Two cities that hold water rights in the lakes north and south of Aubrey want a fresh estimate of how much water those lakes can dependably deliver.
Denton's City Council will consider an interlocal agreement with Dallas on Tuesday, Oct. 27, to pay for an operational yield study of Ray Roberts Lake and Lewisville Lake. The item is on the consent agenda, and Denton's Public Utilities Board recommended it 5-0. Ray Roberts Lake was formerly known as Aubrey Lake, according to the agreement.
Who pays
The agreement caps the consultant's fee at $250,000. Dallas would cover 85.5%, up to $213,750, and Denton 14.5%, up to $36,250. The cities would pick the consultant together, and Dallas would sign and manage the contract. The agreement runs two years, and either city can withdraw with 30 days' written notice.
Why now
Denton and Dallas each signed storage contracts with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for Lewisville Lake in 1953 and for Ray Roberts Lake in 1980, and each holds state water rights tied to that storage, according to a Denton staff memo.
Those permits allow each city to divert the full volume of its contracted storage every year, but the memo says both cities recognize that the lakes cannot sustainably give up that much water annually.
A 1985 contract under which Dallas sold untreated water to Denton while Ray Roberts was being built also set how the two cities would share the lakes' estimated yield. That contract expired Aug. 7, 2015. The memo says both cities still see the need for an operating agreement.
