brad said, whether it's a mile or whether it's 50 miles, you know, pipelines are going to be necessary for most, if not all, of those solutions that are put in place.

Charlie L Shugart: As pipelines get longer and more expensive, how do we, as the Brazos River Authority, balance that with maybe the cost of water in terms of kind of who's paying for those projects?

Matt Phillips: I mean, obviously, for the most part, we fund projects with our system, and we spread the cost out as much as we can across, you know, the entirety of our system customer base. And we try to use as many different financial tools as we have, and I'm going to practice this without any knowledge of being able to do it. But our financial folks will, you know, fund some portions of things with cash reserves. We will issue debt. We will access Water Development Board funding. We will do everything that we can to smooth out rate increases over time so that you don't have rate spikes or rate shock. But I think fundamentally, the thing that everyone has to understand, whether that's in Texas or probably really anywhere else, the cost of water is never going to go down. I mean, it's going to go up from here on in. All of the cheap water, all of the lower cost solutions, many of which we're relying on today, like our system of reservoirs that were built in the forties and fifties and sixties, our newest one having been built in the seventies, you know, those are all spoken for. It's not all being used, but it's all spoken for. And those were built so long ago that they created relatively cheap water. Everything that we produce from here on in, whether it's, you know, pipelines from one area of the state to the other, whether it’s desal, or whether it's new reservoirs, is going to be orders of magnitude more expensive than anything we've ever had before. So, the cost of water is going to increase over time. We, as an entity, and others will do everything we can to smooth out that increase.

Charlie L Shugart: Without getting too far off track, because I figured this could be a huge side conversation, you mentioned desalination. Are we involved with that at all?

Matt Phillips: Not directly at this point. No. There are a lot of ways in which desalination makes sense in the Brazos Basin, particularly in the lower portions of our basin. Still in the Brazos Basin, for the most part, you've got relatively low-cost surface water options. Even some of our, you know, newer projects that we're working on are much cheaper than desal. So, it's hard to get folks who are seeing those options to look at a desal option that's much more expensive and say, “Okay, yeah, I'll do the desal option.” I mean, you know, so I do think at some point, we'll get thirsty enough to need it. I think those cost numbers will begin to kind of intersect where they make sense. It just hasn't happened.

Charlie L Shugart: Do we have any other pipeline projects right now that are in the works, or are we looking at the Belhouse project as well as the East Williamson County project?

Brad Brunett: Those are the only two that are active and that are in progress. Anytime, like Matt said, any new water supply that we develop, you know, whether it's Allens Creek or a reallocation at one of our reservoirs or a new reservoir. Any new project is going to have to have pipelines associated with it to some degree. And so if you look in the Brazos G Regional Water Plan, there are probably some other pipeline projects that are mentioned in there, or that would be required if some of the new projects came online, but the two that we're focused on right now are the Belton to Stillhouse Hollow pipeline and the pipelines at East Williamson County.

Charlie L Shugart: You mentioned this. So, I don't think we've talked about this at all, on the podcast, but what is the Brazos G Regional Water Plan?

Brad Brunett: The state of Texas is divided into 16 planning regions across the state, and each one of those regions is responsible for developing a long-range water supply plan. Looking out fifty years into the future, basically comparing how many people there are now, how many people are coming, what are the projected water needs, and then looking at how much water do we have available now, and basically, you know, doing the math and determining whether we have enough or are we going to need more? And if we need more, they come up with potential new projects to meet those needs into the future, whether it's new pipelines, moving water from somewhere else, new reservoirs, conservation. And so, again, there are 16 of those regions across the state, and each one of them is responsible for putting together a water plan that the Texas Water Development Board then takes and consolidates all 16 into the State Water Plan. And that process is iterated every five years. So, every five years, it's updated, and there's a new one.

Charlie L Shugart: Okay.

Brad Brunett: And within each region, it's made up of a number of different representatives. For instance, you've got municipal, city interests, you've got county interests, you've got river authorities, you've got industrial interests, and you've got farmers. And so, they have a board, if you will, that covers various interest groups that rely on water. But that's a little bit about what that is.

Charlie L Shugart: Yeah. Thank you. That was helpful.

Brad Brunett: So when you're talking about a pipeline moving water from one lake to another, like, we've talked about with the Williamson County Regional Raw Waterline that BRA currently operates, and then the Belton-Stillhouse Hollow pipeline, one of the things that you've got to consider is the water quality in both bodies of water. For instance, if you have one really clean, pristine body of water and the other one is dirty or nasty, you don't want necessarily to pump it and put it in a reservoir where it's going to cause degradation there.

Charlie L Shugart: Yep. That makes sense.

Brad Brunett: When you're moving water from one natural water source to another natural source, that's a big part of it. You have to make sure that it's going to work okay and that you're not going to cause problems. If you're pumping it from a lake or river to a treatment plant, the whole purpose of the treatment plant is to clean the water up. So, it's not as big of a deal there. But when you're looking at moving water out of one natural river or lake to another, water quality is a big consideration that goes into that as well. And it's something that we had to study with the Belton to Stillhouse Hollow pipeline to make sure that the two waters were compatible and that we weren't going to be damaging Lake Stillhouse Hollow by periodically pumping water from Lake Belton into it.

Charlie L Shugart: Yeah. I think some of our recreational folks were going to want to know if that's going to move fish.

Brad Brunett: Might move some really small fish, but we'll have screens on the intake structures to prevent fish from being able to get through there and, you know, from one lake to another.

Charlie L Shugart: That will be important to some people. Okay. Great. Well, I appreciate you guys coming on and just kind of breaking this down for everybody. It's something we get a lot of questions about, so I thought that this was really helpful.

Brad Brunett: Alright. Good deal.

Matt Phillips: Yeah. Thanks for having us.

Charlie L Shugart: If you have any follow-up questions while you're listening to this topic, or if you think of something that you would just really like us to dive more into on one of the future episodes, please email us. You can reach out at [e-mail]. We would love to hear from you. And with that, we're out. Thanks for joining us on Unpacking the Brazos River.