Laserfiche WebLink
PAT MAYSE WATER COMMITTEE <br />REPORT #1 <br />TO PARIS CITY COUNCIL <br />Date: July 21, 2008 <br />In late 2007 the City of Paris was contacted by the City of Irving regarding the possibility of the sale <br />of water from Pat Mayse Reservoir to the City of Irving. <br />The two cities entered into a Memorandum of Understanding executed by Paris on January 14, 2008, <br />in which the City of Paris agreed to negotiate exclusively with the City of Irving regarding such <br />potential sale until December 31, 2008. Because an adequate water supply is critical to the future of <br />the community and to assure that all citizens' concerns are addressed in an open and full manner, the <br />City Council created the Pat Mayse Study Committee. The committee consists of l 1 voting members <br />and 6 non-voting members. <br />The committee met for the f rst time on March 27, 2008 and has met 7 times since. The committee's <br />intent is to meet on a bi-weekly basis. <br />To assist the committee, the council retained the services of an attorney specializing in water law, <br />Mr. Jim Mathews of Mathews and Freeland, LLP; a water resources engineering firm, HDR <br />Engineering, Inc., Austin, Texas; and a utility management consulting firm, R.W. Beck Corporation, <br />Inc., Richardson, Texas. City staff including City Manager Kevin Carruth, City Engineer Shawn <br />Napier, Director of Utilities Doug Harris, City Secretary Janice Ellis and others have greatly assisted <br />the committee. The "Paris News" has devoted extensive coverage to the committee's meetings. <br />To date we have accomplished the following: <br />The committee organized, selected officers and established a meeting schedule. We adopted <br />goals and objectives which were provided separately to the City Council. Tentatively, our <br />schedule is to issue a final report to the City Council in the early part of December 2008, but <br />this is dependent upon timely production of several outside studies which are beyond the <br />control of the committee. Our stated goal is to <br />"Educate, inform, and advise the Paris City Council and citizens of Lamar <br />County as to the best long-range commitment of its water resources." <br />2. Thursday, May 29, 2008, attorney Jim Mathews gave an initial presentation to the committee. <br />Information provided by Mr. Mathews and the briefing book provided by city staffindicates <br />that the City has the right to divert and use up to 61,610 acre-feet per year (roughly 55 <br />million gallons per day (mgd]), from Pat Mayse. This right was granted by the State of <br />Texas, which controls all the surface water within its borders, to the City of Paris with a <br />1 <br />4 „ <br />~ 00 (i~~ <br />