CEO and General Manager, Gulf Coast Authority
In this issue’s Q&A, Texas+Water Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Todd Votteler, interviewed Elizabeth Fazio Hale, J.D., L.L.M, CEO and General Manager of the Gulf Coast Authority.
Elizabeth Fazio Hale (“Liz”) began her position as CEO and General Manager of Gulf Coast Authority in November 2020. Many of you may know Liz from her time at the Texas Legislature where she served as the Director of Natural Resources in the Texas House of Representatives under Chairman Allan Ritter. There, she played an instrumental leadership role in the development of the state water infrastructure fund for Texas (SWIFT/SWIRFT).
Liz serves on the Board of Directors for the Texas Water Foundation, the Texas Water Conservation Association, the Economic Alliance Houston Port Region and the Galveston Bay Council (Estuary Program). She also servers as the secretary of the Gulf Coast Industrial Development Authority and treasurer of the Texas Conservation Fund. Liz and her husband, Caleb, have two children, McKenzi and Holt, and they care for her sister with disabilities, Rosie.
What is the Gulf Coast Authority and what is its mission?
The Gulf Coast Authority (GCA) was created in 1969 by the Texas Legislature to clean up Galveston Bay. Since that time, our ability to provide reliable, cost-effective regional wastewater and water services has been expanded across the state. GCA is a key component in protecting the waters of Texas while creating and sustaining jobs and generating economic growth. GCA provides essential centralized regional waste management services. This allows our customers to focus their attention, capital and manpower on their core purposes while ensuring compliance with environmental protection requirements by use of GCA facilities. GCA also acts as a conduit for the issuance of bonds (private and public) for qualified projects that support Texas’ economic development.
GCA’s mission is to protect the waters of the state of Texas through environmentally sound, economically feasible and technologically advanced regional wastewater and water management practices.
What are the Gulf Coast Authority’s water programs and what are these programs accomplishing?
GCA provides wastewater treatment and water services focused on water reuse, solid waste management, water testing services through a NELAC accredited full-service lab and bond financing services. GCA has four primarily industrial treatment plants and one municipal treatment facility. Combined, GCA treats more than 50 million gallons of wastewater a day and supports more than 90 industrial and community customers in the Houston/Galveston and Odessa/Midland areas. GCA has also provided more than $3.5 billion in financing through private activity bonds, which has provided substantial opportunity for the protection of the environment while supporting economic development.
What are currently the most difficult issues regarding water and waste treatment in Texas?
The most difficult issues regarding water and wastewater treatment are not unique to the state. Texas’ biggest challenges are in achieving affordability, changing regulatory environments, ongoing workforce development, developing new technology to achieve operational efficiencies and let us not forget aging infrastructure. Like many utilities across the nation, Texas’ water and wastewater utilities are working to overcome decades of a “running to failure” philosophy. In Texas we are seeing a new appreciation for the need to better maintain and upgrade our infrastructure. As long as we do not backslide on our commitment to asset management, Texas can continue to address aging infrastructure issues by spreading these costs over time while tackling future water supply needs.
With respect to the other challenges mentioned above, it is important to remember that Texas has a lot going for it. We have a highly acclaimed statewide water planning process that has proven flexible enough to address the driest of dry climates to the wettest of wet climates. Think about it: Texas’ landscape is representative of almost every other state in the nation and therefore, we must plan accordingly through a very local, regionalized bottom-up process. More recently, the state began an unprecedented effort to address flood planning.
All of these programs have had tremendous support and commitment from the Texas Legislature. And soon, I expect, the state will address coastal barrier and protection issues, as well as alternatives for restoration of some portion of the increasing volumes of produced water.
Galveston Bay is Texas’ largest estuary. What role does the Gulf Coast Authority play in protecting it?
GCA plays a critical role in not only protecting Texas’ largest estuary but also in providing support for one of the world’s biggest petrochemical industrial areas and a port region that is first in U.S. imports and first in U.S. exports by tonnage. Created more than 50 years ago, GCA dates back to when Galveston Bay provided 80 percent of aquatic catch for the entire state, yet the bay was also experiencing environmental challenges from rapid growth. To protect the bay’s vital resources, the Texas Legislature created a special district with vast powers to accomplish its mission protecting the waters of Texas. This resulted in an entity with an extensive regulatory and permitting program which bore responsibility for pretreatment before the existence of the Clean Water Act and the EPA. In 1992, the U.S. Congress authorized GCA to directly receive waste streams for treatment and directed GCA to manage and be responsible for water and air quality standards associated with those streams. Today, GCA is capable of treating more than 50 million gallons of wastewater and conducting 400 water quality samples daily.
GCA also works with the community on environmental stewardship with its active participation in a number of nonprofit organizations such as the Texas Conservation Fund, which sponsors Trash Bash®, Galveston Bay Foundation and the Galveston Bay Council (Estuary Program). GCA firmly believes that protecting the environment also serves our state’s economic interests.
Flock of egrets fishing in Galveston bay. Credit: Natalia Kuzmina
What previous experience has been the most beneficial to you in your new role as CEO and General Manager?
My combined education as a lawyer with a master’s degree in taxation and dual degree in both government and communications has uniquely positioned me to lead an organization like GCA. I consider myself lucky that I stuck with a degree like communication studies (although I started out in journalism). It is not often that you find a CEO with a communications background, but when you are managing people, it is a critical skillset.
Further, my 10-plus years of combined experience at the Texas Legislature prepared me for managing a stakeholder-engaged process while balancing highly technical issues. At the legislature, we would often talk about the best lobbyists in three categories: technical experts, people persons and the relatives of somebody. Since I did not have the latter going for me, I focused on developing the technical expertise and being able to connect well with others.
After working in the legislature, I further developed my operational and management skills while leading a small water district in Northeast Texas. There, I was tasked with managing the water resource planning for three counties, 12 municipalities, an industrial park and a U.S. Army complex. It was an incredible experience that has provided a platform for me to take on the challenges of a well-established organization such as GCA, looking to expand its expertise across the state in many fast-growing industrial areas.
What do you consider to be the biggest challenge facing Texas over the next 20 years regarding water?
The biggest water challenge facing Texans over the next 20 years will continue to be equitable management of a finite resource, making sure we are not robbing Peter to pay Paul. Although moving water across the state is one way that we can provide for future water supply in areas that need it, it must be managed with protections for localized ecological systems and by maintaining economic opportunities in “water-rich” communities. This is a balancing act and one the legislature provided for in 1997 through interbasin transfer laws at the same time that it adopted the current state water planning process. Now, I am not saying that moving water is not beneficial; it can work very well. Projects like the integrated pipeline project in North Texas and the Vista Ridge project in South Central Texas are great examples that deliver water to where it is needed while minimizing negative impacts to the source areas and these projects were accomplished within the current regulatory structure. Ideally, the movement of water across the state could best be accomplished by bringing new water resources into Texas from neighboring states. Such a move would take a lot of political capital but could be well-worth the investment.
Ultimately, we must continue to advance technologies that allow us to better store water supply (such as aquifer storage), to better treat and reuse water (such as seawater desalination and treatment of produced waters) and to conserve water resources (including investment in educational programs about source water). Further, from a wastewater treatment perspective, combining resources for treatment in regional facilities should be encouraged in order to achieve economy of scale, especially as regulatory frameworks deepen over emerging contaminants. GCA is prepared to support these initiatives and is at the forefront of many of them, serving as a resource at state and federal levels, especially on water reuse issues.
Overall, I am an optimist about the direction that Texas is headed today with respect to our water resources. If the recent storms have shown us anything, Texans are certainly resilient and the newest generation of Texans are well-equipped with the analytical skills to keep Texas running on water for decades to come.