We just received a fantastic message from our friends at the Texas Conservation Alliance (TCA). This afternoon of October 9th, 2026, 459th District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble outright denied the state permit held by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) that would have allowed for the development of the controversial Lake Ringgold Reservoir in Clay County.
See TCA’s press release here.
The state water-right permit gained TCEQ-approval in June of 2024 amidst a grassroots effort spurred by several area landowners and entities. That effort then sued to stop the permit in Travis County where today’s ruling was made.
The city wanting to build Lake Ringgold for their supply and real estate interests, Wichita Falls, sued three landowners early this year to begin stepping foot on their ranches in the reservoir footprint (regardless of landowners’ approval) to conduct surveying, soil (pit) testing, and other invasive activities.
The Ringgold project has been described as a 270,000 acre-foot reservoir covering a project site of some 24,000 surface acres including a pump station and transmission lines. Opponents of the project have stated that the city’s claims for needing the water supply are bogus, with some area residents calling it a “scam”. Those opponents have included the Texoma Stewardship Coalition, TCA, Texas Farm Bureau, the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, Preserve Northeast Texas, and even Texas Administrative Judge Christiaan Siano, who made a recommendation in court in 2023 that the water-right permit request be denied.
This partnership has identified a water supply system of the City of Wichita Falls which demonstrates that they already have an abundant supply of water for the future and have highlighted the high price tag of the project, $442 million – while noting that no local nor area residents have any ability to vote on the project, which would certainly make ratepayers and taxpayers bear the brunt of the evaporating water pit.
Wichita Falls Mayor Tim Short was quoted in 2024 about the courts: “I don’t believe the people of Wichita Falls or North Texas want to hear necessarily what an administrative judge in Austin says about us having enough water.”
The decision from the District Court in Travis County represents the decision to challenge the state water-right permit and is a major blockade for those wanting to take private ranches and family land for the controversial project. Unique ecosystems exist in the footprint area, including thousands of acres of incredibly rare, never-plowed tallgrass prairies and bottomland hardwood forests. Alternative water supplies for such rural and growing communities are ever-growing and innovative: water reuse, rainwater harvesting, aquifer storage & recovery and conservation are just but a few.
Reservoir projects such as these are proving to be an outdated method of water supply, as highlighted by the latest court decision. The inception of the Ringgold project goes back to Texas’ prior drought of record in the 1950s, when city voters rejected the project. Evaporation rates in Texas, especially west of Interstate 35, represent a major hurdle for surface water resources where the rate of evaporation on reservoirs often greatly outpaces the rate of surface water inflow from creeks, rivers, and springs into such systems. What results in those reservoirs are massive wastes of precious water and taxpayer funds. Today’s decision marks an important step in halting such wastes from occurring in the future and in the protection of Texas rivers.
