Texans need water to drink, to bathe, to wash their clothes and, yes, to fill their pools.
Accordingly, water utilities are working to finish two big Northeast Texas lake projects: Bois d’ Arc Lake and Lake Ralph Hall. The Bois d’ Arc Lake project – the first reservoir built in Texas in 30 years — is filling with water and the North Texas Municipal Water District, which has the rights to that massive project, says it will open soon to the public to enjoy the myriad recreational activities it will provide.
More than that, though, Lake Ralph Hall – which has some distance to go before it starts to fill with water – also has a unique exhibit to offer, according to the Upper Trinity Municipal Water District. The exhibit is a fossil park, where tourists can dig up fossilized remains of prehistoric creatures that once roamed throughout Northeast Texas.
The new park will replace a long-standing fossil park that once occupied the North Sulphur River shores underneath the State Highway 34 bridge. That site was closed, as it will be underwater when Lake Ralph Hall is filled.
For now, UTRWD has opened a temporary fossil park. The temporary park is located immediately east of Farm to Market Road 2990, on the north side of the river, just west of the old park site. This temporary fossil park will remain open until construction of Lake Ralph Hall is finished, according to UTRWD. The fossils became exposed thanks to rapid erosion along the shores of the North Sulphur, an unintended consequence of the waterway having been channeled in the late 1920s.
A new permanent fossil park can be created downstream of the lake’s dam, UTRWD said. UTRWD and the city of Ladonia “are working to select another spot where fossil hunters can continue to easily access the river bottom after the reservoir is built. By offering access to different locations on the Sulphur River, the park relocation will provide opportunities for additional untapped fossil discoveries,” UTRWD said in a statement on its website.
Beyond the fossil park, the water utility that is building the project holds high hopes for extended economic impact for Northeast Texas. According to the UTRWD website:
“Lake Ralph Hall has widespread community support. Not only will the lake help the region avoid water shortages, it will bring billions of dollars in economic benefit to North Texas. It will provide economic stimulus to the region, especially to the city of Ladonia.”
The city will “benefit from recreational activities Lake Ralph Hall will provide,” according to the UTRWD. “The project has the support of more than 35 local organizations, including cities, water districts, chambers of commerce and citizen groups.”
The UTRWD recently opened a bridge along Texas Highway 34 over what will become Lake Ralph Hall. When you drive over the bridge, you notice a green TxDOT highway sign identifying “Lake Ralph Hall” as you cross the span. Obviously, the state is thinking strategically, as there is no evidence of water below the bridge … at least not yet.
Lake Ralph Hall eventually will comprise 7,600 surface acres of water, covering about 12 square miles.
Ed Motley is a civil engineer who lives in Arlington, but who is serving as project manager for the mammoth Lake Ralph Hall endeavor. “This is the first dam I’ve ever built,” Motley said, he added that Lake Ralph Hall will be “a lot smaller than Bois d’Arc Lake,” but added that it’s still a major project.
He predicted that “inundation” of the lakebed will begin “sometime in 2025” but added that construction of a new permanent fossil bed will start “in 12 to 15 months from now.”
The fossil park, Motley contended, will continue to be a huge draw for tourists looking for prehistoric artifacts washed away by water that removes sediment from the fossil beds. The largest piece recovered so far, he said, is a six-foot section of jawbone from a mosasaurus, an “underwater lizard” that used to swim in the region “tens of thousands of years ago, back when it was a sea,” Motley said. The jawbone is being kept at the Ross Perot Museum of Science in downtown Dallas, he said.
“Tourists are able to find all kinds of creatures in the area,” said Jason Pierce, a public affairs specialist with the UTRWD. The new fossil bed will be along Farm to Market Road 904, which will be considerably downstream from the Hurse Dam spillway. “We’ll be providing new access for the fossil park and will give visitors to the lake plenty of opportunity to hunt for fossils,” according to Pierce.
Lake Ralph Hall will be about 90 feet deep just behind the dam, Motley said, predicting it will take “two to three years to fill the lake” once inundation begins. How does the utility district know when to start that process? “Inundation will occur when the dam is done, and we are able to drop the gates to the spillway” to prevent water from passing through.
As with the Bois d’ Arc Lake project, utility planners will rely on Mother Nature to provide water for the newest reservoir, which Pierce describes as a good bit smaller than the Bois d’ Arc Lake project.
Motley laid out several challenges in working on such a large project as Lake Ralph Hall. One of them is communication – getting all the technical specialists to understand what they’re saying. “Look, we have archaeologists, historical architects, paleontologists, environmental scientists, aquatic biologists working on this thing,” Motley said. “Plus, we have a huge legal team, plus civil engineers, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, structural engineers,” he said.
“They all understand what they’re saying to themselves,” he explained. “My task is to get them to speak in a language that the other specialists can understand,” he said. “We all speak English,” he said, “but we often don’t understand what others are saying.” They all speak in jargon that only fellow professionals can understand, he said, acknowledging that the various teams working on Lake Ralph Hall are “separated by a common language.”
Heather Harward, a consultant who works with Pierce, noted, too, that Lake Ralph Hall, when it’s completed, could well be a harbinger of the rebirth of Ladonia. Indeed, the town recently welcomed a newly opened Dollar General Store, which at the time of its construction, was seen as a “very big deal for Ladonia,” Pierce said.
Harward sees the hoped-for growth in Ladonia will become as another chapter in “the story of civilization.”
“Just watch the Ladonia town square,” Harward said, “and see what happens there when we finish this job.”