‘Increased redundancy’: Midland continues plans on ‘100-year water supply’ project

MIDLAND, Texas (KMID/KPEJ) – The City of Midland hosted a conference on Tuesday to discuss long term plans to increase the water supply for Midlanders, focusing on a new partnership with Abilene and San Angelo to share water from nearby Fort Stockton.

In 2020, the City approved the purchase of more than 28,400 acre-feet of water from Fort Stockton Holdings. Now, the next step for the project is planning the route to Midland.

The cities will be paying for the water based on their agreed upon share, with Midland’s share being 15,000 acre-feet. This will not replace existing water supplies, it will only add more water.

“What this will actually do is create increased redundancy if we have a problem with any of our other water solutions as we experienced a while back with T-bar, we had a disruption with that pipeline and so we found ourselves with problems in our municipal water solution for Midland. This allows us to have redundancy in the future with an additional line that is separate from any of the lines we have presently so that we have increased security and redundancy for the future,” said Midland Mayor Lori Blong.

This will be a lengthy project, taking multiple years to establish pipeline. The City said the project will be completed in multiple phases, with the first phase including:

• Alignment and routing study for the well field, pump station, treatment plant, and pipeline corridor.
• Cooperative strategies with the Colorado River Municipal Water District for the Ward County Transmission System and Aquifer Storage and Recovery.
• Filing applications for new municipal well permits, evaluating groundwater models, and monitoring desired future conditions.

The City of Midland also noted the proposed route will bring the water source directly to the City of Midland, bypassing Winkler County. Officials said this ensures a direct and efficient water supply route to Midland.

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