Council mulls Public Utility Agency

Council is set to formally vote on participation during its Oct. 1 meeting. Public notices about the PUA can be found in this week’s The Community News.

City Manager Candice Edmondson told council the discussion continued a presentation first given in June by representatives of Freese and Nichols, the engineering firm helping design the agency. The proposed PUA would give member cities and the county a shared framework to plan and fund future water supply infrastructure — projects Edmondson said would likely be more costly or difficult for individual cities to pursue alone.

Since June, Edmondson said, potential partner cities have continued meeting with Freese and Nichols and county representatives to refine the funding agreement and the ordinance that would formally create the PUA. About 14 entities are now expected to participate, up from a less certain count over the summer.

The prospective member list, as presented by Freese and Nichols, includes Aledo, Annetta, Brock, Hudson Oaks, Millsap, Peaster, Springtown, Weatherford, Willow Park and Parker County, along with utility providers Aqua Texas, Rio Brazos Water Supply Corp., Walnut Creek Special Utility District and the Upper Trinity Groundwater Conservation District. Annual cost shares are tied to population and range from $5,000 for the smallest entities up to $100,000 for Parker County; Weatherford and Walnut Creek SUD are each proposed at $50,000, while Aledo and Willow Park fall in the $20,000 tier.

The push for a regional water agency comes as Parker County's traditional groundwater supply shows signs of strain. According to figures presented by Freese and Nichols, Parker County has had more water wells drilled than any other county in Texas — nearly 15,500 since 2003 — but those wells are having to be drilled progressively deeper even as their yield declines. Regional projections cited in that presentation, drawn from the state's 2026 Region C water plan, show existing supplies in the Brazos and Trinity river basins falling short of demand within the coming decades, with the gap widening steadily through 2080.

Aledo currently meets its water needs through its own wells and a wholesale supply agreement with the city of Fort Worth, which delivers surface water through the Tarrant Regional Water District, Edmondson said. The June presentation noted more than 400 domestic wells sit within two miles of Aledo's city limits, averaging about 248 feet deep. Joining the PUA would not address an immediate shortfall, but could give the city a redundant water source as growth continues.

Cost and structure

Aledo’s fee of $20,000 annually covers administrative and engineering services rather than infrastructure itself, Edmondson said. Capital costs for any actual water infrastructure or supply projects would be funded through debt issued by the PUA, with only the member cities benefiting from a given project responsible for repaying that debt.

Member entities would not be obligated to participate in a given water supply project and would not face a penalty for opting out, since costs for specific infrastructure are borne only by the entities that benefit from it, according to Freese and Nichols representative Andrew Franko.

Councilman Todd Covington asked Franko how voting power would be structured relative to larger entities like the City of Weatherford and Parker County itself.

Franko said voting on most matters would be one vote per member entity, but decisions on larger issues — such as issuing debt — would use weighted voting proportional to each member's size. To prevent larger entities from controlling outcomes, Weatherford and Parker County would each be capped at no more than 25% of the weighted vote, keeping either from constituting a majority on its own.