On Wednesday, Dallas City Council approved a plan to accept nearly $251 million in loans from a state water planning and infrastructure financing agency. The funding will go towards several Dallas Water Utilities projects.
The money supplied by the Texas Water Development Board includes $170 million over five years to replace 40 miles of city water mains each year.
Another $73.3 million will fund a project to help build 32 miles of treated water transmission pipeline, located along southern Dallas County, between a water plant in Sunnyvale and ground storage tanks in Cedar Hill.
Another $7.5 million would go toward planning and designing the replacement of a lake pump station. The $73 million would cover one phase of the project, building six miles of pipeline along Old Hickory Trail to Cedar Hill.
The pipeline project aims to meet future water demands in the North Texas region.
According to recently released census data, DFW’s population showed an increase of 97,300 from July 2020 to July 2021. This is largely attributed to continuing “in-migration,” referring to internal migration within the state, which accounted for 65% of the increase.
The DFW metro area saw the second-largest domestic in-migration gains among U.S. metros in 2021 at 54,319, trailing only Phoenix.
Through the deal with the development board, the city of Dallas plans to issue $114.8 million in bonds. The bonds will be bought by the board, and the proceeds will be used to pay for the projects.
Coming up in the fall, the city council will consider approving a related bond ordinance.
The City of Dallas maintains more than 5,000 miles of water lines over 700 square miles.
