A Texas State Park is Threatened by Development
Do you have $110.55 million to save it?
I had plans to write something else this week but this morning it was brought to my attention via Instagram that Fairfield Lake State Park is not owned by the state, has instead been leased for decades, and is now for sale. The asking price? $110 million dollars. I’ll let you push out that long sigh of exasperation….
Ok, better now? No? Well, let’s back up a bit and delve into the information I was able to find this morning.
First off, I’ve already established that Texas has a very poor public land to private land ratio. Losing this state park would be detrimental to the region the park is located, east-central Texas, as there just aren’t a ton of state parks in that area. It’s part of a greater region from College Station to Waco to Fairfield that is very skimpy on its public land availability. It’s not the skimpiest region, but considering its proximity to several major cities you would think there would be more outdoor recreation opportunities in this area.
On a personal note, growing up, Fairfield Lake State Park was a place my family would go camping at fairly often. It was about two hours from our suburban Fort Worth house and my brother and I would spend hours riding our bikes around the camping circles and through various trails in the park. Truly, we were free-ranging it back then. I have many fond memories of this time and at least one not-so-fond memory of getting into the bathroom to shelter during a spring tornado warning. I haven’t been back to the state park very often since moving back to Texas 13 years ago, but we’ve been enough to know it is a gem of a park and a place worth protecting.
Until 2018, Fairfield Lake hosted a large powerplant which kept the waters warm and allowed anglers to catch some species not normally found in Texas lakes. Various changes to energy resources and usages in the state ended the power plant’s usefulness at that time, and it closed. I am coming to find out when reading various news sources this morning, it seems that this sale was at least on the radar as early as 2019, according to the Texas Observer.
Texas Parks and Wildlife has been running on a lease agreement with the energy company and landowner since 1976, on a 10-year renewal cycle. The latest lease was up at the end of December 2022 and I am seeing they have until February 3rd to work something out. There’s no guarantee that whoever the new landowner is would continue the lease option, and having the park in a continuous 10-year limbo seems ridiculous at this point, nearly 50 years into the park’s formation.
I have no doubt that if the land was sold to a developer they would do their best to have it gated and kept away from the public. It would destroy the ecosystems that are currently there and the loss of access in a sea of other private lands would be devastating to the local economy, which relies on state park recreational traffic to boost the economy in the town of Fairfield. Would a static number of wealthy homeowners, possibly even people making this their second-home getaway location coming from DFW on weekends, even care about much about the local economy? What about the ecosystem?
I’ve tried searching to find out which other state parks are also leased but am coming up empty at the moment. I’ll do more digging but if anyone out there has more information you can comment here or email me at oceanicwilderness at gmail dot com. I’ll be diving deeper into this public land issue this year as I flesh out some other posts regarding Texas’ conservation track record and hope to spur more conversations about public lands and nature in Texas. Please forward this to other folks interested in Texas public lands and subscribe!
Contact information to voice support in TPWD purchasing the property or continuing the protection of Fairfield Lake State Park in perpetuity:
+Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission
+Texas State Parks Executive Office
Other Reading:
+Day Trips: Fairfield Lake State Park—Wanna buy a state park?
+Texas State Park Could Close as Vistra Energy Seeks to Sell Land Near Shuttered Power Plant
+Fairfield Lake, the largest private lake in Texas, is for sale, along with acreage and a state park.
+Largest private lake in Texas is on sale for $110 million and it comes with a state park