Texas voters will vote this November on whether to approve $20 billion for water projects over the next two decades. If passed, Proposition 4 would be the biggest state investment in water in Texas history.
Megan Kimble, who reports for the Houston Chronicle, said this pot of money would be spent on two types of projects.
"Half of it is dedicated to water supply projects like desalination, maybe piping in water from out of state, like new water supply," she said. "The other half will go to fixing the state's aging and deteriorating infrastructure – think, you know, leaky pipes or wastewater treatment."
Voters are being asked to weigh in because it would require a change to the state constitution to dedicate funding from sales tax revenue.
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"I would say largely this is pretty uncontroversial among lawmakers and activists," Kimble said. "People agree we need to spend money to shore up the state's water supply. You know, we're on track for some pretty dire shortages if we do nothing."
The money, if allocated, would go through the Texas Water Development Board, which would then be responsible for directing funds to priority projects across the state.
"For example, Houston has a big problem with leaking pipes. The city loses about a ton of water every year, enough to supply the whole city of Fort Worth. Some of that money could go to shore up and replace those leaky pipes," Kimble said. "An example of a new water supply project could be like a desalination plant along the Gulf Coast. About seven of these are already in various stages of production or consideration. And that means basically the endeavor of removing salt from seawater to make it drinking water quality."
The development board will only be able to fund projects that have been approved by regional water plans, Kimble said. There are 16 of these regional plans that cover every part of the state.
"I will note also that there are examples, there's precedent, for this kind of carve out," she said. "Voters in Texas about a decade ago approved a carve out for transportation money. So part of the sales and severance tax is carved out to fund transportation across the state. And that money goes to the Texas Department of Transportation to fund road projects all across the state. So there is an example of the voters of Texas approving this kind of carve out before."
Early voting in Texas continues through Friday. Election Day is Nov. 4.
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