East Texas Water Institute launches to address regional water needs

East Texas leaders have launched a new water institute aimed at helping local utilities and rural communities tackle aging infrastructure, workforce shortages and gaps in water data as the state looks for long-term answers to its water supply problems. 

The East Texas Water Institute, led by Drew Gholson and based at Stephen F. Austin State University (SFA), will focus on five areas: water data, public education, applied research and technical assistance, water workforce development and regional coordination. The institute is backed by the T.L.L. Temple Foundation, which is endowing the executive director position, and staffed through a partnership between SFA and Angelina College. It will be housed within SFA’s Center for Applied Research and Rural Innovation (CARRI) in Nacogdoches. 

The institute is part of SFA’s broader rural innovation work. CARRI was established in 2021 to engage faculty, staff and students in research projects that support academic programs and regional economic development. Its renovated research facility at SFA’s former Science Research Center was designed as a hub for SFA resources in deep East Texas, with industry training rooms, partner offices, advanced manufacturing space, 3D printers, classrooms, a cyber lounge and conference space. 

Gholson brings a background in irrigation, groundwater and water-use outreach. At Mississippi State University, he was an associate professor in agronomy-irrigation based at the Delta Research and Extension Center and the National Center for Alluvial Aquifer Research. His published work has covered irrigation scheduling, surge irrigation, private well disinfection, flood preparation for well owners, consumer water-quality evaluations and public attitudes about water availability after drought. 

Through the East Texas institute, SFA says Gholson will work with water systems, local governments, groundwater conservation districts, universities, state agencies, river authorities and community partners. 

East Texas has major rivers and aquifers, but many residents depend on a patchwork of local water providers, including city systems, water supply corporations, river authorities, groundwater conservation districts and small public water systems. Region I, the East Texas Regional Water Planning Area, covers all or part of 20 counties and overlaps at least three major river authorities: the Angelina-Neches River Authority, the Lower Neches Valley Authority and the Sabine River Authority. 

The workforce piece is one of the institute’s clearest immediate needs. Kelley Holcomb, general manager of the Angelina-Neches River Authority and a member of the institute’s advisory board, told The Texas Tribune that East Texas needs at least 1,500 licensed operators to provide each water system with one competent operator in 2027. 

Several of the state’s mid-sized universities have water institutes with distinct regional missions. Texas State University’s Meadows Center for Water and the Environment focuses on water and environmental research, water policy and watershed work. Sul Ross State University’s Meadows Research Institute for West Texas Water is organized around the Trans-Pecos, with applied research, education and workforce development, technical assistance and community support for one of the state’s most water-limited regions. 

Texas also has broader and more technical university water programs. Texas A&M’s Texas Water Resources Institute describes itself as the state’s official water resources institute and works on research, stakeholder engagement, watershed and aquifer assessment, professional training and outreach. The University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Water and the Environment focuses on advanced research, design and planning in water resources and environmental management. 

The East Texas Water Institute fits that regional place-based model, but for a wetter region with different pressures. East Texas is often viewed as water-rich compared with other parts of Texas, but its communities still face aging systems, workforce shortages, groundwater questions and limited technical capacity. The institute says one of its early goals is to expand regional aquifer measurement and access to groundwater data. 

Regional work sits alongside, rather than inside, the state’s formal water planning process. The Texas Water Development Board divides the state into 16 regional water planning areas, whose regional plans feed into the state water plan. East Texas is already part of that framework, including Region I and Region D, the Northeast Texas planning area.  

Photo by Mikhail Nilov from Pexels