By Darrell Preston
Bloomberg
The worst Texas drought in half a century has ended, with storms flooding downtowns and once-parched prairies. A deluge of $8 billion of bond sales for water works in the Lone Star state is just getting under way.
The Texas Water Development Board is planning to sell $800 million of municipal debt this year, beginning a decade-long borrowing spree for projects like reservoirs, pipelines and plants that make saltwater fit to drink.
No state is growing as much as Texas, whose infrastructure is being taxed by a population that’s swelling by more than 1,000 a day. The water supply is no exception: It’s projected to decline over the next 50 years, while global warming is raising the risk of droughts like the one still gripping the far West. So Texas is borrowing to lend cities money for needed work, using $2 billion of its reserves to subsidize the cost.
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