Coalition partners include but are not limited to United Steelworkers, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, International Paper Texarkana Mill, Texas Conservation Alliance, National Wildlife Federation (NWF), Sulphur River Oversight Committee (SOS), Friends United for Safe Environment (FUSE) loggers, Ward Timber Company, private land owners, truckers and thousands of women and men employed in an agricultural based economy.
Why are we opposed to Marvin Nichols? This proposed reservoir project for the Sulphur River Basin affecting five counties of Northeast Texas, would permanently flood 72,000 acres of forests and family ranches, cost the ratepayers a minimum of $2.1 billion, impose staggering impacts to wildlife habitat, and force thousands of East Texans to sell their land.
What is mitigation? Land confiscated by the Corps of Engineers under the Federal Clean Water Act of 1989. It's taken to replace wildlife habitat lost to the lake itself and comes from land within the same watershed. Mitigation is added to flooded acreage and will range from 2 to 7 acres for every acre of lake. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that Marvin Nichols will flood 66,521 acres and that mitigation will condemn an additional 163,620 to 648,578 acres.
Our mission is to urge elected officials to adopt an expressed goal of satisfying DFW-North Texas' projected water needs by fully utilizing water readily available in existing reservoirs before erecting costly and destructive new reservoir projects which would permanently reduce East Texas Natural Resources available to future generations and destroy families by devouring homes, livelihoods and an irreplaceable natural resource.