Transcript

Transcript edited for clarity and readability.

I’m a member of the Board of Directors of the Authority. I’m also the Secretary of the Authority, and the Chairman of the Real Estate Committee.

In order to be on the Authority’s Board of Directors, you have to have some experience with respect to a background of MUD service. I was on Harris County MUD 257, which is a MUD at State Highway 6.

I’m a right-of-way man, and I’ve been buying real property and easements for multiple clients for the last 50 years. The City of Webster was trying to acquire park sites from Exxon, so I went up to the Greenpoint area at the Exxon office at the time.

I looked up on the wall, and there was this map of a pipeline that Exxon had. It ran from Baytown all the way to Katy, and it ran substantially, as the crow flies, exactly where we wanted to get to.

So I said to the man, “What’s that up there? What’s that pipeline?” And he said, “Oh, that’s one we have for sale.” I said, “Can you put water in it?” And he said, “Yes, you can.”

So by virtue of acquiring property for Webster, we ended up taking that to the board and making a purchase and sale agreement. That’s the story.

The reason that was so valuable is because there was a route across town where you didn’t have to buy original easements. It worked out very well for the Authority, and it solved that problem that everybody was worried about how you get water from the east side of Harris County all the way over to Katy, Texas. If I hadn’t seen that map, it would have never happened. That was just a shot in the dark—it just happened.

I think it took four years from the time we submitted a PSA on acquiring that pipeline until the time it finally closed. There was a lot of survey work and a lot of other consulting engineering work.

But that’s the thing that I’m most proud of. It took a lot of work by a lot of folks to get that thing closed, and I’m proud of that fact. It saved a lot of money.