The Department of Interior has completed public meetings and is near completion of an environmental assessment, prior to establishing the Neches River Wildlife Refuge on the lovely stretch of the Upper Neches River in Anderson and Cherokee Counties.

Fastrill Reservoir, which would drown most of the 25,000 acres of the Neches River Wildlife Refuge, is not needed for water supply. None of the 16 regional water planning groups established by the Texas Legislature has identified water from the Neches River as needed to meet their future demands. Recently, an engineering consultant has recommended Fastrill as one of several possible sources of supply for Dallas after the year 2050, but no one has adopted it as a preferred future source.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has ranked the 25,000 acres within the refuge boundary as Priority 1 bottomlands. Priority 1 lands are the best remaining bottomland hardwood forest habitat. Texas has already lost the vast majority of such habitat. The remainder provides crucial support for many kinds of wildlife, waterfowl, and songbirds.

The Regional Planning Group for East Texas (Region I) does not recommend Fastrill Reservoir as a strategy to meet any future water demand. Region C, which includes Dallas, twice voted not to review the Fastrill (also called Weches) site as a water management strategy to be considered for Region C.

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has conducted studies and had begun holding public meetings on the reintroduction of the endangered black bear in Texas, with the focus on releasing bear into the habitat-rich Neches River corridor. These meetings are being held from Beaumont to Paris, Texas.

Additional reservoirs on the Neches (such as Fastrill) would impact the Big Thicket National Preserve, two national forest wilderness areas, and other significant downstream natural resources that depend on upstream flood flows to maintain habitat diversity. It would also impact the Texas State Historical Railroad.

The Fastrill reservoir site is in the debris field of the wreckage of the space shuttle Columbia. The Neches River National Wildlife Refuge site has been proposed as a memorial to this national tragedy.

The Neches River Protection Initiative, a coalition of citizen groups, launched an initiative several years ago to seek designation of the Neches as a National Scenic River from Lake Palestine to B.A. Steinhagen Reservoir and possibly farther downriver. The next step is to have Congress approve a study of the river. Should it be added to the Wild and Scenic Rivers System, it would be only the second in Texas -- after the Rio Grande. Fastrill Reservoir would be in direct conflict with preservation of this scenic river corridor.

Opposition to Fastrill will be intense once Texans interested in protecting the Neches River and the Big Thicket National Preserve learn that Fastrill is being taken seriously.

February 2005