Friday, May 3, 2024
Granbury resident Rick Huber was recently honored at a Brazos River Authority (BRA) board of directors meeting when he was reelected to serve as the assistant presiding officer.
The mission of the BRA is to develop, manage and protect the water resources of the Brazos River basin to meet the needs of Texas. The BRA provides water for such beneficial uses as municipal use, agriculture, irrigation, electric generation, mining and industry, according to brazos.org.
The BRA board of directors is the exclusive policymaking body for the BRA, setting all major policies that guide the overall operations of the organization. The board consists of 21 members appointed by the governor and subject to confirmation by the Texas Senate. Directors serve a six-year staggered term, with one-third being replaced each odd-numbered year.
Huber has been a board member since 2015, when he was appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott. He is currently in the third year of his second six-year term.
In 2022, Huber was elected as the BRA’s assistant presiding officer, in which he presided over the board in the absence of the presiding officer. When Huber’s two-year term expired, he was reelected in November to serve another two-year term as the assistant presiding officer for 2024 and 2025.
He explained that three officers — the presiding officer, assistant presiding officer, and secretary — are voting members of each of the board committees.
"It's good to be a member of each committee because you attend every committee meeting as well as board meetings," Huber told the HCN. “I like that because it keeps me up-to-date on everything that we're doing as an organization and everything that each committee is doing. I like to be informed of everything so I'm knowledgeable about it and can communicate about it when things come before the board.”
A graduate of Mississippi State University, Huber received a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering — which is part of the reason why he has enjoyed getting to see the innerworkings of the BRA.
"I have a natural curiosity about how complex things work, so it's been very really fascinating to me to learn the workings of the Brazos River Basin,” he said. “It's a giant system that covers about 43,000 square miles. The Brazos is the longest river that's contained within the state of Texas’ borders. It goes from right near the New Mexico State line all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, so it's about over 900 miles long, and it encompasses about 70 different counties in Texas — either all or part of them — so that's how big the Brazos River Basin is.”
Huber said one aspect about the BRA that many people don’t know is that it’s a political subdivision of the state of Texas, but it doesn’t receive or levy taxes.
"The BRA doesn't collect any taxes and it doesn't receive any funding through the legislative budget process,” he said. “It's self-sustaining and that comes from the sale of water. We also operate several freshwater treatment plants and wastewater treatment plants for several municipalities under contract.”
During extreme weather conditions like a drought or flooding, Huber said the BRA works together with its 11 reservoirs in a “delicate dance” to resolve the issue.
He said during times of flooding — especially in Lake Granbury and Possum Kingdom Lake — the BRA releases water by opening the flood gates and letting the water flow down to Lake Whitney, which is a flood storage lake.
"That's why you see when there's lots and lots of rain, they'll be opening the gates up at PK and lots of water comes down the river and then as it gets here, they open the gates here and let that same amount of water out to keep the levels at a full level,” he explained.
Similarly, during drought conditions, if not much water is flowing down the main stem of the river, the BRA will release water from the 11 reservoirs to help augment the water.
"We try to release from the downstream reservoirs as much as possible but when they get too low —which has happened a few times — then we have to start releasing some water from Lake Granbury and from Possum Kingdom to supplement that water, which we don't like to do, but we have to when it would get to the point where we have to do it to serve our customers."
Huber also explained how three of the man-made lakes are owned and operated by the BRA reservoir system: Possum Kingdom Lake, Lake Granbury and Lake Limestone. The other eight reservoirs are owned and operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
What really excites Huber about working for the BRA, he said, is all the projects he is involved in that will help provide more water for Texas — projects that are desperately needed due to the expected growth.
“The Texas demographers down in Austin say that the population of Texas right now is around 31 million. They estimate by 2050 It's going to be more than a 50% increase and we'll have around 47 million people in the state, which is 16 million more than we have now by 2050,” Huber said. “Where's the water gonna come from? Because there's a finite amount of water now. The last couple of years we've kind of struggled to keep our water supply up. We have several reservoirs right now downstream that are in various stages of drought, so we're hoping to get some winter rain, or at least when we get to springtime, we can get our regular spring rains.”
One of the upcoming projects that will provide more water for Texas is a little unconventional, according to Huber. He said another state-permitted water storage reservoir called Allen’s Creek is currently planned for construction in the lower portion of the Brazos basin.
“It's in the permitting stage right now, which takes about five to seven years to get the federal government to finally permit it so that you can start milking it,” Huber said. “We're about a year into the permitting, so that's gonna be a while before that one's online. But that's one way we're gonna supply a great amount of water — especially the customers downstream — which will relieve some of the load on Lake Granbury and Possum Kingdom because we'll have more water downstream to use in drought conditions without having to call on our lake up here to release water.”
Huber said the BRA has had success in Williamson County by mixing groundwater with surface water from reservoirs to get more water.
He said the BRA is also waiting for the senate to approve a bill for something called an aquifer storage recovery (ASR).
"The Trinity Aquifer is where most of the water in Central Texas comes from, so when water is plentiful in the Brazos River, we will inject water back into the aquifer for storage," Huber said. “When we have drought conditions, we can then recover that water up out of the aquifer for use so it's just a great way to store water because there's no evaporation there. In our reservoirs, we have a huge amount of evaporation, especially during the summertime because of the heat. ASR is a very promising project that we're battling with.”
In addition, the BRA is also going to start a desalinization plant to study desalinization of seawater. The process is expensive, but Huber said the BRA believes at some point, it’s going to be cost-effective when water becomes even more scarce.
"It excites me to see how much research and development is being done with all these projects that we're doing to produce more water," he said.
Huber is a former U.S. Air Force pilot and a retired American Airlines captain. He is a member of the Fort Worth Air Power Council and the Grey Eagles. He also serves on the Granbury Regional Airport Advisory Board and is vice president of the Mesa Grande Water Supply Corporation.
He is the former chairman of the Hood County Appraisal Review Board and former member of the Leadership Granbury board of directors, where he was named Board Member of the Year in 2014-2015.
Huber will serve for two years as the assistant presiding officer or until a successor is selected. He will continue to serve on the Brazos River Authority Board of Directors until his term expires in 2027.
For more information about the Brazos River Authority, visit brazos.org.
