Autobiography - The Galindo Group

Ram Galindo THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN Page 232
population will double to forty million people. Obviously, we cannot count on the
doubling of natural rainfall. This defines the task of the river authorities – the same
amount of water must be made to suffice the expanded needs.
In 1929, the Texas legislature created the BRA as the first river authority in the state. In
the early years of the BRA, the great urgency was to control damages by massive
floods that often wiped out whole towns, including obliteration of buildings, bridges,
roads, crops and livestock. Taming such a stupendous instrument of nature was a
Herculean task. The founding fathers of the BRA were very successful in this effort,
mostly through their cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps). With a
system of nine flood control dams built by the Corps and four major conservation dams
built by the BRA, by the late 1970s the river was well tamed. Huge flooding problems
had eased and there was adequate water for all other needs.
In the 1980s, it appeared that the BRA had clearly accomplished its goals. The basin’s
broad water problems were well in hand. But, by the early 1990s, Texas and our
watershed were changing quickly. In Williamson and in Fort Bend Counties our basin
had the two fastest growing population centers in the state. The new demands of this
growth were not being fully addressed, much less the greater growth that Deborah Bell,
a few other directors and I could see in the future.
The Brazos River basin extends in the shape of a crescent from the border with New
Mexico at Parmer and Bailey Counties to Brazoria County on the Gulf of Mexico. The
river’s main stem is 1050 miles long. The watershed area within Texas is equal to the
area of Tennessee, approximately 42,000 square miles. All of the water in the river is
collected within Texas. It is a quintessential Texas river. About one-sixth of all Texans
live within its basin. Its 21 directors are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the
senate. The governor chooses directors from towns well scattered throughout the whole
watershed. By the 980s the directors seemed to have settled down to enjoy their
appointments. Membership on the BRA board had become a prestigious post, which,
though it provides no remuneration, carries many privileges with it. It was a political
plum with which governors rewarded valued supporters and friends.
As most other appointments by the governor do, the terms of BRA directors last six
years. Some of the remnants of past Democratic administrations had been reappointed
for three terms, or eighteen years. They were in a symbiotic relationship with the hired
executive and refused to depart from their comfortable, well-known and very limited
universe of activity. My first realization as a new director was the absolute control the
chief executive had over all matters whether in the realm of setting policy or
implementation of policy. It appeared to me that he saw no need for change. When I
asked my first questions as a director, he quickly showed me that he didn’t brook
dissent and firmly believed that no change was needed.
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