The Texas Water Development Board will meet Nov. 12 and vote on more than $80 million in water and flood awards, the largest a $30.3 million grant to Weatherford — and it will take those votes under an acting executive administrator.
The Weatherford money would come from the emerging contaminants account of the federal-state drinking water fund, the pot Texas keeps for pollutants that have no federal limit of their own. The program is aimed chiefly at PFAS, the long-lived industrial compounds known as forever chemicals, and it pays out as a grant rather than a loan. Weatherford has a documented PFAS problem: two of four samples at its treatment plant exceeded the federal ceiling for one such compound, KERA reported in 2024, and the city has run its water through activated carbon since 2019. The notice itself describes the project only as water system improvements.
The rest of the agenda is the board’s ordinary work at speed. Marble Falls would get $34 million to rebuild its wastewater system, Austin a $3.2 million flood loan, San Marcos $4.75 million to plan watershed flood protection. There is lead-pipe money for San Angelo and for a Harris County water district, a grant to Plainview, principal forgiveness for a church-run water system in Lubbock County, a revised flood plan for the Upper Rio Grande, and contracts for aerial mapping and for charting brackish groundwater beneath Central Texas.
The quieter item is who is running the agency. The notice filed Nov. 4 gives the contact as Kathleen Ligon, acting executive administrator; a notice filed a week earlier called her assistant executive administrator, and the agency’s website still lists Bryan McMath as executive administrator with no acting or interim label. In between, the board called a work session for Oct. 23 to act on appointing someone to act for it in the executive administrator’s absence. That notice named no one, minutes are not posted, and the Dispatch found no announcement from the agency and no report of a departure. Absence is the word the agenda used.
The board is scheduled to sit again Dec. 3. Whether it explains the change before then is the thing to watch.
Meeting at a glance
- When
- 9:30 AM, Thursday, November 12, 2026. TRD 2026006554 was filed November 4 at 11:42 a.m. The board held a work session November 4 and meets again December 3.
- Where
- Stephen F. Austin Building, 1700 Congress Ave., Room 170, Austin, and by webinar.
- Governing body & chair
- Texas Water Development Board — three full-time members appointed by the governor to six-year terms. L’Oreal Stepney, chairwoman. Kathleen Ligon is named on this notice as acting executive administrator.
- Format
- In person and by Microsoft Teams webinar, 20 numbered items, with a closed session possible on legal, personnel or investment matters.
- Live video
- The meeting runs by webinar; the link is in the notice. Speakers joining by video had to register by noon Nov. 11, in-person speakers by 8:30 a.m. Nov. 12.
- Full agenda
- Secretary of State Open Meeting Viewer · agency board page
Board members
- L’Oreal Stepney, P.E. — chairwoman; Pflugerville; engineer; term to February 1, 2029.
- W. Brady Franks — Austin; state budget director; term to 2031.
- Ashley Morgan — Georgetown; attorney; term expires February 1, 2027.
All three seats are filled. Names, cities and terms are from the board’s roster page, checked November 5, and match the governor’s releases appointing Stepney chairwoman in January 2025, Franks in September 2025 and Morgan in October 2025; no later appointment release for this board was found. Morgan’s term ends in under three months. The agency’s executive administrator page, read November 5, still names Bryan McMath with no acting designation, and its organization chart carries a September 8, 2026 date.