A project near Laredo could pump and sell millions of gallons of water, but treating it could be expensive. It's unclear if local governments will buy in.
LAREDO — Near where Interstate 35 and U.S. 83 meet in southwest Texas , a few cattle roam among scrub brush and cacti on a vast, rugged expanse of ranch land. The family that owns the property envisions a 13,000-acre, $7 billion logistics and housing development rising on the site, which is about 20 miles north of Laredo.
The project is named Talise, which promotional brochures say is a Native American word that means 'beautiful water' — and as is often the case in Texas, water-related issues will play a key role in determining the project's future. The Walker family, the project's developers, created Legacy Water Supply Corporation to develop a drinking water supply for Talise. Legacy Water Supply Corporation is 'a nonprofit water supply corporation formed under Chapter 67, Texas Water Code, serving retailers and special districts in Webb County,' according to its website. Legacy's plans call for drilling into the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer to access that groundwater — but surveyors and environmental advocates say the water is slightly saline and will need a costly treatment process to make it safe for drinking or cooking. Facing that challenge, the developers have asked the city of Laredo and Webb County to join the endeavor — and promise to sell water to both the city and county if the project becomes a reality. Plans call for building a water treatment plant and a 20-mile pipeline to Laredo. The developers have not provided specific estimates for how much that would cost. It's an intriguing option for leaders in Laredo, which gets all its drinking water from the Rio Grande and has long sought a secondary water source as it deals with a growing population and a deepening drought. The situation is also a microcosm of the challenges facing metro areas across Texas — many of which are also grappling with population increases and dwindling water supplies. Water rights to rivers and reservoirs in Texas have already been claimed, sometimes decades ago, leaving groundwater as the most viable new water source. Water importation projects are sprouting from San Antonio to Fort Stockton to El Paso, as the Texas Legislature debates how to spend billions of dollars to bolster the state's water resources. Bills moving through the Texas legislature present differing visions of how the Lone Star State can gird itself. Sen. Charles Perry of Lubbock is advocating for a “water grid” of pipelines that would move water long distances from the source, including other states, to places experiencing shortages. The Senate bill, passed on April 2, identifies desalination and treatment of oilfield wastewater as methods to develop more water resources. Other lawmakers, including House members, want more funds for fixing leaky pipes and expanding water conservation and recycling. The bills propose spending up to a billion dollars on the Texas Water Fund. The House bill remains in committee. For officials in Laredo and Webb County, the potential of the Talise project is hard to resist — even as questions remain about who will pay to treat and transport the water. 'Very expensive water' Both the Laredo City Council and the Webb County Commissioners Court have voted to request seats on the board for Legacy Water Supply Corporation. Laredo’s city manager, Joseph Neeb, is expected to become a member of the board. Neeb did not respond to requests for an interview. The Legacy Water Supply Corp. board meets in San Antonio, 150 miles northeast of Laredo. The current board members are Kandy Walker, who is developing the Talise project, Melissa Johnson, who represents the Legacy Municipal Management District that will purchase the water for Talise, and attorney Raul Leal. Meeting notices are posted on a fence surrounding the Walker property but are not published online. Laredo City Council Member Melissa Cigarroa said in an email that joining the board allows the city to be “at the forefront of the discussion” about development of the water source and the costs and benefits. She said that because of “the on-going efforts” to secure federal and state funds, “there is not a determinate price to discuss.” “There are still many questions to be asked and answered, and having a seat at the table... will allow us to do just that,” she wrote. Laredo’s mayor has said the city has signed a memorandum of understanding to support Legacy but not a contract governing water sales. Legacy is registered as a nonprofit, and its legal counsel has offered only vague cost estimates. Legacy representatives have said they will seek federal and state funds to cover the as-yet-undisclosed estimate of construction costs. Legacy has not provided cost figures in any public documents. No one has publicly calculated the potential cost to households. Inside Climate News requested construction proposals from Legacy under Texas public records law. Legacy did not release the documents and asked the Texas Attorney General's Office to allow it to withhold the information. Legacy said it is awaiting a determination from the office. Laredo environmentalists, meanwhile, provided some on-the-ground reality checks. Tom Vaughan, founder of Rio Grande International Study Center, a nonprofit whose mission is to preserve and protect the river, visited the site of the proposed water project at Legacy's invitation and took a groundwater sample. Laboratory tests showed the water was much too salty to meet state standards and would require treatment, he said. “The point is, it's going to be very expensive water,” Vaughan said. Tricia Cortez, executive director of the Rio Grande International Study Center, said Laredo has more work to do before approving importation of treated water Talise's developers. City officials should make decisions “grounded in science and data,” she said. “Laredo taxpayers and water ratepayers can’t be left in the dark with these significant decisions that will impact the future availability and cost of our water supply.” David Earl, the attorney for the Walker family's project, said the family is offering Laredo a chance to “help the city be sustainable.” He said he is optimistic the project will move forward. “I think, in principle, the parties have all agreed that this is the direction they want to go,” Earl said. “But formally and technically, there are still documents that need to be finalized and negotiated to get there.” Earl said the Walker family has spent more than $10 million developing the water supply. He said that if and when the expenses for the water system are recouped, any profits would be distributed among the board members, in keeping with state law. A city fed by the Rio Grande Since its founding in 1755, Laredo has relied on the Rio Grande for water. What centuries ago was a small Spanish outpost is now a city of 250,000 people. Nuevo Laredo, across the river in Mexico, has grown to 480,000. The pandemic and subsequent relocation of manufacturing from Asia to Mexico attracted more industry to Nuevo Laredo, and trade across the border has increased steadily. Laredo is the nation’s busiest land port, with more than 3 million trucks, an average of more than 8,000 a day, entered Laredo from Mexico in 2024, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Laredo has rights to 45 million gallons per day of Rio Grande water. These rights are managed by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. It's been sufficient to meet the city’s demand, but state and city water planners project that sometime in the 2040s it won't be. The search for alternative supplies took on new urgency in 2024 when tensions rose between the United States and Mexico over Rio Grande water. Mexico is required to send water from its Rio Grande tributaries to the United States on a five-year cycle under a 1944 water treaty. The water is stored at the Amistad Reservoir, more than 150 miles upriver from Laredo, and the city depends on it. As Mexico fell behind on its treaty requirements, the reservoir reached an all-time low in July 2024. Cities on both sides of the border restricted outdoor watering, among other conservation measures. Farmers downstream of Laredo in the Rio Grande Valley had already faced deep cuts to their supplies. The region's last sugar mill closed because farmers could not irrigate cane fields. Many fear the water shortage could damage the Texas citrus industry, which has an annual economic impact of about $300 million, according to Texas A&M University's Agrilife Extension Service. Webb County officially entered a drought in spring 2024. Laredo is in extreme drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. “We're growing astronomically fast; our demand for water is going to be much more,' said Laredo Mayor Victor Treviño. 'The river is not going to be sufficient. So what are we going to do?” Planners have looked outside Laredo city limits for viable groundwater but options are scarce. Almost all of Webb County is privately owned — much of it is ranch land — and ownership is highly concentrated, with some of the residents among the nation's top 100 land-owning families. In Texas, groundwater is governed by the rule of capture. That means landowners can pump groundwater without restrictions even if it affects neighboring wells. Voters can form groundwater conservation districts, which can then create groundwater management plans to reduce the effects of over-pumping. Because there is no groundwater conservation district in Webb County, the Walkers are free to pump as much groundwater as they please from beneath their property. The Walkers are among Webb County’s most prominent ranching families. James Oliver Walker arrived in south Texas in the early 20th century and his sons, James Walker Jr. and Gene Walker, followed him into the ranching business. By 2000, the Walker ranch holdings surpassed 250,000 acres, including the Talise property. Gene Walker died in 2015. His adult children — Gene Jr., Patrick, Elizabeth and Kandy — began planning the Talise project in 2021. Gene Walker Jr. and Patrick Walker died in a plane crash in January 2024 while surveying the land. Kandy Walker remains a driving force behind the development. In September, she told the Laredo Morning Times that the family envisioned Talise as a new city “that would represent the Walker family’s love of this land.” Walker, chief executive of SE Legacy Development, said Talise will position Laredo as a “leader in economic development in the state” and generate jobs. “In 15 years, we should see thousands of homes and luxury apartment developments filled with hundreds of people and families, enjoying all the amenities we will offer,” she told the newspaper. “A thriving town center filled with stores, shops, restaurants, health and entertainment venues. Successful and vital industrial parks creating thousands of jobs.” Overseeing groundwater Laredo and Webb County are part of the Texas Water Development Board’s Region M, which last updated its water plan in 2020. The plan projected that Laredo’s water supplies would be adequate until the 2040s. Laredo’s 2022 water master plan, a separate document, notes that the city would be vulnerable if a spill, natural disaster or drought restricted its access to Rio Grande water. The city has investigated several areas where groundwater wells could supplement the city's supply. To the north, the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer has high quality water. Near the border in Laredo, groundwater quality declines. Finding drinkable water with low chlorides or salts — known as total dissolved solids or TDS — is a challenge. Treating water to meet state standards involves reverse osmosis, an energy intensive and expensive process that strips chloride from water molecules. The developers of Talise first tested the water’s salinity from wells in early 2022. Those tests were “disappointing,” according to the Laredo water master plan, because of high TDS levels. Legacy engineers continued testing in April 2022 and July 2023 at wells drilled on the Talise property. The new tests found TDS levels of 1,300 and 1,800 milligrams per liter, according to documents posted on the Legacy website. The state's maximum level for public water supplies is 1,000 milligrams per liter. There are other groundwater options in Webb and surrounding counties with lower TDS levels that would not require intensive treatment, according to the 2022 Laredo water master plan. A property 40 miles northwest of Laredo in Webb County, called the Davenport Ranch, has “excellent quality” water with TDS levels below 500 milligrams per liter, according to documents from a city council workshop in 2022. Pishkur, Laredo’s interim utilities director, said the city is in discussions with Legacy and is interested in finding a secondary water source. But he said reducing water loss from leaky pipes and reusing more treated wastewater will also be part of the answer. “Municipal use is priority water. That puts us at the front of the class,” Pishkur said. “However we should be part of the solution, not part of the problem. We should get much more efficient with the water we're pumping.” Legacy makes its case Before breaking ground at Talise, the developers approached the city of Laredo and Webb County to join the Legacy Water Supply Corporation board. In November 2022, Earl, the attorney for Legacy and the Walkers, presented the water project to the Webb County Commissioners Court as a way to improve living conditions for some of the county’s poorest communities. He said Legacy could work with the county to provide water to residents of colonias, which are low-income housing subdivisions that have long lacked basic services. The county commissioners approved a resolution to “cooperate and collaborate” with Legacy in “establishing the feasibility of a secondary water source and identifying funding sources.” There was one abstention: County Judge Tano Tijerina, the county’s highest elected official. Tijerina is married to Kimberly Walker, a cousin of the Walkers who are developing Talise. “Even though they are family, we have nothing to do with this project,” Tijerina said during the meeting. “For optics, and optics only, I will abstain.” More than a year after the county commission vote, Laredo City Council members discussed the city's water needs in a special session. On the day of the meeting, June 5, 2024, drought conservation measures were in effect as the temperature hit 107 degrees. Council members pressed utility staff on how to improve the city’s water conservation and reduce waste. “We need a plan of action,” Treviño said. Earl stepped forward with a PowerPoint presentation about Legacy’s development and its potential to provide water to Laredo. Although Earl and Legacy were not on the meeting agenda, he and the project’s hydrologist, Jordan Furnans, provided a robust account of Talise’s potential. Pressed by council members, Earl said the water could cost $2 per 1,000 gallons before transportation, and that the cost for Laredo could reach $3 to $4 per 1,000 gallons. But he said that estimate assumed state and federal grants covered all construction costs. He had no estimate for a scenario without government aid. The city council voted unanimously to request a seat on the Legacy Water board. What will be the legacy of Legacy? State Sen. Judith Zaffirini, a Laredo Democrat, and Tijerina attended a groundbreaking for Talise on May 15, 2024. Kandy Walker was photographed with a shovel in hand. Zaffirini praised the Walkers. 'They will leave the legacy of not only developing the inherent beauty of this land and its economic potential, but also being able to address the water shortage of this area,” she said. Local academics and environmentalists have raised concerns about who ultimately will pay for Talise’s growth and Legacy's water infrastructure. When Vaughan, of the Rio Grande International Study Center, visited the Talise site, the developers turned on the pumps to test well to show it was producing water. Vaughan took a sample and sent it for testing. He said lab results showed a TDS level of 1,700 milligrams per liter. Laredo would be better off building its own desalination plant rather than relying on Legacy, he said. Desert cities including El Paso are building facilities to treat wastewater for reuse as drinking water. The Environmental Protection Agency considers water unaffordable if households spend more than 3% of their income on it. By that measure, water bills are already unaffordable for 17% of Laredo households, according to a water affordability dashboard maintained by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment and Sustainability. Earl acknowledges that Legacy water will be more expensive than what flows from the Rio Grande. Laredo’s city manager did not respond to questions about whether other water sources were still under consideration. Cigarroa, the council member, said Laredo has memorandums of understanding with the city of Eagle Pass and the Nueces River Authority to explore water projects. The Legacy project 'seems to be the farthest along,” she said.
Legacy Water Board Walkers Legacy Municipal Management District Texas Attorney General's Office Laredo City Council Texas Water Code Legacy Water Supply Corp. House Texas Commission On Environmental Quality Inside Climate News Texas Water Fund United States Walkers Texas Legislature Neeb Senate Agrilife Extension Service M University Bureau Of Transportation Statistics Texas A&Amp Laredo Morning Times Environmental Protection Agency Duke University Texas Water Development Board Nicholas Institute For Energy Environment And Sustainability Nueces River Authority Kandy Walker Talise Tom Vaughan Melissa Cigarroa David Earl James Oliver Walker Joseph Neeb Gene Walker Jr. Kimberly Walker Charles Perry Raul Leal Victor Treviño Tano Tijerina Tricia Cortez Native American Pishkur Jordan Furnans Judith Zaffirini Melissa Johnson Patrick Walker Elizabeth Laredo Democrat Nuevo Laredo Webb County Rio Grande Texas Mexico Rio Grande International Study Center Interstate 35 U.S. El Paso San Antonio Fort Stockton Lubbock Amistad Reservoir Kandy Spanish Asia Rio Grande Valley Davenport Ranch Eagle Pass Talise Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer SE Legacy Development Region M Powerpoint Legacy
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