(Seguin) — There’s reason for hope when it comes to the future of Lake Dunlap. The Preserve Lake Dunlap Association (PLDA) has announced that it has reached an agreement with GBRA that will allow the failed dam to be replaced. PLDA Board Member Doug Harrison says there are still many details to be worked out, but he says they are pleased to announce the agreement.
“The deal we announced is a partnership. It’s a proposed partnership. There’s a lot of heavy lifting. (There’s) a lot to do, (and) a lot of details that need to be ironed out, but it’s a partnership between GBRA and a tax district that is yet to be created of all the waterfront property owners around Lake Dunlap. The partnership would be that the GBRA would help us to obtain the debt. They would obtain the debt. We would enter into a contract with the new taxing district to pay the debt service on that debt to rebuild the dam, and then because that district is going to be paying the debt service — GBRA would donate hydroelectric revenues from the Lake Dunlap dam back into the district, which will help fund the district going into the future. So that we not only can fix the dam today, (but also make sure) it’s here for the next 100 years, 500 hundred years. (Ensuring that) it has some perpetual ongoing funds to make sure it’s around for future generations,” said Harrison.
Working together was crucial to coming up with the plan. Harrison says GBRA is going to continue to own the dams, but the taxing district will be a key part of helping to provide the necessary funding to cover the dam replacement costs.
“The dam and the hydro electric facilities are all theirs and it will remain theirs. The proposed WCID, which is a Water Control Improvement District, is a quasi-government taxing district, which would be created really for the sole purpose of raising funds to pay for the current rebuild of the dam, and acquiring a sinking fund for future long term capital rebuilds or mainteance of the dam. But everything else, as far as ownership and control of the dam, would still lie with GBRA,” said Harrison.
While a deal has been reached in principle, Harrison says there are still a lot questions left to be answered. One of the more important questions will be, how much will it costs to replace the dam? Harrison says they’ve seen some early figures, but he says more work needs to be done to get a more accurate picture of those costs.
“GBRA has hired an engineering firm, that is one of the top ones in the country doing this kind of work named Black & Veatch, that is doing the enginnering design report for GBRA and that report is not done yet. It’s in process. It’s a couple of million dollars worth of work, and it will be 30 percent complete this month…and we will see that before the end of the month, and then 100 percent complete in March of 2020. So, we are not even going to know the real final, final report from the engineering design guys until March. Before they even started the report, the ballpark estimate is about $24 million for the Lake Dunlap dam, which includes…a pretty nice contigency, some safety factors built in. (That is supposed) to be a conservative estimate, so we are pretty confident in that number, or really hope even less,” said Harrison.
Harrison says while they work to answer all of those questions, they also recognize that they will need to also work to convince those who reside along Lake Dunlap to support the creation of the taxing district. He says they will have to gain the support of the majority of those homeowners during an election tentatively scheduled for May of next year. Lake Dunlap is the first of the hydroelectric lakes in this area to announce its partnership, but other lakes, like McQueeney, Placid, Meadow and Gonzales are also expected to follow their lead. Harrison says Dunlap will have one additional hurdle that the other lakes will not have to follow.
“For the Lake Dunlap (taxing) district, it’s a little unique, because Lake Dunlap crosses two counties. So unlike what will happen on Lake McQueeney or Lake Placid — if they follow suit, they fall in one county — the election will be in May, (and)…we have to pass in Comal County and pass in Guadalupe County to give the district taxing authoritiy. So in May, we are going to put some propositions on the ballot that people, who own waterfront property on Lake Dunlap and that’s their voter residence address. So, if you are a voter and own property in that district, you can vote in May assuming it is approved, which the support we saw (Wednesday) night — we just did a straw poll of the audience and it looked like pretty close to 100 percent support. Assuming it passes, they would give us taxing authority, bonding authority and elect the original slate of five directors. The directors have to be potential members of the district and we will put five directors up that will manage the district going forward,” said Harrison.
Those who can participate in the election will be clearly spelled out prior to the vote. Harrison again stresses that only people, who have their primary residence on Lake Dunlap, will be allowed to vote.
“My property is in the district, but my principal residnece is on the western side of Comal County, and so I am hugely affected by it, but I do not get to vote in this election. People who live in Houston, (or) who live in San Antonio and have a lake house out there, are affected, but they will not get to vote in favor or against it, either way. So, it’s an unsual situation for some of those property owners like me,” said Harrison.
The dam failure at Lake Dunlap happened just before Memorial Day weekend. It happened at a time when there was little activity on the water, and there were no injuries. That’s a relatively short amount of time from then to now, when you consider all of the things that have transpired during that period. Harrison says everyone has worked really hard to try to move as quickly as possible to find a way to replace the dam.
“We have a collection of really smart and conveniently retired people around Lake Dunlap, and some are still working and still giving us tons of time and hours. As of today, it’s 150 days since the gate fell. So, in 150 days, we’ve come a long way and the plan that we announced (Wednesday) night, that’s not even Plan A or B. We are down to Plan C or D or something. We’ve tried a whole lot of options. GBRA — we are wearing them out — ‘okay, that won’t work, what about this?’ So, they’ve been very open and very willing to work with us,” said Harrison.
Harrison says there’s been a great deal of time and effort that’s gone into deal. He thinks that work is paying off in a big way, and that this will be a good deal for both GBRA and for property owners along the lake. He says this will be a longterm arrangement, which will protect the future of Lake Dunlap.
“If we create a taxing district, we become a governmental agency and they’re a quasi-governmental agency — they are an agency of the state of Texas. It’s not just a potential business deal between two business entities, where as long as you agree to do it, we have to meet some very specfic guidelines. At some point, GBRA or the tax district has to go out and ask for public debt money, and so it’s been a lot of learning to do in 150 days and a lot of effort from the volunteer members of the PLDA, the Preserve Lake Dunlap Association and from the GBRA staff and the other people that are helping us out here. We’ve run ourselves ragged chasing different optoins but I think we have a good one here,” said Harrison.
The dam failure at Lake Dunlap was the second spillgate failure experienced by GBRA at one of its hydroelectric dams. The spillgate at Lake Wood failed more than three years, and then there was the unexpected catostrophic failure that occurred at Lake Dunlap in May of this year. GBRA officials immediately said all of the hydroelectric dams were old and unsafe. The river authority was looking for ways to keep people safe, and one of the ways it could do that was by draining all of the other lakes. The reaction to that plan was mostly anger and angst, but the lake associations and GBRA never stopped working behind the scenes. Harrison says he knows how upset people have been, but he says that he believes this announcement can offer a sense of hope to those who utilize the water.
“I don’t want to be a foolish optimist. I’m optimistic about getting there, but I want to be realistic about the amount of work that it’s going to take to finish this. But a lot of people are just worried, becuase they worry. It’s human nature. It’s what we do. We worry about stuff. But when we talked to (people) that very first day – I wasn’t even on the board at that point — but when J. Harmon and our president called me and said ‘hey, can you help?’ We talked about it and I said, look, it’s going to be tough but if we all work on it, we’ll do this one way or another. We’ll find a way and get this done.’ It’s a lot of money for a homeowner. It’s $24 million. In city, county, (and) state terms, it’s only $24 million. There’s a way we can get this done, and we will get this done and I didn’t know but I knew that from day one. We’ll get this done. J. (Harmon) and I have tried pushed forth with this confidence to tell people that but until we had a reasonable plan, a reasonably credible plan to present to them, it was hard to give them a lot of confidence. People just looked outside their window eveyday and saw a river where there used to be a lake,” said Harrison.
PLDA’s announcement with GBRA does provide a roadmap for other lake associations going forward. Harrison says he knows all of the other lake associations are also working with GBRA to come up with similar plans. He says Dunlap’s agreement will be a little bit different based on some of the hydroelectric revenue that can be generated on that lake by GBRA.
“Dunlap has the benefit of generating more hydro-electricity than the other five lakes. Of the six lakes, we are 16 percent of the cost of maintenance of the hydro facilities because we are one-sixths, but we are a third of the revenue. Lake Dunlap just has better production capacity than some of the other lakes do. So, we have a little bit of an advantage there, but each lake is different. Lake McQueeney has less hydroelectric production, but they’ve got nearly double the property value surrounding the lake, so at the same tax rate that we put out, they can raise twice the amount of money on an annual fund. So, each lake will be a little different. But as far as a basic road map, I hope that what we are doing is something that all of the other lakes can follow,” said Harrison.
There are still a number of moving parts to this agreement, but Harrison says they would hope to start construction next summer. He says that would be a best case scenario, which would allow them to begin as soon as possible.
“It means we have to pass the election in May and by the time the election passes, we have to have already done a lot of prework on beyond getting the engineering design report, that will finish in March. We would have already had to start picking out, who the construction contractor is, getting bids in from them, getting them to do all their prelmiinary design work, and being ready to start the construction process. GBRA is committed to helping us do that starting right now,” said Harrison.
With so many unanswered questions, Harrison says there will come a time relatively soon where they will have to provide more concrete details about the pathway forward. He says the engineering report will go a long way towards providing that crucial information, especially the important details about how much money will actually be required to cover the debt payments for a new dam.
“The only numbers that we’ve been able to give out so far are our best guesses. Before we go to ask for a vote in May, we have to have hard numbers. You are not allowed to put a taxing initiative on the ballot and say ‘give me the authority to tax you, but I don’t know how much — unlimited taxation.’ You can’t do that, which is good. You don’t want people to be able to do that. We have to know hard numbers before the May election, and we’ll have another big town hall in March where we will tell everybody what those final numbers are which means we have a pretty short fuse with all the holidays in the middle, but we have to get through our negotiations with GBRA, get all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed and say, here’s exactly what this is going to look like so that we can go to the voters starting in March and saying ‘okay, here is what this is actually going to look like so they have something real to consider in saying should we vote for this or not in May,” said Harrison.
Harrison says there’s a ton work still to be done, but they are feeling very optimistic about their chances of getting this done. He also went out of his way to compliment the support and cooperation that they have received from folks at GBRA. He says they’ve been forthright, honest and hardworking through this entire process.