Last week we sent out a call to ask our members, their families, friends, and neighbors to help us win a zero-percent loan to fix Lake Dunlap. If you were able to send emails, thank you! Please encourage everyone you can to also send them. If you have not, please help us out by sending a quick note using the sample email below. The details of this Texas Water Development Board program were in our last email, but the gist of it is that if we are successful, TWDB will provide the money to fix the dam at ZERO percent interest!
Several Texas lakes are asking for TWDB support to upgrade their infrastructure, but our lake, Lake Dunlap, is the ONLY lake applying for funds that no longer has any functioning spillgates because the original dam failed more than a year ago on May 14, 2019.
Please help us by sending a letter and/or emails to the TWCB as a whole and/or to its members individually. We need to get hundreds of emails to them in the next couple of days! Many of you have asked how you can help us keep this project on track, and this is a simple but very important way you can!
Clearly, a personal letter would make the most impact, but I have included one you can simply "cut and paste" below that you can use if you're busy but want to help. Just copy it, add or change whatever you like, and send it off as soon as you can. Keep in mind, letters from ANYONE can help us — these letters can be from your family, your neighbors, people you know that live in other cities. The MORE they hear from us, the BETTER!!
Pro Tip: Sending a separate email to each board member will have a greater impact than copying all of them on a single email.
Sample Email or Letter you can send or print:
To the Honorable (insert a board member's name):
I write today to ask you to look favorably on the GBRA pre-application to apply for a zero-percent 30-year loan that would be used to restore Lake Dunlap's dam, which failed catastrophically just over a year ago. The citizens who live on this lake are not asking for a handout, but rather a LOAN.
The Lake Dunlap community has come together in extraordinary ways to be in a position to ask for this loan. The context to our efforts is that our dam has already failed. Our lake has dewatered, and we have pursued every option to identify how to fix it. Uniquely, we are willing to tax ourselves to finance the restoration effort, and our tax base has been verified as able to provide the means to do so.
The creation of the Lake Dunlap WCID was a grassroot effort that has now positioned Lake Dunlap to work with other state agencies. Our project is far down the road — our engineering design is 100% complete, there are pre-bid contacts with companies who will be interested in bidding on the project — if this project to provide the GBRA with a zero-percent loan comes through, our contract with them is already in place. We are ready to move forward with construction very quickly.
My family and my neighbors strongly support this project, and we ask that you do as well.
The Lake Dunlap community is committed to restoring Lake Dunlap and reversing the effects of this disaster and has working in partnership with the GBRA for 15 months to do so. Residents have successfully created the Lake Dunlap Water Control and Improvement District (WCID) and as mentioned above, the community plans to tax themselves to fund the entire project. GBRA is willing to borrow the needed funds using their excellent credit. A zero-percent loan would make this one-of-a-kind citizen-funded grassroots infrastructure project not only affordable, but a model for other infrastructure projects across Texas.
Indeed, the entire State of Texas will benefit from having this important water resource returned to service, as will all the citizens who use the hydroelectric power generated, all the businesses whose livelihoods are based on the lake, and thousands of citizens in Comal and Guadalupe counties, the City of New Braunfels, and indeed this entire community.
Please take a close look at the pre-application, and find it in your heart to recommend that GBRA and the newly created Lake Dunlap WCID be invited to submit a full application in support of qualifying for the zero-percent loans the TWDB is considering.
Sincerely,
To contact the TWDB by mail, use this address:
Director's Name (see list below)
Texas Water Development Board
P.O. BOX 13231
Austin, TX 78711
To contact the TWDB or an individual director via email
General email:
Peter Lake, Chairman
Kathleen Jackson, Director
Brooke Paup, Director
Jeff Walker, Executive Administrator
Thank you!
PLDA Board of Directors