The Texas Water Development Board will decide Sept. 10 whether to spend $69.5 million lining and piping irrigation canals in the Rio Grande Valley, the state’s half of a $164 million package assembled with a bank the United States and Mexico own together.
Staff recommend 17 projects run by 12 irrigation districts in Cameron and Hidalgo counties. The North American Development Bank would put up $75.4 million from a $400 million water fund its board created in August 2025, with the districts and the federal Bureau of Reclamation covering about $18.8 million more. The agency does not total the water saved, but the savings listed project by project add to roughly 44,000 acre-feet a year by the Dispatch’s arithmetic. Twenty-one applications arrived from 13 districts before the window closed in February; the bank’s own share still needs its board’s approval.
The Texas money comes from a $1.038 billion cash appropriation the Legislature made in 2025. Because lawmakers dropped it into the agency’s general revenue rather than routing it through the bond programs the board normally uses, it can go out only as straight grants, and a constitutional bar on state gifts to private parties keeps nonprofit water supply corporations out. Grants have to close by May 1, 2027.
Two other votes matter. The board takes up the spending plan for the state’s flood fund, about $312 million left from what the Legislature appropriated in 2023. Comment closed June 12 after 34 submissions carrying roughly 168 individual comments; staff made only minor edits, and the plan now caps most applicants at two projects per category and reserves at least one invitation for each regional flood planning group. Separately, the board would designate four brackish groundwater production zones in the Hill Country’s Trinity Aquifer, the first such designations since 2019. Once a zone exists, the local groundwater district has to write rules letting cities and power plants pump it on 30-year permits. No public comments were filed.
The rest of the 17-item agenda is money moving: $60 million for a Denton wastewater project, $50 million for a Granbury water plant, and up to $4.75 million to map and locate lines for small rural utilities. A briefing covers a separate $50 million round for the rural water corporations the canal money cannot reach; that solicitation opens Sept. 15.
Meeting at a glance
- When
- 9:30 a.m. CT Thursday, September 10, 2026. The notice, TRD 2026005279, was filed September 2 at 2:22 p.m. The next regular meeting is October 1.
- Where
- Room 170, Stephen F. Austin Building, 1700 Congress Ave., Austin.
- Governing body & chair
- Texas Water Development Board — three full-time members appointed by the governor to six-year terms. L’Oreal Stepney is chairwoman.
- Format
- Regular board meeting; 17 numbered items, most of them financial assistance votes. Public comment is taken on any matter within the agency’s jurisdiction. Remote speakers had to register by noon September 9; in-person speakers by 8:30 a.m. September 10. Closed session is noticed for legal, personnel and investment matters.
- Live video
- Streamed and archived through Admin Monitor · Microsoft Teams webinar linked from the notice
- Full agenda
- Secretary of State Open Meeting Viewer · agency agenda and backup documents
Board members
- L’Oreal Stepney — chairwoman; Pflugerville; engineer and longtime state environmental regulator.
- W. Brady Franks — Austin; the governor’s former state budget director.
- Ashley Morgan — Georgetown; water and environmental lawyer.
Roster from the agency’s board page, cross-checked against the governor’s releases — Stepney named chairwoman January 8, 2025, Franks appointed September 25, 2025 and Morgan appointed in 2025. Two of the three members have served less than a year. Bryan McMath has been executive administrator since September 2024. Meeting contact: Kathleen Ligon, assistant executive administrator, (512) 463-8294.