Judge Henson is up for re-election and seemed to be the only person for Millican in Madison County. This Region H planning group thought they could get millican thru under the radar. Almost as if they were taken a secret vote and not being held accountable to anyone. If you have attended any of the region H meetings, regular or public hearings, you know what type of power trip they are on.

If you are going to vote on something this large, let he folks know before the vote. this is no small issue for madison county ranchers about to lose the farm.

sunshine - the 2011 Regional Water Plans have not been officially submitted to the TWDB yet. These plans are called IPP (Initially Prepared Plans) and the Regions are going through the Public Input phase right now. When the public input phase is done (June 8th for Region H) then my understanding is the RWPG (Regional Water Planning Group, or Board) will convene and vote on revisions to the plan. If the Region H Board votes to remove the URS designation request for Millican (PC), then it comes out and that request never gets submitted to the TWDB, and therefore never gets to the Legislature.
If anybody has definitive info different than this, please let me know.

Judge Henson sent this to me Thursday.


While I support many of the recommendations contained in the draft of the Region H Water Plan, I do not support the recommendation that the proposed Millican Reservoir be designated by the Texas Legislature as a unique reservoir site.
To my knowledge there has not been an in-depth study as to the impact and damage the designation as a unique reservoir and the construction of a reservoir would have on the property owners,ranchers, wild life habitat and management, public facilities, oil, gas and lignite industry, highways, county roads and county tax base and other facilities and services that have not been considered. I am preparing a Resolution to submit to Commissioner's Court for approval requesting that the designation of Millican Reservoir as a unique reservoir site be removed from Region H Water Plan prior to submittal of the final plan to Texas Water Development Board. This Resolution will be sent to Region H Water Planning Group.
Arthur M. Henson
Madison County Judge


[This message has been edited by Educate me (edited 4/23/2010 4:05p).]

to ed.. what about millican being a water management strategy in the IPP? The time for Judge Henson's comment could have made a greater impact if he would have voted Nay to Unique and Strategy, then offered this comment/letter listed above.

Look at the comments John Bartos made when he voted on the IPP 2/3/10. Certianly the members have a greater opportunity to comment than the general public had before the IPP vote was done.

What do you all think about making this phone ring a few imes this next week.


Questions or requests for additional information may be submitted to: Reed
Eichelberger, General Manager, San Jacinto River Authority, P.O. Box 329, Conroe, TX
77305-0329, telephone 936-588-7111. The San Jacinto River Authority is the Administrator
for the RHWPG.

Educate Me: Well, after reading the latest article in the Eagle, Landowners Fighting Reservoir, perhaps we should be ringing the phone off the hook in Senator Ogden's office. Opposition group needs to grab a copy of the commercial that his wife did for his campaign earlier this year and remind him that he is supposed to be defending & protecting his homeland, the BV area.

Sunshine, did you notice the companion article in Sunday's Eagle about Houston air quality impacting us? They want our water so they can grow bigger and send even more toxic fumes our way? I don't think so.

Mr Ogden, as a commenter in the Eagle wrote, you are a state senator, not a U.S. Senator. Therefore your constituents are in the Brazos Valley, not the whole state.

I have publicly stated that I question the desirability of increasing the population of Brazos County and I offer the same question to the State of Texas. Many people say that growth is good/necessary/inevitable but seldom provide any reasons. If the reason is to create jobs to lure folks from other places to come here, that's a good thing?

If Houston stops sprawling bigger and bigger because they don't have our water, won't that make our air cleaner?

ks, actually I did notice the headline & realized the contradiction immediately. My belief system is that we are an interdependent society, a balance of nature creating sustainability, Lev. 25. How can any rational person think that these reservoirs are a good idea, especially when there are alternatives. Developing technology for desal plants seem to be dismissed by these pro-economic developers as cost prohibitive w/o recognizing it's potential 5, 10 15 years from now. It's working in places like El Paso, but you wouldn't know this unless you did your own research aside from the propaganda that is being outlined by Region H planners. I believe that Sen Ogden & company want to pit rural folks against the urbanites because they think MONEY will win. Kick people out of their homes, their businesses, their land, destroy wildlife habitats and claim it is for the greater good. Region H is more populous than Region G and will have more representation in Legislature. Sen Ogden is representing his own self interests, and those of the bait shackers & boat dockers that have posted their plans with glee on other forums. Shameful.

[This message has been edited by sunshinek67 (edited 4/27/2010 5:26a).]

The regular Madison county commissioners court meeting is 4/26/10 at 9:30qam. It is on the square in madisonville, at the courthouse, 2nd floor.

Discussion on the Millican Reserovir in on the Agenda as an item. Public oomment is accepted, just fill out a slip.

Hope their is a good turnout this monday morning.

I would like to point out that the region H group was very misleading to the public in Madisonville and Conroe. We asked for details and maps.They did not have any details or maps. "This is just a 50 year planning exercise" But when confronted by Clay Falls with KBTX after all of the public hearings were complete WOW ABRACADABRA all of a sudden they have a map with the dam location and water levels. In my opinion most of the region H group are liars and cheats. And I look really forward to telling them so in July.
I never realized that our political system was so corrupt even at the state regional level.

Educate Me:

I was at the Conroe meeting, and you are correct.

I haven't seen this map with elevation levels. Where do they place the dam on the map (since the PLAN still calls for it in Millcan)?

What elevation levels did they use for lake level and dam level?


Thanks!

the conservation pool is estimated to be 263

The North West end of the dam starts close to bird pond rd. Just a little south of Tonkaway rd. Runs parallel with tonkaway past William Fitch. Turns to the North East ~10 degrees and continues toward the river with several more bends to the North East until it ends on the East side in Grimes county some where in the middle of the new B/CS Landfill. The dam looks like a horse shoe.

Williams creek and Pepple creek subdivisions will not be able to see the sun until about 10 am. They will be in the shade of a mammouth dam.

But remember this is a 50 year planning exercise.

I sure wish they would of had the integrity to share this information with us in the public hearings.

OK. That'd be funny if they stuck the dam on the Eastside of CS.

So, is the conservation pool elevation the same as the dam height?

region H did the same thing with bedias in 07, they had the maps, but waited til after the final IPP vote in july. I got my hands on one by going to the project engineer in houston. I asked the sect at the desk, and to my amazement she had grown up in Madisonville and gave me several 11 x 14 color maps she printed up. I had them blown up and took them all over town.

In the region H plan. the map in the appendix online was of the luce bayou project, not bedias. they have to have a big map to start with, then the scale it back.

region H group members all saw the map and knew what they were voting on from the beginning. Most of the public hearings have very low turnout, like 4 or 5 public comments. they underestimated the guardians reaction.

Judge Henson wanted this project for some reason, now he is in the damage control mode, back pedaling. He's now acting as if he not even on the board, making resolutions. He doesn't need resolutions, he is a voting member. His comments would have made a better impression, if he voted Nay and then stated-- the millican project is a horrible plan. Don't study it any more, just eliminate it completely out of the region H plan.

to ed -- thanks for the post on the dam site location. they have to have a large scale map, so they could downsize it for the chapter 8 map of millican. Can the dam location be found in the region h plan IPP?

here is the article from the madisonville meteor. one of the planning members (judge henson) who vote for millican as unique and s strategy to be developed many months ago, doesn't know where the dam site is? the judge is thinking its needs more time to be studied??

meteor article 4/28/10

http://www.madisonvillemeteor.com/articles/2010/04/28/news/news01042810.txt